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What and how young children are thinking are typically expressed and shared at home and school through verbal and written modes of communication. As a visual language framework conceived and developed by David Hyerle, Thinking Maps® offers an additional way for learners to represent their ideas by visually mapping their fundamental patterns of thinking. The authors offer a wide range of materials, strategies, and evidence-based practices for implementing Thinking Maps (and the metacognitive framing strategy that each map promotes) in ways that are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and more inclusive with the full range of pre-K–second-grade children. Since 1990, Thinking Maps have been implemented by teachers in over 15,000 schools across the United States and around the world, including countrywide implementation in Malaysia. This guide provides a whole-child approach with practical ideas and best applications for working with emergent readers and writers across developmental domains, curricula, and executive function.Book Features:Promotes systematic support of every students'cognitive development in whole schools (pre-K–2).Demonstrates how to use visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic activities and materials to increase student engagement.Recommends Universally Designed Learning strategies to ensure full access and inclusion with diverse learners and children with disabilities.Includes graphically designed examples of Thinking Maps across content areas.Provides examples of student work, lesson planning ideas, and curriculum design based on cognitive education.Links language and thinking in everyday classroom learning for individual and cooperative learning.

Decades before educators began to draw teaching and learning implications from neuroscientists'groundbreaking findings on brain plasticiy, Reuven Feuerstein had already theorized it and developed practices for teaching and developing higher level cognition and learning for all students, even those with Down syndrome and other learning disabilities. His mediated learning, enrichment instruments, and dynamic assessment are used in urban districts in the United States and around the world to raise student achievement, success levels, and self-regulation.In this final work, Feuerstein provides a first-person reflective narrative of the implementation of mediated learning experience (MLE) past and present, including stories, new insights, observations, and newly formulated concepts on MLE and how it contributes to higher-level thinking and overcoming disability. Featuring both educational and clinical case examples, it offers a more detailed picture of the practical applications than any other publication to date. Those familiar with Feuerstein's methods will find this book an important resource in deepening their knowledge. It is also essential reading for all educators looking for approaches that promote thinking skills that improve educational outcomes for diverse learners.Book Features: Provides stories of Feuerstein's inspirational journey as a teacher and learner, often working with special needs children and youth. Relates mediated learning to contemporary learning environments Explores theory and research on whether spiritual and behavioral practices change the brain. Includes chapters devoted to questioning techniques and the effects of modern media access to the development of thinking skills.“Reuven Feuerstein's concepts will continue to enrich cognitive developmental thinking and research and to bring a richer, fuller cognitive development to children, youth, and adults around the world.”—From the Foreword by H. Carl Haywood, Vanderbilt University“Educators who are devoted to enhancing the intellectual functioning of learners need this book. The principles, skills, and strategies of Mediated Learning should become a prerequisite for all teachers. Reuven Feuerstein has made the world a more thoughtful place.”—Arthur L. Costa, professor emeritus, California State University and co-founder, Institute for Habits of Mind International

In this unique collaboration, the authors bring to life the theory of mediated learning. Through numerous examples and scenarios from classrooms and museums, they show how mediated learning helps children to become more effective learners. Readers learn the steps in the process, including analyzing the child's problem, teaching the child to focus on the difficulty, and using the techniques of mediated learning to enable the child to overcome the learning challenge. This is the first book to present Feuerstein's groundbreaking work in accessible language with copious examples of practice. With this volume, educators and administrators will have a reliable and practical way to understand the place of mediated learning in today's schools.Book Features:Step-by-step guidance for diverse teaching situations.Examples from museum exhibits and exemplars of practice.Useful teaching illustrations.A list of cognitive functions that can impair learning.Advice for parents of children with learning challenges.Reuven Feuerstein is a psychologist who chairs the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP) that he founded in 1993. He is the coauthor of Beyond Smarter: Mediated Learning and the Brain's Capacity for Change. Ann Lewin-Benham founded and for 20 years directed the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, DC. She is the author of Possible Schools, Powerful Children; Infants and Toddlers at Work; and Twelve Best Practices for Early Education. Daniel Feuerstein, who created the drawings featured in this book, illustrates children's books and educational tools.“Ann Lewin-Benham and Reuven Feuerstein have collaborated to provide a remarkable, readable, and systematic exposition that joins the theory and practice of mediated learning experiences within the real worlds of museums and classrooms. The book provides concrete examples that show museum directors, teachers, and parents the practical ‘how to'for building children's cognitive structures.”—From the Foreword by James Bellanca, International Renewal Institute“Feuerstein and Lewin-Benham invite us to think differently about what constitutes learning. This phenomenal book makes the mediator's role more practical by providing not only the theory and research to support this strategy, but also specific examples, instructional sequences, and linguistic tools that teachers and parents can thoughtfully and intentionally employ to cause children to think more deeply and to understand their own cognitive processes.”—Arthur L. Costa, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Sacramento