160 Meet for Training on Tools of the Mind

On Friday, January 16, 160 Hoboken teachers, teacher assistants, directors, family advocates, Child Study Team members, Master Teachers, PIRT (preschool intervention and referral team), speech therapists and self-contained teachers all met for an all day training on Tools of the Mind led by Amy Hornbeck and Juanita Regehr. We were also honored to have in attendance Pam Brillante from the NJ Department of Education. The workshop focused on preschool three and four year olds. This was the third training segment of four planned for the 2008-09 academic year. The first segment was a 3 day workshop in August, the second was an all day training in October and there is one more planned for April, 2009. After the training is over we always do a debrief with the directors, master teachers and trainers. They all felt this was the best training yet, that the teachers are starting to have the "a-ha" moments and feel more comfortable after this training. It had been challenging up to now, but this training today seems to have reached the "tipping point" for many people involved. We anticipate the process will be similar for the Kindergarten teachers. The workshop was organized by Ms. Jessica Peters. Tools of the Mind is part of the new curriculum and instructional strategies that are being instituted in all PreK (2008-09) and Kindergarten (2009-2010) classrooms under the direction of Dr. Petrosino and Ms. Peters.
The concept of "Tools of the Mind" comes from the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, He believed that just as physical tools extend our physical abilities, mental tools extend our mental abilities to enable us to solve problems and create solutions in the modern world

Find out more about research supporting Tools of the Mind- Click HERE.