Given the robust nature of learning sciences research, this website is best viewed on tablets and computers. A small screen experience is coming in the future.
On June 22, 2021, we will launch updated strategies for the Math PK-2 model, as well as additional updates to the Navigator that highlight equity, SEL, and culturally responsive teaching. To learn more, visit our Site Updates (available in the "About" menu at the top of any page).
Hover to see how factors connect to Adverse Experiences. Then click connected factors to explore strategies related to multiple factors.
The trauma that comes from experiencing adversity in childhood releases stress hormones that can lead to changes in the body and brain. The effects of these stressors during this critical time of development can have negative consequences on academic achievement, including learning to read. However, it is possible that children's brains, which allow a high degree of neural reorganization or plasticity, can compensate for the changes, which may support recovery.
Adverse experiences include:
Many children in the U.S. have experienced Adverse Experiences including physical and emotional abuse and neglect, with young children experiencing maltreatment at the highest rate. Black and Latino children are more likely to experience adverse childhood experiences than their white or Asian peers. Additionally, Black children and other students who have been historically excluded often experience racial trauma in the form of implicit or explicit biases or discrimination, such as school disciplinary policies.
Adverse experiences can result in long-term changes to health, behavior, social skills, and brain structure and functioning, and have the potential to increase the risk for learning disabilities and ADHD. These effects can have far-reaching consequences on academic outcomes. They may also result in additional trauma through the loss of Social Supports and feelings of Safety.
However, promising research on neuroplasticity of the brain has shown that children's malleable brains have increased opportunities to form new connections, and to recover and learn from experiences of trauma. There is significant variability in children's paths to recovery from trauma, so more research in this area can contribute important insights into interventions and recovery.
Teachers can support language development by using and providing syntax that is appropriately leveled (e.g.
Teachers support language development by using and providing Vocabulary that is appropriately leveled (e.g., using word wall words).
Creating and acting out texts or original narratives can enhance literacy for young learners, solidifying their comprehension and building Narrative Skills.
Advance graphic organizers link prior knowledge to upcoming learning to help students anticipate and understand the structure of new information.
Listening comprehension and Decoding are the foundational components of reading comprehension.
Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory.
Developing empathy in educators and in learners is an iterative process that requires taking the time to understand and honor others' perspectives.
Building positive and trusting relationships with learners allows them to feel safe; a sense of belonging; and that their academic, cognitive, and social and emotional needs are supported.
Checking in with learners, or taking the time to talk with individual learners about their experiences or goals, is important for fostering a positive classroom environment.
When peers work cooperatively to practice writing letters, words, and eventually longer sentences, their Foundational Writing Skills, including spelling and writing quality, improve.
Students activate more cognitive processes by exploring and representing their understandings in visual form.
Daily review strengthens previous learning and can lead to fluent recall.
With this interactive technique, teachers help students become storytellers by listening and questioning.
Dictionaries and thesauruses can serve as resources for students to expand their Vocabulary knowledge.
When teachers provide explicit instruction in comprehension strategies and model when to use them, students learn how to flexibly apply them to make meaning of texts.
Seeing and using new words repeatedly and in many contexts is critical for Vocabulary acquisition.
Teaching students how to label, identify, and manage emotions helps them learn self-regulation skills.
Learners' awareness of race and differences starts at a young age.
When young children draw and are encouraged to explain their drawings, they are sharpening the cognitive and motor skills involved in conventional writing.
A first step to supporting learners is truly understanding who they are.
Actively and authentically encouraging all students to seek support, ask questions, and advocate for what they believe in creates a safe space for risk-taking and skill development and supports a Sense of Belonging.
When students explain their thinking process aloud, they recognize the strategies they use and solidify their understanding.
Explicit instruction in handwriting, including letter formation, can help Handwriting Skills become more automatic, freeing up Working Memory to focus on Foundational Writing Skills.
Explicit spelling instruction helps to improve not only students' spelling, a key part of Foundational Writing Skills, but also supports reading skills development.
Family engagement happens when educators and schools collaborate with families to collectively support their child's learning in meaningful ways, both at school and at home.
Visiting places connected to classroom learning provides opportunities to deepen understanding through firsthand experiences.
Free choice supports learner interests and allows more complex social interactions to develop.
As students walk through stations working in small groups, the social and physical nature of the learning supports deeper understanding.
Games help students visualize new information and immerse themselves in the learning process.
Adding motions to complement learning activates more cognitive processes for recall and understanding.
Setting overall goals, as well as smaller goals as steps to reaching them, encourages consistent, achievable progress and helps students feel confident in their skills and abilities.
Visualizing how ideas fit together helps students construct meaning and strengthen recall.
In guided inquiry, teachers help students use their own language for constructing knowledge by active listening and questioning.
Spending time on literacy practices with assistance from a teacher helps to move new content, concepts, and ideas into Long-term Memory.
Easy access to high frequency words promotes sight word recognition as students see the words repeatedly.
Imagining allows students to step back from a problem or task and think about it from multiple angles.
Independent reading promotes reading development by emphasizing student choice with teacher support in selecting books, as well as by making time for free reading.
Practicing until achieving several error-free attempts is critical for retention.
Having space where students can go supports Self-regulation and individual deliberate practice.
As students work with and process information by discussing, organizing, and sharing it together, they deepen their understanding.
Rhyming, alliteration, and other sound devices reinforce language development by activating the mental processes that promote memory.
Literacy centers with reading games, manipulatives, and activities support learner interests and promote the development of more complex reading skills and social interactions.
Providing physical representations of concepts helps activate mental processes.
Through short but regular mindfulness activities, students develop their awareness and ability to focus.
A mnemonic device is a creative way to support memory for new information using connections to current knowledge, for example by creating visuals, acronyms, or rhymes.
Multiple tables and chairs on wheels allow for setting up the classroom to support the desired learning outcomes of each classroom activity.
By talking through their thinking at each step of a process, teachers can model what learning looks like.
Teachers sharing text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections models this schema building.
Brain breaks that include movement allow learners to refresh their thinking and focus on learning new information.
Instruction in multiple formats allows students to activate different cognitive skills to understand and remember the steps they are to take in their reading work.
Multiple display spaces promote collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
Using multiple methods of assessment can help educators gain a comprehensive understanding of learner progress across a wide range of skills and content.
Using multiple writing surfaces promotes collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
Connecting information to music and dance can support Short-term and Long-term Memory by engaging auditory processes, Emotions, and physical activity.
A parent evening meeting about how to support literacy at home with one follow-up meeting with each family has shown strong results for students' reading development.
Reading aloud allows students to hear and practice reading and fluency skills.
Research shows physical activity improves focus and creativity.
Visuals help students recognize relationships within words and sentences to develop reading skills.
Playful activities, including pretending, games, and other child-led activities, can support the development of learners' Metacognition and also inspire their narratives and writing.
When students reframe negative thoughts and tell themselves kind self-statements, they practice positive self-talk.
Talking with students about what they know about the topic of upcoming work helps activate their Background Knowledge or reveals gaps.
Maintaining consistent classroom routines and schedules ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next.
Cards with strategies for managing emotions help students remember how to act when faced with strong feelings.
Decreasing extra audio input provides a focused learning environment.
Reading aloud regularly exposes students to new and familiar vocabulary and texts.
Reading aloud books about skills children are learning provides another model for their development.
When students explain to others, they deepen their understanding and gain confidence in their learning.
Providing space and time for students to reflect is critical for moving what they have learned into Long-term Memory.
Students build their confidence and skills by reading and rereading books.
Respectful redirection, or error correction, outlines a clear and concise way that educators can provide feedback on behaviors that need immediate correction, in a positive manner.
Books of varying complexity and reading levels are necessary for all students to experience reading success.
With rhyming and creative word use, poetry is a genre that supports the development of early literacy skills in particular.
Books with SEL topics, such as developing friendships and identifying emotions, help teach these skills.
Selecting culturally responsive reading materials, including multicultural and diverse texts, is critical for supporting all students.
Incorporating multiple senses with strategies like chewing gum, using a vibrating pen, and sitting on a ball chair supports focus and Attention.
Shadowing a student involves an educator, administrator, or designated adult observing a learner across different parts of their day to deepen their understanding of that learner's experience beyond their classroom.
Providing ways for students to adjust sound level supports individual auditory needs.
Using earplugs or headphones can increase focus and comfort.
Providing a story map ahead of time or having students create a map during or after reading helps learners understand and practice Narrative Skills.
A strengths-based approach is one where educators intentionally identify, communicate, and harness students' assets, across many aspects of the whole child, in order to empower them to flourish.
Providing students a voice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful.
Providing ways for students to meet their individual temperature needs supports focus and Self-Regulation.
Providing tools so learners can choose to listen to a text supports individual strengths and needs.
Students develop reading skills by listening to and speaking with others in informal ways.
Timers help students learn to self-pace and transition.
Tossing a ball, beanbag, or other small object activates physical focus in support of mental focus.
Spaces that are structured, organized, and clean provide increased room for collaboration and active learning.
Having students verbally repeat information such as instructions ensures they have heard and supports remembering.
Providing visuals to introduce, support, or review instruction activates more cognitive processes to support learning.
Videos developed with discussion guides can teach students about SEL skills.
Visual supports, like text magnification, colored overlays, and guided reading strips, help students focus and properly track as they read.
Wait time, or think time, of three or more seconds after posing a question increases how many students volunteer and the length and accuracy of their responses.
Web-based dictionaries and thesauruses can serve as visual and audio resources for students to expand their Vocabulary knowledge.
Word sorts are multisensory activities that help learners identify patterns and group words based on different categories.
A word wall helps build Vocabulary for reading fluidity and support Foundational Writing Skills such as spelling.
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This is our homepage. You can access many of the features of the Navigator here, and learn more about how learner variability intersects with topics in education and learning. To start, select a content area – we call them Learner Models – to visit a factor map.
Factor maps show research-based concepts, "factors," that likely impact learning. They are organized into four categories: Learner Background, Social and Emotional Learning, Cognition, and Content Area. The map is interactive. Move your cursor over a factor to see connected factors. Select any factor to visit its summary page. We'll look at factor summary pages next.
This is a factor summary page. It provides a brief definition and review of the factor, a factor connections diagram, additional resources, and strategies that support this factor. On the strategy card, the multi-colored boxes show all the factors that it supports. Select a strategy to visit its summary page.
Strategy summary pages have an overview, information about using the strategy in different learning environments, resources of interest, the factors this strategy supports, and related strategies you can explore. To view all the strategies in a content area, use the strategies tab at the top of the page. We'll look at all the Strategies for this learner model next.
The strategy page shows ALL of the strategies for that learner model. You can select factors of interest for you or your learners, and it will narrow the strategies to only those that match all of the factors selected. This makes it easy to find key strategies to better design for learner variability. Again, select the strategy name to visit its summary page. Use the plus signs on each strategy card to add a strategy to a workspace. We'll explore those next.
The “Tools & Workspaces” tab on the navigation bar or the “My Workspaces” button on the account menu takes you to a page that shows your workspaces. There are two tabs on the My Workspaces page: a Workspaces tab and a Reports tab. The Workspaces tab lists workspaces you can personalize and update. You can create new sections, move cards between sections, add annotations, share with collaborators, and write reflections. The second tab, "Reports", are a kind of workspace created through the Instructional Design Tool or the Product Assessment Tool and have fewer personalization options.
There are three, step-by-step tools you can access on the Navigator to help make workspace or a workspace report. The Learner Centered Design Tool has four steps and helps you create a workspace. First, enter basic information and select a content area of interest. Second, select a few factors that you want to focus on. Third, review connected factors you may not have considered. Note – you don't have to select any extra factors on this step if you don’t want to. The fourth and final step, review and select strategies that you want to use, and save them to a workspace.
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Learner variability is the recognition that each learner is a unique constellation of strengths and challenges that are interconnected across the whole child. Understanding these connections and how they vary according to context is essential for meeting the needs of each learner.
It disrupts the notion of a one-size-fits all education. Understanding learner variability helps educators embrace both students’ struggles and strengths as we connect practice to uplifting the whole learner.
Throughout the site, we talk about "factors" and "strategies." Factors are concepts research suggests have an impact on how people learn. Strategies are the approaches to teaching and learning that can be used to support people in how they learn best.
Use the Learner Centered Design Tool to build a workspace. Go to Learner Centered Design Tool.
Or, create a new blank workspace for your product or project.
Use one of the guided tools to build a workspace.
Or, create a new blank workspace for your product or project.
Make a copy of this workspace.
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On this page, using your heatmap, you will be asked to select factors to further explore, and then select new strategies you might incorporate into upcoming instruction. Once done, click “Show Summary" to view your Design Summary Report.
On this page, using your heatmap, you will be asked to select factors to further explore, and then select new strategies you might incorporate into upcoming instruction. Once done, click “Show Report” to view your Design Summary Report.
By selecting "Show Report" you will be taken to the Assessment Summary Page. Once created, you will not be able to edit your report. If you select cancel below, you can continue to edit your factor and strategy selections.
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Learner variability is the recognition that each learner is a unique constellation of strengths and challenges that are interconnected across the whole child. Understanding these connections and how they vary according to context is essential for meeting the needs of each learner. It embraces both students’ struggles and strengths. It considers the whole child.
Throughout the site, we talk about "factors" and "strategies." Factors are concepts research suggests have an impact on how people learn. Strategies are the approaches to teaching and learning that can be used to support people in how they learn best.
The Learner Variability Navigator is a free, online tool that translates the science of learner variability into factor maps and strategies that highlight connections across the whole learner. This puts the science of learning at teachers' fingertips, empowering them to understand their own practice and support each learner.
