HEAL

HEAL® Program - Holistic Educational Approach to Learning

Windber Area School District ▪ Windber Medical Center ▪ Windber Research Institue

Mission

The mission of the HEAL® Program is to help educators better teach and reach the whole child by providing them with the knowledge, compassion and tools to recognize outside factors that can hinder a child’s ability to learn and apply proven strategies to counter those obstacles in an atmosphere of optimal health, wellness and learning.

Program Content

Phase I: Wellness, Education & Research Day

(AM sessions, large group; PM sessions, small group)

• Morning Sessions
• Overview of Holistic Health: Stress Management/Coping skills/Relaxation Techniques
• Parallels of optimal health and optimal learning
• REMO HealthRyhthms Empowerment Drumming – Institute of Integrative Medicine, Windber Medical Center

• Afternoon Sessions
• Healthy Habits (Mind/body connection, Nutrition & Fitness) & Modeling
• WRI Programming for Obesity Prevention

Phase II: Childhood Development & Disease Awareness (Three concurrent sessions)

• Child Development:
• Child developmental processes, developmental theories and approaches to instructional
• Physiological conditions/limitations and emotional challenges that can affect classroom performance (Convergence Insufficiency, eye/hand coordination, nutrition, puberty, school refusal, social maladjustment, self-esteem)
• Brain Development and Research:
  • How factors such as hydration, nutrition, sleep deprivation, stress, presentation of materials affect the brain.
  • Multiple intelligences and learning styles
• Creating a 21^st Century Learner:
  • From calculator to communicator to collaborator to innovator.
  • Student motivation: Five Love Languages of Children and Teens as a motivational and educational tool.
  • Developing new ways to approach subject matter and working with the brain to maximize student potential.

Phase III: Childhood Environment & Learning I (Day-long workshop, large group)

A Framework for Understanding Poverty – Ruby Payne, Ph.D. (Presenter: Jim Littlejohn)

• Morning Session
• Ten key points in understanding poverty, resources, case studies, registers of language, discourse patterns, and story structure.

• Afternoon Session
• Hidden rules among the classes, patterns in generational poverty, family structure and discipline interventions.

Phase IV: Childhood Environment & Learning II/Resiliency Training

(Day-long workshop, large group sessions)

• Morning Session
• Teachers develop core skills to build resiliency in students

• Afternoon Session
• Classroom strategies and techniques
• Recap of HEAL initiative and its application in the classroom