Massachusetts’ second Mind in the Making © Facilitators’ Institute is underway this May-June with participants from Boston and nine other communities across the state. This MITM Institute is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), Connected Beginnings Training Institute, the United Way of Mass Bay & Merrimack Valley, Harvard Achievement Support Initiative (HASI), Massachusetts Head Start Association and Massachusetts Head Start State Collaboration Office.
Institute goals include: (1) developing a cadre of professionals who will form the second cohort of certified MITM facilitators, qualified to take MITM material to participants in their own professional settings, and (2) increasing statewide capacity to deliver Mind in the Making (MITM) in public schools, Head Start programs, and child care centers in communities across Massachusetts. In total, once this second cohort has completed the Institute, Massachusetts will have more than 60 certified MITM facilitators who will be able to bring MITM to settings in their local communities.
Developed by the Families and Work Institute (FWI) in New York City and utilized in states around the country, MITM offers a first-of-its-kind approach to translating what we know about how young children learn into realistic application in program practice. MITM is comprised of 12 video-based learning modules, each focused on a specific area of child development and learning. These modules articulate the findings and insights of seminal researchers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, child development, and education, transforming years of complex research into a series of accessible demonstrations and activities. The design of the learning modules is grounded in the research-based premise that teaching practice improves when teachers are engaged in understanding their own and children’s learning, and when they have a better grasp of the best knowledge in child development and how to translate that knowledge into their teaching practice.1,2,3 Dr. Jack Shonkoff who co-edited From Neurons to Neighborhoods, Dr. Alison Gopnik, co-author of The Scientist in the Crib; What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind, and Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, whose Touchpoints model and neonatal assessment scale are used internationally, as well as many other world-class experts are featured in the learning modules.
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1 The 2006 University of Pittsburgh study, Evaluation Report: Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers in Pennsylvania, found that teachers who completed the MIM learning modules “contributed to positive, meaningful changes in classroom practices that promote children’s social, emotional, and intellectual development.”
2 The 2005 Florida State University, Mind in the Making Promoting Quality Infant/Toddler Programs, Pilot Project Report to the A.L. Mailman Foundation, stated, “Despite the limitations of this research, there is promising evidence that Mind in the Making Early Learning Modules can help improve caregivers’ knowledge of and interactions with children, educational aspirations, and environmental indicators of quality programming.”
3 The 2008 Connected Beginnings Training Institute’s Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers in Massachusetts Pilot Evaluation found increases in MITM participants’ perceived knowledge of how children learn and develop and confidence in their skills and abilities in supporting children’s learning and development.