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AVID’s mission is to close the achievement gap by preparing all students for college �readiness and success in a global society.�

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The AVID College Readiness System, available for elementary, secondary, and higher education, is a schoolwide transformational effort focused on instruction, systems, leadership, and culture, and is designed to increase the number of students who enroll and succeed in higher education and in their lives beyond high school.

The AVID College Readiness System is a catalyst for developing a school culture that closes the expectation and opportunity gaps many students face, and prepares all students for success in a global society.

AVID Elementary is a foundational component for elementary schools, designed as an embedded, sequential academic skills resource. It is intended for non-elective, multi-subject, multi-ability level classrooms.

Through the use of WICOR and an explicit focus on high expectations, rigor, and developing a college readiness culture, educator behaviors and mindsets will prepare all students to be on a college readiness path.

AVID Elementary’s core focus is on grades 3 through 5 or 6 (depending on configuration of the school) with on-ramps provided for K-2 teachers.

At the high school and middle level, AVID impacts an entire school system by transforming the instruction, systems, leadership, and culture of a school. At the core of AVID at the high school and middle level is the AVID Elective class where students are enrolled in a school’s most rigorous classes, such as Advanced Placement^® (AP) and receive support in the AVID Elective class—taught within the school day by a trained AVID teacher. The goal of AVID at the secondary level is to ensure college readiness for all AVID Elective students and improved academic performance for all students based on increased opportunities.

AVID for Higher Education partners with institutions of higher education by providing AVID professional learning and support systems that result in increased student learning, persistence, and graduation.

Each component in the AVID College Readiness System has continuity to the next through the basic tenets of AVID that include Essentials, WICOR, and a site team.

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Group Norms

Ask questions.

Engage fully in the learning process.

Integrate new information.

Open your minds to diverse views.

Utilize what you learn.

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Performance Objectives

Use an understanding of the primal importance of relational capacity as a central requirement for enduring learning and personal resiliency in order to design and implement effective classroom instruction.
Target specific behaviors and attitudes that create and support attachment-based relationships in order to increase academic performance and resiliency.

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Agenda/Topics

Family/team formation
The deep basics of brain and relationship building
The neuroscience of brain maturation and what behaviors make a powerful leader/mentor
The role of inspiration and emotions in relationships
How to be and behave in the service of growing relational capacity
Goal-setting for growing supportive relationships

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CCI Domains/Subdomains

Educator Agency

Collective Educator Agency

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AE CSS Essential Addressed

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Essential Question

FOCUSED NOTES	TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:	NAME:
		CLASS/PERIOD:
		DATE:
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What are positive attachment-based developmental relationships, and how can we create them?

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Who are you?

On your paper/sticky note…

Write your name
Answer these two questions:

When did you ever have a negative experience with a teacher?
Why did you do better with teachers that you loved?

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Welcome to Your New Family

Share your responses.
As a group/family, listen for common themes and write them down.
Identify the most important info and prioritize it (1, 2, 3, etc.)
Come to consensus on a family name rooted in these important, common themes.

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The Limbic System

Come Here ☺

Go Away ☹

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The Limbic System

The brain’s primitive elements, such as the amygdala and the rest of the limbic system, drive and activate fear and attraction.
The limbic system:

feels a sense of safety or an attraction to safety and love, and
also feels fear and other negative feelings that urge a moving away.

Thus, when humans interact with the world, it is always through this lens of the “come here” or “go away” brain-based survival instinct.

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Teacher Wisdom

If children don’t feel cared for by others, they won’t care enough about themselves to struggle and learn.

This is “mirroring”

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Definition of Mirroring

Mirroring is an array of behaviors (mostly nonverbal) that convey that the child is valued, cared for, and loved.

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Benefits of Mirroring

Mirroring is important because the adult models to the child that they matter, are acceptable, and have significance (love).
When any child (or adult) is mirrored this way, their brain releases neurochemicals that increase memory, effort, and desire, and build resiliency and self-advocacy.

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Pair–Share and Summary

With a partner, review your notes. Add, highlight, and revise as necessary.
Use this sentence frame to write a summary:

The primitive and pre-conscious center brain automatically feels _________________ or _______________ when it first meets someone new. This is important to our work as educators and leaders because ______________________.

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Marva Collins

“You are here to win; you were born to win, and if I have to care more about you than you care about you, then that’s the way it will be.”
“Welcome to success and say goodbye to failure, because you are not going to fail. I’m not going to let you fail.”

Marva Collins’ words reflect powerful mirroring, especially �when she says and .

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Marva Collins

Marva was a firm practitioner of tough love — a love not so “touchy-feely” but committed and consistent.

“I'm a teacher. A teacher is someone who leads. There is no magic here. I do not walk on water. I do not part the sea. I just love children.”

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Quickwrite

Describe a time you experienced loving mirroring and how it made you feel.

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Attachment-Based Environment

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Attachment-Based Environment 1

The brains of abused and neglected children do not develop normally.
These children are regularly mentally/emotionally on alert and afraid; thus, their neural activity and hormonal chemistry is often in a “fighting for survival” mode.

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Attachment-Based Environment 1

A developing brain regularly on alert (in “go away” mode) cannot control or guide emotions or engage in deep learning either socially or academically and, thus, does not form synapses and grow as many neurons as a well-nurtured brain.

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Attachment-Based Environment 2

The brain of a child who was nurtured and kept safe, yet challenged to grow and achieve, who enjoyed much walking, talking, hugging—in short, a child who experienced positive attachment—grows many neurons and forms many connections.

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Attachment-Based Environment 2

The brain does not grow simply because it is in the world. The brain needs rich, supportive, and loving environments to grow.
Stress hormones shut down the complex negotiating power of the advanced brain, and only primitive, mostly violent or catatonic behaviors exist.

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Attachment-Based Environment: Comparison

The neglected, “underdeveloped and unexpressed” child, if asked to perform a challenging task, may get angry and act out.

In contrast, the nurtured child would not only perform the task but try to do it better and more complexly than required—all on their own.

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Attachment-Based Environment

This atmosphere of love and nurturing, by its very presence, helps develop persistence and resiliency in difficult situations.

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Our Kids: “You know I love you. Now, get back in there and make me proud.”

Courtesy of Paul Thompson/UCLA

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Summary

With a partner from another table, discuss how this information could affect our interactions with children and write a 15-word summary of what you learned.
Come back to your table and do a table whip where each person reads their summary to the table.

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Who was the one?

Who is the one person who inspired or positively affected you most?
Picture them in your mind’s eye and think about why they were/are so inspirational.
What qualities did they possess that made them special to your life’s path?
Share with a partner in your family group.
As a family, make a list of key qualities that resonate positive mentorship.
Create a symbol or image that represents the concept of mirroring.

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Mature Minds

Appreciate complexity; ability to incorporate opposites
Know not all information is apparent
Open to unconscious processes
Less concerned about being in control
Ability to tolerate personal limitations and ignorance
More realistic expectations and forgiveness of others
Increased empathy and maintained connectedness
More humor, sublimation, and suppression
Less denial, blame, and projection�� (Ardelt, 1997, 2000)

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Immature Minds

Need certainty and control
Avoid complexity; lack ability to incorporate opposites (“Either/Or” vs. “Both/And”)
Lack openness to unconscious processes
The belief that all the important information is obvious
Low empathic abilities
Less mature psychological defenses
More denial, blame, and projection
Less humor, sublimation, and suppression�� (Ardelt, 1997, 2000)

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This story makes me feel and � .

Image Credits:�Immordino-Yang, McColl, Damasio & Damasio, PNAS, 2009

Image courtesy of Mary Helen �Immordino-Yang

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“The only reason we do anything is the feelings and sensations that motivate us.”

Antonio Damasio

Professor of Neuroscience, �USC Rossier

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Dr. Louis Cozolino �(Pepperdine University)

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Be ready to make connections between the next two passages…

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Louis Cozolino

“Brains grow best in the context of supportive relationships, low levels of stress, and through the creative use of stories. While teachers may focus on what they are teaching, evolutionary history and current neuroscience suggest that it is who they are and the emotional environment in the classroom they are able to create that are the fundamental regulators of neuroplasticity.” ��(The Social Neuroscience of Education, 2013, p. 17)

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