Strengthen Students' MINDFULNESS: Increase Your Students' Self-Control While Reducing Anxiety and Challenging Behaviors

Presented by MaryAnn Brittingham
Outstanding Author, Educator and National Presenter

Specifically Designed for Classroom Teachers, Counselors, Instructional Specialists and Coaches, Special Education Staff, Title I Staff, Behavior Intervention Specialists, Instructional Assistants, and Administrators Serving Grades K-12

Incorporate MINDFULNESS strategies and activities to better focus students’ attention, regulate emotions and reduce anxiety that can cause challenging behaviors
Practical strategies for helping your students develop the social and emotional skills to increase learning and productive behavior
Help students better manage personal frustrations, reduce anxiety and impulsive behaviors … Work constructively toward personal and academic goals
Why MINDFULNESS is so relevant and how it will greatly benefit all your students

Practical Ideas and Strategies

You’ve heard of MINDFULNESS but are wondering how you can incorporate mindfulness practices into your already busy school day in ways that will actually make a difference for you and your students. Join outstanding and motivating national speaker, MaryAnn Brittingham, in this full-day, idea-packed seminar that focuses on practical and doable strategies to increase your students’ mindfulness to help them find greater school success. Many challenging and disruptive behaviors are caused by lack of awareness and understanding of how the brain works. Once we teach students mindfulness practices, they will be better equipped to self-regulate, recognize and handle the emotions that cause the behaviors that get them in trouble in class and socially. In addition, these mindfulness practices will enhance students’ ability to focus during instruction, which can result in higher achievement. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to gain innovative and new ways to reduce challenging behaviors that get in the way of your teaching and students’ learning.

You will leave with numerous strategies to teach students to be more aware of their emotions, reactions and frustrations that impact their ability to focus and increase learning and success in school.

Ten Key Benefits of Attending

Why MINDFULNESS is so Relevant Today and How it Will Greatly Benefit ALL Your Students
Discover the key benefits of mindfulness and how it can make a significant difference for you and your students … Gain a clearer understanding of what mindfulness is and isn’t
MINDFULNESS Strategies to Reduce Anxiety
Learn mindfulness practices that will help your students increase self-reflection and self-calming in difficult situations … Decrease anxiety so students feel safe and focus on instruction and learning
Understand and Apply the Neurobiology of MINDFULNESS
Become familiar with the key parts of the brain involved in thinking and learning both academically and emotionally … Become better equipped to teach your students about how their brains work
Decrease Disruptive Behaviors That Can be Caused by a Lack of MINDFULNESS
Address disruptive student behavior caused by negative emotions that surface when students feel threatened … Ideas you can use immediately
How to Help Students Respond Rather Than React
Many challenging behaviors we see in school are caused by students’ immediate reactions … Teach them the replacement strategies to respond in more productive ways that are not combative and defensive and don’t get them in trouble
Learn About the Worry Cycle
Many students can’t get past negative self-talk as well as negative attitudes about seemingly everything … How we can perceive and manage our thoughts through a different lens
Simple Ways to Demonstrate the Mind-Body Connection
Teaching mindfulness and the brain clearly shows students the importance of the connection between the “upstairs and downstairs brain”
Create Mindful Moments Throughout the Day
Learn the little changes that leave big impressions … Help your students feel more connected and in control of themselves … Teach mindfulness using the five senses to help cement students’ learning and application of mindfulness
Strategies to Develop Students’ Capacity to Pay Attention
Ideas to improve your students’ attention and then apply those skills to your instruction and their school work
Incorporate MINDFULNESS Activities to Better Focus Students’ Attention, Regulate Emotions and Reduce Stress
Learn practical ways to incorporate mindfulness activities into your classroom to help students better focus their attention, regulate their emotions and reduce personal stress

Outstanding Strategies You Can Use Immediately

Learn the key benefits of practicing MINDFULNESS and how it can make a significant difference in all your students’ success in school
Practical mindfulness strategies to decrease student anxiety and challenging behaviors
Ideas to teach students how to pay attention and maintain on-task behavior
Discover healthy ways to reduce anxiety and stress in difficult situations
Teach the skill of responding rather than reacting
Combine mindfulness with physical movements to help monitor physical and mental states
Incorporate mindfulness interventions into IEPs or behavior plans to address anxiety that can counter automatic negative thought patterns
How mindfulness will help students feel more connected to themselves, their surroundings and their peers
Strategies that teach students to be aware of and responsible for their own emotions and behavior
Improve students’ executive function skills to override emotional reactivity
Realistic and doable ways to incorporate daily mindful moments and practice focused awareness
Practical and doable ways to create a safe and trusting classroom environment
How mindfulness practices can create positive emotional states that increase learning
Be more familiar with and ready to teach students the key parts of the brain involved in thinking and learning
Retention-building strategies you can use immediately
How to help students choose optimism and the significant difference it makes in learning
Equip students with perspective-taking strategies that help them identify others’ perspectives to build tolerance and compassion

A Message From Your Seminar Leader

Dear Colleague:

When you ask someone to name a person who has had a lasting impact on their life, it is often a teacher whom they felt respected them and took an interest in helping them see their potential. This is a powerful opportunity we, as educators, have to make a meaningful and lasting impact on young lives. But students are changing. Coming to school less prepared, more anxious, and less able to focus, students are unmotivated and unable to see the value of school in their own lives. All of these can cause difficult behaviors that make teaching less rewarding and more challenging. A practical and real solution to some of these critical issues is to incorporate mindfulness practices into our daily routines to help students become aware of their emotions and begin to increase self-control, attention and emotional regulation that will help them be more successful students. This seminar is all about how to do just that!

This strategy-packed day will cover dozens of strategies, ideas and activities you can use to teach mindfulness in ways that will make a significant difference for your students. These strategies will help students strengthen the connectivity between areas of the brain that support attention and concentration, thus weakening the amygdala’s capacity to hijack the thinking parts of the brain when in an anxious or stressed state. With this awareness, it is easy to see how mindfulness and selfregulation can translate into improved learning. This is true for all students, but especially the most vulnerable ones.

For our students who have difficulty dealing with negative emotions, fear and anger can hit them unexpectedly. Without a plan for dealing with these feelings, they can be thrown off and may react negatively. Teaching them how their brain works and how to put mindfulness practices into action will help them make better decisions. In addition, students can learn to regain access to their executive functions even when in a stressed or anxious state.

I hope you will join me and your colleagues for an action-packed, motivating day that will equip you with strategies and the inspiration to make mindfulness a part of your everyday teaching in order to increase your students’ school success!

Sincerely,
MaryAnn Brittingham

P.S. The focus of this seminar will be on key, practical strategies to decrease student anxiety and challenging behaviors using mindfulness practices.

Who Should Attend

Classroom Teachers, Counselors, Instructional Specialists and Coaches, Special Education Staff, Title I Staff, Behavior Intervention Specialists, Instructional Assistants, and Administrators Serving Grades K-12

Special Benefits of Attending

Extensive Resource Handbook
Each participant will receive an extensive digital resource handbook giving you access to countless strategies. The handbook includes:

Understanding and managing negative emotions
Stress and the brain: understanding the amygdala flip and what to do about it
Activities to do with students on mindful awareness, mindful listening, perspective taking, choosing optimism, and expressing gratitude

For in-person seminars, registrants will also receive a printed copy of the resource handbook as long as their registration is received in the BER office at least 15 calendar days before the event.

Consultation Available
MaryAnn Brittingham will be available to answer your specific questions and the unique needs of your own program.

Semester Credit Option
UMASS Logo Up to four graduate level professional development credits are available with an additional fee and completion of follow-up practicum activities. Details for direct enrollment with University of Massachusetts Global, a nonprofit affiliate, will be available at this program.

Meet Inservice Requirements
At the end of the program, each attendee will receive a certificate of participation that may be used to verify hours of participation in meeting continuing education requirements.

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