Horacio Sanchez | President and CEO of Resiliency Inc., Multi-state Department of Education Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Author

Horacio Sanchez

President and CEO of Resiliency Inc., Multi-state Department of Education Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Author

Horacio Sanchez
Featured Keynote Programs

Brain-Based

In the world of high-stakes testing, teachers struggle to find strategies that are effective with all students. Differentiated instruction is an often utilized term that is seldom implemented because educational institutions fail to train teachers on how they can differentiate instruction for each student in a manner that does not require multiple lesson plans and an understanding of each student’s learning style. This session is designed to provide teachers an effective model for implementing brain-based strategies in an easy, effective, and proven manner. Session Goals Learn a framework for understanding all students Understand the science behind validated brain-based strategies Experience how each brain-based strategy can be used in a classroom

Designing School Climates that Maximize Student Achievement

Neuroscience has identified self-regulation to be the greatest predictor of academic success and behavioral control. When the school environment promotes self-regulation, all students will benefit because it increases the opportunities for students to work to their capacity. There are three specific elements school environments need to promote self-regulation:

The first element is the ability to create a highly ritualized school climate, which promotes the perception of safety and predictability. This foundational element promotes and helps maintain homeostasis—the range of chemical functioning required for individuals to maximize performance.

The second element is the ability to cultivate a social climate in which students from diverse cultures and backgrounds can establish positive interpersonal relationships. This element can be achieved by specific strategies designed to focus on what students share in common and by learning to work cooperatively. The social climate strongly dictates how the emotional brain, the amygdala, performs:
enables students to maintain emotional control, accurately interpret social cues, and be less prone to exhibiting extreme behaviors.

The third element is to improve focus. Teachers can be trained how to help students regain and maintain the focus that is diminishing as a result of increased interaction with technology. Learning begins with focus. As students lose the ability to concentrate, their academic performance suffers regardless of intelligence. However, it can be easily restored through some specific exercises designed to improve focus and learning. When students experience success in the classroom due to improved focus, it will increase their motivation. The brain chemically reinforces things we succeed at; thereby, creating new habits.

This training provides educators with a process for understanding and even predicting human behavior, as well as teaching participants how to promote the three elements identified in the research to promote self-regulation. In addition, this interactive training not only provides the latest information on self-regulation found in neuroscience but also provides concrete solutions.

Bias

The human brain produces bias as a natural process of how it learns. The brain associates things easily and this process can lead to a person consciously thinking one thing while the brain subconsciously associates it to something else. These subconscious associations influence what we think, how we react, and even how we behave. It has been determined that individuals can even develop biases that contradict the values and beliefs that are most important to them. This means that educators who are strong student advocates can unwittingly develop subtle behaviors that undermined students.

Biases are developed by societal patterns and no one is exempt because we live in the same society. In addition, biases can be shaped by patterns in a school or district. Whenever students belonging to a group consistently unperformed or misbehave, it is almost impossible for all staff not to develop some biases related to students belonging to that group. Complicating things further is the fact that biases are often mislabeled as racism and this mistake increases tension and division between groups. The truth is that we all have biases; it is a byproduct of the human brain.

However, if educators learn:
What bias is
How it occurs
And how to identify societal and environmental biases
Then they can help mitigate its negative impacts.

Learning about bias will help individuals across races and cultures improve their ability to work with on another and better understand the dynamics that occur during daily encounters that influence attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions.

Poverty’s Impact on the Brain

Poverty is the single most significant event impacting education today. Every year school districts dedicate resources, draft policies, and create new services to meet the academic and behavioral challenges associated with students coming from poverty. However, much of the attempts of education to address the need of students in poverty are occurring without vital information on how poverty is transforming the brains of students today. Attempting to address the issues of poverty with only partial information is like completing a puzzle with key pieces missing. When the puzzle is assembled with the pieces you have you can make out the general picture but many key details of the image are lost. The brain transformations resulting from poverty speak to the heart of the academic and behavioral issues schools seek to overcome. The neuroscience of poverty provides not only a clear picture as to the whys academic and behavioral problems are occurring but also how to design a more precise response to best address the issues.

The Male and Female Brain

Unique differences in the structure and functioning of the male and female brain have strong implications on how to best educate boys and girls. These distinctions have grave implications for male and female communication, learning, behavior, and even developing relationships. Educators should be aware of these findings in order to maximize the performance of both the male and female student. These recent findings indicating the structural differences between the male and female brain have caused some educators to take the extreme position that boys and girls should be educated separately because of their brain’s process differently. However, improved understanding and effective strategies provide the true solution to better educating both male and female students.

Session Goals:
▪ Identify the distinctions between the male and female brain on how it impacts thinking and behaviors.

▪ Identify specific strategies to help improve instruction and behavior for both the male and female student.

▪ Provide concrete steps for developing and maintaining healthier relationships between the sexes.

Promoting Student Success

Self-regulation is the one mental process that overrides obstacles that hinder planning, attention, learning, memory, and the coping skills required for students to achieve immediate goals and obtain long-term success. Without the skill to self-regulate, students will succumb to the whim of every thought, distraction, emotion, and desire. The lack of self-regulation is the root of many of the behavioral and academic issues education faces today. The development of self-control enables students to transcend life’s obstacles and engage in new skills that promote academic success (Inzlicht, Bartholow, & Hirsh, 2015). Therefore, educators need to know how to promote self-regulation in order to maximize student achievement. Come learn the key steps identified by neuroscience to promote self-regulation. The steps identified in the research have been found to help students placed at-risk by life’s circumstances to experience life success.

Areas Covered in the Training
▪ Understanding student behavior
▪ Keys to improving school climate
▪ Promoting a positive social culture
▪ Motivating the unmotivated student
▪ Building skills that improve behaviors and academic performance

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Horacio Sanchez

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