Staff from Illinois and Arizona campuses eagerly prepared for the 2020-21 school year by participating in weeklong clinical and academic boot camps.
The clinical bootcamp prepared our clinical staff to provide trauma-based supports to meet the unique social emotional needs of students returning to the school environment after the COVID-19 school closures. Understanding the impact of school closures through the trauma lens, assessment of students’ social needs upon their return to school, strategies for teaching and supporting mindfulness and restorative circles are just some of the various topics clinicians focused on during this specialized week of training.
Curriculum Boot Camp 2020 highlighted digital platforms that support both asynchronous and synchronous learning. Student engagement is always a top priority and thus educational technology tools such as Google apps, Kahoot, Pear Deck, Quizzes, etc. were reviewed as options for staff to enhance the learning experience for students.
While Menta has long been an advocate of Blended Learning and Project-Based Learning, new components of our existing digital tools were examined as well as the rich data sets provided by these tools that are necessary to drive instruction to the next level.