5 Reasons Hybrid Learning Works

by Pat Wyman | Jan 29, 2021 | Articles | 0 comments

Learning in school, physically and in real-time, and learning remotely, often
independently, both have their advantages and disadvantages.
But what if you could have a system that combines the best of both worlds?
Enter hybrid learning – a system which brings together the best elements of both
in-person and online learning to create a learner focused experience.
Under this model, learners participate in both synchronous and asynchronous
learning, for both on-site and off-site students.
What this means is, teachers teach the same classes physically and virtually at
the same time, and these classes are supplemented by assignments and
activities which students can complete on their own time.
Of course, this means that learning is more accessible and in different modalities
for more students.
But there are also plenty of other advantages to hybrid learning.
Table of Contents
1. You Can Match Learning to How You Learn Best
2. You Can Work at Your Own Pace by Chunking Your Learning
3. You Can Take More Brain-Friendly Breaks
4. You Can Exercise Frequently to Keep Your Brain in Top Shape
5. You Can Get Better Sleep
5 Reasons Hybrid Learning Works
1. You Can Match Learning to How You
Learn Best
Not everyone learns the same way – everyone has different preferences in how
they learn and retain information best.
For example, visual learners learn best by turning what they read into mental
movies in their heads and can quickly process and retain visual information like
diagrams and graphs.
Auditory learners prefer listening to information – they can easily recall what they
heard during classes and lectures, or through podcasts and audiobooks.
Kinesthetic learners learn best by engaging physically with the environment –
they might like pacing around while they learn, acting out what they’re reading,
and so on.
In school, though, you can’t always use the learning strategies that work best for
you. Even though you might be learning better if the information was auditory, or
if you could walk around the classroom reading, you’re expected to sit at your
desk and read the text in your book or on the projector screen.
Hybrid learning helps you access the best of both worlds.
For starters, because part of the learning process takes place at home, you get
the chance to tailor your learning to your preferred learning style.
Instead of pushing yourself to get through some reading you’re struggling with,
you have the option to use a text-to-voice reader to read it out for you, or to pace
about your room as you read.
Meanwhile, hybrid learning also gives you the opportunity to develop your
visual learning skills, since these skills give you an advantage when it comes to
written exams.
This is because your brain is 60,000 times faster at remembering and processing
images than it is at remembering text – this is why visual learners often have an
advantage in school.
You might be struggling in some subjects more than others because of the
mismatch between how you prefer to learn, and how you’re tested.
But hybrid learning gives you the opportunity to develop the combination of
learning style strategies that work best for you.
To find out more about your learning style strengths and the best strategies for
you, take the FREE learning styles quiz here.
2. You Can Work at Your Own Pace by
Chunking Your Learning

In the ideal hybrid learning model, in-person and real-time virtual classes focus
on material that are better covered with direct instruction – for example,
experiments and practical demonstrations.
This frees up time for you to go over all the supplementary material at your own
pace, instead of being in a classroom with 20 other students moving on a fixed
schedule.
This makes learning a lot more personalized to you – you can work based on the
pace that best works for you and is more comfortable for you.
One amazing brain-based learning strategy you can use thanks to hybrid
learning is chunking your studying.
This refers to breaking your learning tasks down into a series of smaller tasks.
By doing this, you’re activating the reward centers of your brain to keep you
motivated.
The neurotransmitter dopamine spikes up in your system when you accomplish
something – you know that great, glowing feeling you get when you score well on
a test or get a compliment from a professor? That’s dopamine working its magic.
The feeling is so great that your brain wants more of it, and this is what drives
you to keep going and work harder to score well on other tests and hope for
more compliments from your professors.
An easy and highly effective way of taking advantage of your dopamine activity to
stay motivated is to break down what you need to do into a series of smaller
tasks.
Every time you complete a task, you experience that sense of reward driving you
to complete the next step.
This is a lot more effective than setting yourself a huge task, like completing a
time-consuming assignment you have due in a week in one day.
In fact, your dopamine spikes up when it expects a reward – but on the other
hand, when it expects a reward and doesn’t accomplish what it expected to
accomplish, dopamine levels fall.
So, if you end up setting yourself a big task or a series of big tasks and fail to
accomplish your goals, you end up feeling demotivated instead.
A huge benefit of hybrid learning is that, since you don’t have to worry about
keeping up with everyone in fixed classroom sessions, you can chunk your
learning to your convenience and do a better job at it!
3. You Can Take More Brain-Friendly
Breaks

That’s right! Taking more breaks – and not just any breaks, brain-friendly
breaks – can make a huge difference to your learning.
Your brain doesn’t learn well for long stretches of time. When you’re focusing on
learning something, your brain is using its working memory, which has a limited
capacity.
What this means is, after a while, when you go over your working memory’s
capacity, you end up not being able to absorb what you’re learning and even lose
some of what you already learned.
Have you ever spaced out in the middle of an hour-long class, or started
struggling partway through even though you were concentrating in the
beginning?
This is because your working memory is over-capacity and isn’t getting the
chance to recharge.
But when in-person class sessions are kept to the stuff you mostly need to study
in real-time, and you have more flexibility on how you pace the rest of your
lessons, you can help keep your working memory in better shape.
The answer is taking breaks – after every 20-25 minutes of learning, just a 5-
minute break is enough to recharge your working memory to full capacity.
When you take breaks, you also allow your brain to switch into default mode.
It gets to wander, and because it isn’t preoccupied with focusing on taking in new
information, it starts reviewing what you learned and connecting it with what you
already know, creating new ideas or finding solutions to problems out of it.
Ever wondered why your best ideas happen in the shower or when you’re
brushing your teeth? This is why – giving your brain time to soak up what it’s
learned is just as important as focusing on learning.
And with study material like pre-recorded lectures and interactive assignments,
you get to do just that.
4. You Can Exercise Frequently to Keep
Your Brain in Top Shape

You read about brain-friendly breaks in the previous section, and exercising is
one of the best brain-friendly ways to use your breaks.
You don’t have to do a full workout – just walking about your room, stretching, or
doing a couple of jumping jacks between your 25-minute study sessions is
enough to get your brain running smoother.
When you exercise, your blood circulation increases, and it pumps more oxygen
and nutrients to your brain.
This lets your brain create connections between its nerve cells or neurons faster,
speeding up the rate at which you learn, create and store memory.
Exercise also helps grow parts of your brain involved in learning and memory,
like your hippocampus, through a process called neurogenesis.
Meanwhile, being physically active can also boosts your dopamine levels, along
with other great chemical messengers like serotonin and endorphins. These work
together to keep you motivated, focused, alert and in a great mood!
While you can’t just get up in the middle of class and start running about, hybrid
learning gives you the opportunity to not only take more breaks to let your
learning stick, but also use these breaks in a brain-friendly way!
5. You Can Get Better Sleep 
And speaking of brain-friendly breaks – why not take a nap?
Since hybrid learning cuts down the amount of time you have to spend in class in
real-time, you get more time to actually get the rest you need to learn at your
best.
And this is extremely important because sleep is a critical part of your learning
and memory making process!
When you’re in deep, slow-wave sleep, your brain remains active.
Your hippocampus and neocortex go through what you learned and experienced
through the day, making sense of it, connecting it to past events and existing
knowledge, creating ideas for the future, and storing it all in your long-term
memory.
If you’ve ever crammed for an exam all night and realized that you don’t
remember as much as you learned or struggle to perform as well as you could,
this is why.
Without sleep, you’re not giving your brain an opportunity to really take all the
new information it’s learned and consolidate it into your memory and your
broader understanding of what you’re learning.
Plus, when you don’t get enough sleep, your dopamine levels are lower the next
morning – meaning you’re showing up to class demotivated, groggy, unable to
focus, and generally unprepared to learn.
With hybrid learning, though, and the greater control you have over your time and
how to space and chunk your learning, you also get to allot yourself more time to
catch the necessary Z’s.
Hybrid learning creates the ideal balance between in-person and independent
learning – the result is a learner-focused experience where your learning is
personalized to suit your specific needs.
What are your thoughts on hybrid learning? I’d love to hear from you!

Pat Wyman is the CEO of HowtoLearn.com and an

internationally noted brain coach known as America’s Most Trusted Learning
Expert.
Pat’s superpower is helping people learn, read and remember everything faster.
She has helped over half a million people in schools and corporations such as
Microsoft, Intel and Google improve their lives with her learning strategies,
learning styles inventory and courses, such as Total Recall Learning™. 
Pat is the best-selling author of more than 15 books, a university instructor, mom
and golden retriever lover!

5 Academic Success Tips for Students

with Anxiety Issues
by Dana Stahl | Jun 10, 2020 | Articles

Students are no strangers to academic anxiety.

Most have experienced pre-exam jitters – but it can go beyond that.
In recent years, the number of children and teens reporting mental health
conditions has more than doubled.
According to the Pew Research Center, 70% of teens between ages 13 and 17
reported that anxiety and depression are “a major problem among their peers.”
As many as 61% of students reported that a significant source of pressure they
experience is from the need to do well in school.
Over the years, as a Learning Specialist, I’ve consulted with many students who
experienced anxiety issues with regard to school performance.
Exacerbating the problem is the fact that this kind of anxiety can, in fact, make
learning more challenging.
Educators often observe that performance anxiety can interfere with the learning
process as these students tend to shut down and not ‘hear’ what is being
presented.
Anxiety is a very real experience many young learners struggle with.
As a result, I have put together 5 academic success tips for students with
anxiety, to help them overcome these obstacles when learning     .
But, before exploring these tips, let’s look at how anxiety hinders learning.
How Does Anxiety Impact Learning?
The brain processes new information by creating new connections between your
brain cells or neurons.
The more these neural pathways are activated, the stronger your memory of that
knowledge becomes when recalling the information presented
Unfortunately, the brain loses the ability to form new neural connections when
anxious and stressed as it clouds your ability to process, assimilate and recall
information being presented.
If students experience anxiety while studying or preparing for a test, processing
and retaining new information becomes difficult, if not impossible.
This feeds into the cycle of becoming anxious, and the experience of feeling
overwhelmed, further propels the downward spiral.
As you can see, this creates a vicious cycle of stress and anxiety, which could
manifest with a student’s inability to initiate and complete assignments, perform
well on quizzes and tests, and/or transition well from one subject to another.
So – what  can be done you do to help students with anxiety?
5 Academic Success Tips for Students with
Anxiety
1. Prepare in Advance 

Academic anxiety can stem from a feeling of fear or worry of underachieving.

Students can become overwhelmed by the amount of work or material to cover
before an exam.
Preparing in advance lets students feel in control and current on assignments.
By ‘smashing the task’ students are able to keep up with the pace of academic
commitments.
Keep a planner – as soon as you’re assigned homework or assignments, write or
key them in.
This way, you can tell at a glance how much time you have before submitting an
assignment or time to prepare for an exam.
This way students are not blindsided as a deadline approaches and they are able
to plan ahead.
Knowing how many days you have in-between assignments and how many
assignments you’ll have to juggle to prepare in time for exams, provides an
understanding of how to pace yourself.
Preparing ahead of time includes other things too.
Anxiety could come from a sense of uncertainty.
For example, if you are going to have a big quiz coming up soon, ask your
teacher for tips on what to study and topics to focus on.
 
Make sure you pay attention in class to notice which information your teacher
keeps emphasizing, and material he or she is mentioning that’s not in your
textbooks.
If you don’t understand something, seek clarification right away.
Participate in study groups or group chats that focus on a specific subject – this
way, if there’s something you’ve overlooked, your peers can help catch you up to
speed.
Sharing the stress of your study-load with friends can also help since you’ll learn
that you aren’t the only one who may be feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork.
Planning and preparing may sound like a lot of work, but if you organize your
school commitments from day one, you’ll know at every stage of the semester
where you stand.
This will help orient you about how much you have done and how much you have
left to do and give you a greater sense of control – which in turn reduces
performance anxiety.
2. Know How to Manage Your Time
This might sound as though it’s the same advice as the first, but knowing how to
balance your study time with your “you” time is essential to keeping anxiety on
the down-low.
If you overburden yourself with studies, that itself will cause you stress, which in
turn would reduce the quality of studying that you’re doing.
Remember to “chunk” your study sessions into sessions of 25-30 minutes.
This has many neuroscience-backed benefits that boost your productivity and
motivation to learn.
Firstly, it might be overwhelming to look at all the things you have to complete by
a specific date.
On the other hand, if you break up the tasks into shorter sessions, they feel less
overwhelming.
In fact, every time you check off something on your to-do list of segmented tasks,
your brain releases the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine.
The pleasure center of your brain lights up, and because it feels rewarded from
having accomplished something, it wants to seek out that feeling again – this
gets you motivated to keep learning!
Secondly, chunking your study sessions improves your retention of what you
learn.
The Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting illustrates how individuals tend to remember
what they learned at the beginning of a study session (primacy) and the end
(recency).
You’re more likely to forget what you learned in the middle – so the longer your
study sessions, the steeper the rate at which you forget.
Therefore, studying for a 25-30 minute session, taking a short break, and then
returning to another 25-30 minute session, helps improve your brain’s ability to
process and retain what you’re learning!
Meanwhile, completing these sessions triggers dopamine, which in turn
motivates you further.
3. Physical Wellbeing
How you take care of your body plays a significant role in managing your anxiety.
Anxiety disorders may correlate to low levels of another neurotransmitter,
serotonin.
Serotonin is a mood-boosting chemical messenger – and the good news is, with
the right diet and lifestyle, you can maintain a healthy level of both serotonin and
dopamine.
Foods like cheese, eggs, nuts, fatty fish, blueberries, etc. are all brain-friendly
superfoods which can enhance your cognitive functioning, through benefits like
improved focus and high serotonin.
On the flip side, cut down on caffeine (which can enhance or trigger anxiety),
refined sugar (which leads to long-term crashes of dopamine), and greasy fast
foods.
All of these might make you feel good temporarily but unmotivated, sluggish,
moody, and irritable in the long run – all not conducive when you’re trying to learn
and manage your anxiety.
Serotonin and dopamine also get a boost when you exercise.
More oxygen reaches your brain, allowing it to grow and process more efficiently,
while the endorphins and dopamine and serotonin circulating your body leave
you feeling happy and motivated.
This also sharpens your focus – since your brain is so alert and active – and can
make your learning session even more productive!
Why not try to go for a run, or even a walk, during one of those breaks between
your study sessions?
A third aspect of your health that kids might end up neglecting is getting good
sleep.
Sleep is the period where your brain starts consolidating what you learned over
the day into your long-term memories.
If you pulled an all-nighter and realized you either remember things foggily or
don’t remember them at all – this is why.
Getting a good night’s sleep, or even taking a nap during your study breaks, can
make a massive difference for your learning.
Your body needs serotonin to maintain its circadian rhythm – so put those bright
screens away, and head to bed at a decent time.
4. Mindful Breathing
Mindful breathing is a core aspect of meditation – and this is because it’s
scientifically proven to work, especially when you’re trying to disrupt the onset of
an anxiety or panic attack.
When you are anxious or stressed, your sympathetic nervous system is active –
your breathing grows shallow, your heart rate escalates, your body is tense.
Essentially, you’re in fight or flight mode, and your body to primed to protect itself
if there’s any danger.
Unfortunately, when you are learning, this also means it hinders you from being
able to focus, process, or retain any information.
When you do mindful breathing, you activate your vagus nerve, which is part of
the parasympathetic nervous system and affects the same parts of your body
reacting to stress.
Breathing is something you can consciously control.
So, when you deliberately take slow, deep breaths, and focus on counting them
as you inhale, hold them in and exhale, your vagus nerve lets the rest of your
body know that it can calm down.
It helps slow your heart and calm your mind and get your brain into an alpha
brain state – which I’ll discuss in more detail below!
The act of counting the beats as you breathe and hold your breath also helps
remove your mind from any panicked thoughts – this helps reset you to a calmer
mindset.
If you feel your anxiety starting to bubble up – try this:
Inhale, slowly and deeply, as you count to 6.
Then hold in that breath for three counts.
Then exhale, again slowly, for six counts.
Repeat this process about ten times – you are activating your vagus nerve and
parasympathetic nervous system and shifting focus away from your anxiety.
5. Listen to Music
Your brain can produce a range of waves – and the ones you want to activate for
learning are your alpha brain waves.
When your brain is in alpha wave state, it makes you feel calm, but alert.
This is how you feel waking up after you get a good night’s rest (another reason
why it’s essential to get enough sleep!)
You can also achieve this brain state by listening to music!
Multiple studies have discovered how listening to music triggers serotonin and
dopamine production – which, as you know, helps get you feeling great and
motivated.
Studies also find a correlation between better academic performance in students
who listened to or play musical instruments than those who do not.
In fact, there is so much evidence of music improving productivity and motivation
that many major companies, like Shell and Dupont, play a specific type of music
for their employees.
So, if you want to put your brain in the best, relaxed but active state to combat
learning anxiety, go for music without words, and calmer melodies than really
upbeat tracks!
 
With these 5 academic success tips for students with anxiety, I hope you will
overcome the challenges which might be slowing down your learning.
Did you find these tips helpful? I would love to know!

Dana Stahl grew up with a learning disability. With the right help,
she resolved it and her superpower is  helping your LD child succeed in school,
at home or during remote learning.
As an Educational Consultant and Learning Specialist for over 30 years,
Dana created an easy-to-follow, step-by-step online course called The ABCs of
Academic Success so you can help your child thrive academically!  Check it out
and get a free 15 minute consultation with Dana too.
Related article

Remote Learning and IEP Goals for

Autistic Children
by Carol Basile Ph.D. | Jun 5, 2020 | Articles
As a mom of a 53-year old autistic son, if I have learned one thing in life, it is that
every dark cloud has a silver lining.
This current health crisis is certainly a dark cloud; however, remote learning can
be a silver lining for our autistic children.
Over the years, I encountered many difficult situations in providing
a consistent learning environment for my son but, with some creativity, we
eventually resolved each and every problem.
Then
My son, Joe, was diagnosed with autism at age 6 in 1972 when there
were no IEPs or special education to assist our special needs children.
Parents and teachers alike were basically on their own to provide an appropriate
learning framework for their children and students.
Now
At this time, millions of us are navigating our way through this health crisis by
educating our children through remote education at home.
Teachers across the country are doing an incredible job of providing distance
education.
This enables our children to maintain learning progress and should be
commended for their resourcefulness and hard work.
Many parents are juggling working from home while making certain their children
are keeping up with their studies.
Parents and teachers alike should be proud of the changes they have made in
their lives to continue educating children, especially at the speed in which this
transformational process is being accomplished.
Waiver of Special Education and IEP Goals

One aspect of the changes that have occurred in education during this crisis is
the waiver of IEP services for special needs children in some school districts.
While this might be an understandable short-term approach, this waiver
will interrupt, and could have possible long-term consequences for the learning
progress of our special needs children.
However, special needs children deserve to still be able to achieve their IEP
goals and should have compensatory services in the meantime.
Therefore, keeping in contact with your child’s special education teachers and
requesting continued services is a must and there are many ways to accomplish
this.
Continuing the IEP and Learning Progress
The good news is that this is 2020 not 1972 and fortunately for parents and
teachers, there are a multitude of quality educational computer programs and
computer apps that can assist parents and teachers in continuing to educate
special needs children in an appropriate, meaningful, and productive manner.
Autism and Technology

One fortunate aspect of remote learning for our autistic children is that many
studies have shown they have a statistically higher aptitude for
technology and can thrive with online learning.
Research at Carnegie Mellon University has found that, “people with autism
value the increased control over their social interactions that is afforded by
the filter of a computer screen” explaining the preferred use of technology by
autistic children and adults. 
Studies have also shown that autistic individuals have supercharged parts of
the brain and the ability to hyper-focus.
This enables them to understand and use technology in deeper and more
meaningful ways than those who are not autistic.
While up to 90% of our children are home from school, let’s make the most of this
remote learning situation by using this ability of our autistic children
to hyper-focus to empower them to not only meet but surpass their IEP goals
through the use of technology.
Meeting IEP Goals with Technology
With this end in mind, there are many programs available on the internet that can
assist parents and special education teachers to monitor the learning progress
of our autistic and other special needs children so that IEP goals are not set
aside during this crisis.
I applaud the many school districts that are allowing students to access the
district’s computer program licenses from home.
Keeping the Lines of Communication Open
 Here are three programs that can help parents, teachers and
students communicate and stay in touch.
1. Google Classroom: Student assignments can be uploaded to the teacher,
the teacher can grade the assignments and return information back to the
student.
2. Class Dojo: Communication between parents and teachers can be
conducted in chosen language, teacher can provide awards and rewards
 for students’ progress, students can upload pictures and videos of
activities demonstrating the completion of class projects.
Reportedly 95% of school districts have this in place and is therefore easy to set
up. Your child’s teacher may have already set this up at the beginning of the
school year.
3. Remind: Teachers can send group or whole class announcements, or
have private chats between parents and teachers, and can translate 90 different
languages.
Reading Sites/Apps: Providing Progress
Data for IEP Goals

Two examples:
1. Starfall: Reading and Writing Pre-K thru 3rd grade. Built in Parent/Teacher
portal to track students’ progress, ideal for relating information to be included
in remote IEP meetings.
2. Duolingo ABC: A fun, hands on way to learn to read.
Math Sites/Apps: Providing Progress Data
for IEP Goals

Two examples:
1. Prodigy: Math Grades 1-8. It is a free self-paced math game, monitors
math progress, and provides assessments to be shared with teachers.
2. Math Antics: All Grades, provides videos on math from fractions to
statistics. New feature allows teachers to share access with students.
All Subjects: Providing Progress Data for
IEP Goals

Two examples:
1. Kahoot!: All grades, all subjects. Allows teachers and parents to create
games or choose from pre-made games to introduce a topic, review a topic,
and create assessments.
2. SeeSaw: All grades, all subjects. Students use a variety of tools such as
draw and record, collage, and video, to create a portfolio showing what they
know in a subject area. Teachers gain insight into students’ thinking and
progress to better differentiate learning.
 Exploring and Learning Safely: Parental
Controls and Netiquette:

After you have set the parental controls on your family devices, for example the
amount of screen time and blocked sites, this is a wonderful time to teach kids
about cyber bullying and digital etiquette or netiquette.
Three examples.
1. YouTube Kids: Created to give children a safe online experience
to explore and learn. Family friendly content with parental controls to limit screen
time and content.  Includes resources to help develop netiquette.
2. PBS Kids: Age appropriate educational programs, games, series on
science, culture and much more.
3. The National PTA at pta.org has a wide variety of resources, tools and
information to support families and teachers.
 Movement:  When the Kids (and You) Get
“the Wiggles”
One example:
1. GoNoodle: Hundreds of short movement and mindfulness videos that
are educational and fun.
The Future is Now: Coding
Arguably, one of the single most important skills of today is coding.
Coding, is the process of using computer language to develop a script that tells
a computer to do what you want it to do, and is part of the technology
standards in most states.
 Even pre-readers are not too young to learn to code.
No time like the present to get your children exposed to and proficient in coding.
Two examples:
1. Code.org: Courses for ages 4-18 with lots of games to practice their new
skills. Kids can even learn to code their own original computer game.’
2. Tynker:  For ages 5+, includes courses, challenges, and tutorials.
Keeping Our Cool
Parents and children alike are stressed as many families’ routines have been
drastically changed and anxiety over health and safety set in.
Developing forms of relaxation is necessary for
parents and children alike.

While watching movies and television can have a calming effect, they
only passively engage the mind.
More effective for long term psychological health is for the mind to be actively
engaged to truly interrupt the negative thinking that causes stress in children
and adults.
My son loves interactive games that actively engage this mind such as Sim City. 
However, for just relaxing, an online chess game is his favorite way to calm his
mind.
My husband, John, a retired teacher is also an artist and children’s book
illustrator.  To relax and engage his mind, he creates beautiful artwork.
I, on the other hand, play word games such as WordScapes.  When playing
these games, the stressful thoughts drain from my mind leaving me relaxed and
happy.  Just for fun, I am also using the Duolingo app to learn Italian.
Parents as Role Models for Coping in a
Crisis
While we surely can be stressed during this crisis, we, also, are able to spend
more time with our children giving us the opportunity to explore and learn along
with them.
But they watch us and learn from us also.  We are their role models.
So, engaging in activities to help us as parents to relax, or when we learn how
to use a new app, is not only good for us but is also a great benefit for our
children as our children, by constantly observing us,  learn coping methods
from us.
This is true now more than ever. 
None of us could have envisioned millions of children engaged in remote learning
all at once, but by parents and teachers continuing to work together as a
team, we can enable our autistic and special needs children to continue to not
only meet the goals set in their IEPs but surpass those goals.
Remote learning could very well turn out to be the silver lining in this dark
cloud of this crisis.
This crisis is a challenge and an opportunity like none before in our lifetime. 
Let’s make the most of it.
 

Carol is the mother of a 53 year old Autistic son

and author of Against All Odds.  She is an educator, school psychologist and
parenting group facilitator. Carol has been in the field of education for almost 40
years.
She has had the opportunity to teach grades K-12, was a high school counselor
and school psychologist and has specialized in working with at-risk children and
adolescents.
Carol has facilitated groups at a local Orange County, California clinic where she
worked with adolescents who had recently been released from juvenile hall,
adults with anger issues, and parents who experienced custody difficulties during
divorce proceedings or have lost their children to Social Services for a variety of
reasons.
Carol presently teaches psychology at an Orange County, California college.
Carol is the author of two children’s books on differences: The Draco Twins
Make a Discovery and The Draco Twins Turn Bullies into Buddies.
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