Q. What is Brainology
for?
A. The Brainology® program teaches the growth mindset - the
view of intelligence as malleable.
Students come to see effort as a positive quality needed for anyone to
achieve his or her full potential. They
come to understand how to approach studying and learning in ways that make
their brains smarter. They learn how to
approach success and learn from failure.
Q: How do I get
started with Brainology?
A: To enable your students/kids to get started, you need to
set up student accounts. After you/the school purchase the number of
student accounts needed, we will send you the instructions to set up the
students account(s) (it is very easy to set up the student accounts!). If the
purchase was made via credit card, you can start immediately. If purchasing via
PO, check or order form, you will be fully enabled and receive email
instructions within 48 business hours of our receipt of the order. The
purchasing options can be viewed at the Purchase Instructions page.
Q: How is Brainology implemented?
A:
Implementation time and schedule are flexible, but we recommend spacing the online units at least one week apart and scheduling a minimum of 45 minutes of additional class activities between each online unit (90 minutes or more is optimal). Therefore, the total recommended classroom time to allow for Brainology implementation is a minimum of 7 ½ hours over 5-10 weeks, and an optimum of 12 hours over 6-16 weeks. You can view sample implementation calendars at our Get Set! guide (for other components of the Implementation Guide please register and visit My Resources).
Q: How much does Brainology
cost?
A: Brainology price depends on the number of students taking
the program, the more students the lower the price! You can view the pricing
options at the Pricing page.
Q. What are some ways
to introduce the growth mindset to my principal or to other
educators?
A. If you'd like to make a presentation to your colleagues,
we can help. We have PowerPoint
presentations, research studies, teacher guides, flyers, brochures and a demo
that you can use to supplement your presentation. Contact us if you need any other materials or if we can be of any help. Also, many schools find it helpful to assign
the book Mindset to the staff, and we also have a Guided Educator Training
presentation that educators have used as PD materials. We're also working on creating additional
technology-enabled PD offerings.
Q. What is the
appropriate age range for the Brainology program?
A. Brainology® is successfully implemented in 5th through
9th grade classrooms. Younger and older
grades and students have used the program successfully, but it depends on the
level of maturity and openness to the content.
Q. Is Brainology
appropriate for children with learning differences?
A. The program is designed to benefit all children (since a
growth mindset benefits all human beings).
Lots of teachers, therapists and learning disability centers have used the
program specifically with children with various learning disabilities with
success, as have programs for high achieving students and many mainstream
classrooms and whole grades. Regarding
special needs, in 2008, CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) gave Brainology the Innovative program of the
year award.
Q. Is this also for
high achieving and/or gifted students?
A. The Brainology® program is designed to benefit all
students, and is being used in several gifted programs. What the program does is help a student
cultivate a growth mindset. Even high
performing students can have fixed mindset tendencies that could lead to
withdrawal from school or certain subjects when school gets harder and requires
more effort.
Q. Is the program
available abroad?
A. Yes, the program is available anywhere in the world. It is accessed entirely online. As long as
your students have Internet access they can access the program.
Q. In what languages
is the program available?
A. Brainology® is currently in English. We do have plans to release the program in
other languages in the future, but these won’t be ready for some time
Q. What are the
technical requirements?
A. Technical requirements are minimal. The Brainology® program requires a computer
with an Internet connection and either headphones or speakers, so that children
can listen to the computer audio. It is compatible with all Internet browsers except Camino. You will also need these free plug-ins that are already installed in most computers:
- The Adobe Flash Player plug-in version 8 or higher (which is freely available
from the Adobe website and already installed in 98% of
computers).
-
The Adobe Reader plug-in to view PDF documents. (if PDFs are not loading for you, please update Adobe Reader to the latest version)
The program does not use
popup windows. A
broadband Internet connection is preferred but the program will also work with
a slow Internet connection after a few minutes of preloading.
Q. Is there an
Internet(less), offline version of the program or materials for use without
computers?
A. Unfortunately, the program is not available in an offline
version. The program relies on
information from the server in order to run.
This allows the students to log into the program anytime from anywhere
(school, home, library, etc.) to revisit any information, redo any sections,
and it also allows educators the ability to view the entries that their
students make regarding self-conceptions, attitudes, reflections and general
usage of the program.
Q. Do student user
accounts expire?
A. Yes, students have six months to access the program and
supplementary materials. Within those six months, they can re-do the entire
program and/or revisit any of the sections and use any of the tools. Please contact us if you have special circumstances or your own approach to implementing Brainology that require your students to have access for longer than six months.
Q. Can licenses be
reused/recycled? Is it one-time per
student?
A. The Brainology® program is available on a per student license basis. A student license allows registration for a single student and cannot be reused by a different student.