Expanding its services to educational institutions, HITN Learning assembled its Educator Advisory Group for the first time at HITN’s headquarters located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard on October 11, along with Home Cultural and Linguistics Advisor Dr. Mariana Diaz-Wionczek (left) and David Rust, General Manager of HITN Learning. The Educator Advisors are Dr. Dina C. Castro, Velma E. Schmidt Professor for Early Childhood Education at the University of North Texas; Dr. Herbert P. Ginsburg, Jacob H. Schiff Foundation Professor of Psychology & Education at Teachers College, Columbia University; and Dr. Lorea Martinez, Social & Emotional Learning Consultant and Communications Chair of the American Educational Research Association-SEL Special Interest Group.

In workshops with staff and the formal advisory group meeting, Dina, Herb, and Lorea expanded the group’s understanding of issues being wrestled with by PreK-8 learning educators. Issues such as:

• The value of bilingual learning for general cognition, as well as its cultural and practical benefits.
• Effective methods of social & emotional learning to undergird progress expected of students in academic areas.
• Early math learning that can harness the power of parents to what educators do in school.

The group will next meet in January, and together with Mariana, are assisting the staff in activities planned for 2020.