Twenty-seven St. Paul Public elementary schools are blurring the lines between school work and play with a homegrown curriculum called “Discovering Our World.” Kids get around 90 minutes each day to play — or “actively learn” — at any of several stations stocked with blocks, modeling clay and art, or pretend cooking supplies. Stephanie Carlson,…
Executive Function Skills: Measure What Matters
Reflection Sciences’ Professional Development Team and Executive Function Experts have designed an early childhood session, “Executive Function Skills: Measure What Matters” that will be presented, live at Minnesota’s Metro ECSU on January 9, 2018. The session will address: What is Executive Function? Why should we measure it? What is the MEFS? How is the assessment…
Pairing Digital Tools to Measure and Improve School Readiness
— PRESS RELEASE — ST PAUL, MN (October 25, 2017) – Reflection Sciences, Inc., an education technology company founded by University of Minnesota researchers, and Kiko Labs, the San Francisco developer of Kiko’s Thinking Time™ games, are thrilled to announce a new partnership. Research on school readiness has uncovered a link between the skill-set referred…
Minnesota Executive Function Scale available for Android Users!
It is with great pleasure we announce the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS App™) is now available on Google Play for Android users! You can download the free app to your Android Tablet by searching Minnesota Executive Function in the Google Play store. The MEFS App™ is a game-like, drag-and-drop early learning readiness tool designed to provide a brief, comprehensive,…
Civic Science to Improve Child Outcomes
Mind in the Making author Ellen Galinsky, the Bezos Family Foundation, and leading researchers on Executive Function (including our Co-founders!) make the case for citizens and scientists to work together to address our most challenging and science needs to improve child outcomes in the latest issue of Child Development. Contact us to request the article.
Free, Live, Webcast!
We are thrilled to invite you to join us for a free, live, webcast with Reflection Sciences Co-founder and CEO, Dr. Stephanie Carlson and St. Anthony – New Brighton Community Services Director, Wendy Webster! The session will be held on Thursday, July 13th from 11:00 to 11:45 AM CDT. We will discuss how St. Anthony…
Montessori Outcomes for Success
Each week, the Montessori Foundation’s Montessori Leadership Institute hosts live sessions focusing on Montessori outcomes for success and the importance of Montessori education. Sessions are led by Montessori Foundation experts or guest speakers. This Wednesday’s session [1:00 PM Eastern Time in the USA (GMT -4)] will be hosted by Dr. Katie Brown, DC Regional Coordinator…
Case Study – MEFS Predicts K Outcomes
The Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS) is a brief, tablet-based comprehensive measure of executive function skills that is nationally normed down to 2 years of age. Reflection Sciences introduced the MEFS assessment to a consortium of independent schools to be used during the admissions process. Here’s what they found: Applicants who enrolled scored 10 points higher…
Pretend Play in Child Development
According to pretend play in child development expert, Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota, and Reflection Sciences Co-founder, Dr. Stephanie M. Carlson, “Play is about as ‘blueprinted’ a behavior as you can have in terms of basic survival and reproduction.” Play, which by definition has no immediate purpose other than recreation, is…
University of Minnesota – CEHD’s CEED partners with Reflection Sciences
by Cassandra Blohowiak The Center for Early Education and Development (CEED) has partnered with tech start-up Reflection Sciences to conduct on-site trainings on the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS) in Minnesota. The MEFS is a testing app that early educators can use to measure executive function (EF) and early learning readiness in children. It is the only early learning readiness assessment measuring…