Websites
Schools and Programs Using an Active Learning Approach
Byhaveskolen, Svendborg, Denmark
Institutt for Aktiv Læring, Norway
Kilparrin Early Learning Center, South Australia
Koninklijke Visio (Royal Dutch Visio), the Netherlands
Lilli Nielsen Schule, Kiel, Germany
Narbethong State Special School, Brisbane, Australia
Penrickton Center for Blind Children, Michigan, USA
Specific to Active Learning
Here are some websites with information about Active Learning or child development that we find useful in understanding more about Active Learning.
Narbethong State Special School
Narbethong School uses Active Learning extensively and has a great deal of information about the approach on their website.
LILLIWORKS
In addition to selling “perceptualizing” aids and other Active Learning materials, LilliWorks has some nice video of parents sharing about Active Learning.
Scottish Sensory Centre
A sub-section of this website is devoted to Dr. Lilli Nielsen and Active Learning, including an Idea Bank, Sources of Active Learning Equipment, and information on CVI.
Vendors of Active Learning Equipment
CAP (Children Achieving Potential)
Vendor of furniture for children with special needs and Active Learning materials in Australia
LH-Verkstan (Sweden)
Products include Essef Board, Little Room, Support Bench, and more.
LILLIWORKS (United States and Canada)
A full range of Active Learning products are available in North America.
Other Related Sites
Accessible Outdoors
Ideas from Dr. Joe Gibson for exploring the outdoors and creating tactile art projects.
Instructional Strategies Microsite
This Texas Deafblind Project microsite provides information on specific instructional strategies used with students who are visually impaired with additional disabilities and those who are deafblind. It focuses on communication, with sections on interaction and bonding, assessment, routines, calendars, and more.
Deafblind Interaction Microsite
Chris Montgomery, Deafblind Education Consultant with Texas Deafblind Outreach, has created this site with support from an array of experts. The website is for parents, family members, paraprofessionals, professionals, and others who wish to better understand quality social interaction techniques and models for communication with children who are deafblind. The website is designed around a common progression, moving from awareness, to what it means to be an active partner, to how quality interaction builds to quality of life.
DBI Outdoor Network
Check out a short video about the DBI Outdoor Network and see how outdoor activities really lend themselves to active learning.
HealthyChildren.org
Harvard University Center on the Developing Child
Strategies and the science behind the strategies for helping children develop critical social, emotional, and cognitive skills. This website has great information for parents and professionals alike about the impact of stress in brain development, the importance of play, adult-child interactions and much more.
Social Emotional Development: Off to a Good Start
SAPPI NEUROSCIENCE
This series of video shorts by Dr. David Eagleman looks at discusses touch and its importance in development of cognitive and emotional development.
- Sappi Neuroscience Shorts – The Neuroscience of Touch
- Sappi Neuroscience Shorts – Embodied Cognition and Communicative Touch
- Sappi Neuroscience Shorts – The Necessity of Touch
Touch Base Center for the DeafBlind
Touch Base: Center for the Deafblind is a nonprofit organization created to benefit deafblind people after they graduate from school. Currently, Touch Base is located in Houston, Texas. It is a small organization with a board consisting of parents of deafblind children, experienced staff from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and other dedicated professionals. The purpose of this organization is to provide deafblind men and women with a day habilitation facility where they can participate in organized, meaningful, and purposeful activities. They employ many strategies that align with the practice of Active Learning.
Zero to Three
This website is a great place to learn more about typical child development and to see what skills and behaviors sensorimotor and pre-operational level learners display.
Websites on Typical Developmental Milestones
Gross Motor
Kid Sense website chart of gross motor skills from birth thru 6 years of age.
Fine Motor
Kid Sense website chart of fine motor skills from birth thru 8 years of age.
Oral Motor
PDF showing oral motor skills from birth thru 5 from Super Duper Handy Handouts.
Social and Emotional Development
- Play and Social Skills developmental checklist from Kid Sense.
- Emotional Development in Early Childhood PDF from the Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Development.