Academics

CTTL

The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning supports teachers at St. Andrew’s and worldwide in translating the most promising Mind, Brain, and Education Science research into strategies that enhance every student's academic, social, and emotional development.
The CTTL is led by St. Andrew’s faculty, who collaborate with a global network of university researchers. The CTTL makes research-informed teaching and learning the central focus of faculty professional development, curriculum, and program design at St. Andrew’s elevates the understanding of the science of learning among independent and public school teachers, leaders, and policymakers through its resources, experiences, and tools, which were all developed and first used by St. Andrew’s teachers, students, and parents.
 
The true beneficiaries of the CTTL’s work are St. Andrew’s students, from age 2 to Grade 12. Because every St. Andrew’s teacher knows about brain plasticity, the life-long ability of the brain to change, especially in response to learning and experience, St. Andrew’s teachers use research-informed whole-class and personalized strategies to help each student become more confident, efficient, and independent learners throughout their formative and transformative years of learning, growing, and developing at St. Andrew’s.

Here are ways St. Andrew's teaching and learning has been transformed through the CTTL:

  • Mindfulness training for Lower School teachers and students.
  • Revision of the Effort Grade Rubric.
  • Teaching students more efficient and effective learning and study strategies, such as making and using flashcards better.
  • Teachers use varied forms of assessments. In middle and upper school classes, students have the opportunity to choose what type of year-end assessment would be best for the way they demonstrate cumulative understanding.
  • Transformation of grades 6-12 final exam schedule so that students have a deep opportunity to reflect on their performance, receive oral feedback from their teachers, and to establish strategies for future improvement.
  • Choosing and using educational technology tools that allow students to creatively share their learning.
  • The advisor program educates students about the neurodevelopmental demands of learning, focusing on enhancing attention, memory, executive functioning, and time management.
  • Building in more opportunities for student “metacognition moments” at various stages of the learning process.
  • A daily schedule that is informed by what we know about memory, cognitive load, high-quality homework, and deep learning.
  • More frequent formative assessments for all grade levels.
  • Elevation of memory strategies such as the spacing effect, testing effect, and interleaving.
  • And many additional ways.

Listen to the Podcast

Listen to the Think Differently and Deeply podcasts with St. Andrew’s teacher and student authors as they discuss their articles for CTTL’s internationally recognized publication, Think Differently and Deeply.




  • Teacher Training Teacher Training
    100% of St. Andrew's Preschool through Grade 12 teachers receive MBE training. Here's how we do it.
  • Student Interns & Research Fellows Student Interns & Research Fellows
    St. Andrew's students contribute to CTTL research as student interns and Finn Family Student Research Fellows.
  • Learning How to Learn Learning How to Learn
    Neuroteach Global Student puts the best research on what helps the brain learn directly into the hands of students.


CTTL Publications

Think Differently and Deeply is an internationally recognized publication written by St. Andrew’s pre-school through 12th grade teachers, students, alumni, and the CTTL’s university research partners. More than 20,000 teachers, school leaders, and policymakers have read Think Differently and Deeply’s first five volumes, which provide models for how teachers and school leaders can use research to inform the design of their classes and to work more effectively with each student.
Current and former St. Andrew’s teachers, students, school leaders, parents, and research partners contributed to this collection of stories drawn from the first four volumes of the CTTL’s publication, Think Differently and Deeply. The book provides models of how to translate evidence-informed strategies into evidence-informed teaching and learning practices from the early childhood years to and through high school graduation.
Glenn Whitman, is the Dreyfuss Family Director of the CTTL, and Dr. Ian Kelleher, Science Teacher and Dreyfuss Family Head of Research for the CTTL, have co-authored Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education.

Featured by The Klingenstein Center, the book is a resource for all teachers and school leaders who are looking for ways to incorporate MBE research into the classroom.

Tia Henteleff, Science Teacher and the CTTL’s Lower School Research Lead, authored As We Begin: Dispositions of Mind, Learning, and the Brain in Early Childhood. Henteleff brings together insights from big thinkers in education alongside research from Mind, Brain, and Education, and her own experiences in the classroom to explore the important role of early childhood educators and education in a way that is at once, serious, conversational, and inspiring.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is a private, coeducational college preparatory day school for students in preschool (Age 2) through grade 12, located in Potomac, Maryland.