Kelly Emminger

Through Emminger's "Hands-on, Minds-on Learning Centers" program, first-grade students at Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School will shift from textbook and workbook learning to more hands-on activities within "centers". By using the research-based teaching recommendations of Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, students will be able to focus on seven of Howard Gardner's intelligences that are most often overlooked in traditional schooling: the visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalistic, and existentialist. To support these intelligences, Emminger will create such learning areas as: the visual and dramatic arts center, the movements and music center, the nature center, the construction center and the global community center. These centers, according to Emminger, will provide students with high-quality, developmentally-appropriate resources and materials to design explorations, conduct experiments, and work collaboratively to pose questions and solve problems. Students who have been labeled "too active", "overly social", "too shy", and "uncommunicative", will especially thrive by working in centers where the materials and activities validate their individual skills and talents. Emminger resides in Washington, DC.