Maximising Mindful Learning: An Innovative Mindfulness Intervention Improves Elementary Students’ Quarterly Grades

Dr Laura Bakosh, Dr. Renee Snow, Dr. Jutta Tobias and Janice Houlihan (Collaboration project: Sofia University, Innerexplorer.org, Cranfield University)

For more information, email jutta.tobias@cranfield.ac.uk

• Quasi-experiment in 2 non-private US elementary schools • 93 third-graders participated in daily 10-minute “MBSEL”

(Mindfulness-Based Social and Emotional Learning) practice • 98 students were in (waitlist) control group • MBSEL practice was modelled on MBSR method • All practice sessions had been tailored to school settings & had been

pre-recorded in audio format

• After 3 months, participating students’ grades in reading & science improved statistically significantly

• 4 other grades did not change significantly • Problem behaviour incidents in participating classrooms decreased • Teachers reportedly benefited from the mindfulness practice also • No prior teacher training in mindfulness

was needed – • This may be cost effective for

resource-constrained non-private schools

• No changes to classroom curriculum were required –

• The short daily practice may be easy to integrate into school operations

• Follow-up research underway currently to ascertain subject-specific effect of MBSEL training &/or other boundary effects of the observed findings.

Research conducted in collaboration with