"Challenge Master" Proof of Concept Paper
Dr. Peter F. Love was first introduced to the concept of the Challenge Master program in its first iteration as “Self-Mastery and Success”. At the time, Dr. Love was the Director of the Allen Institute-Center for Innovative Learning, a residential school for young adults with learning and developmental disabilities. The young adult students at the Allen Institute experienced both the specific impacts of their different diagnosed disabilities and the emotional impact of continued lack of academic success throughout their K-12 school experiences. All of the students had previously been exposed to standard academic skills and strategies interventions. None of the students at the Allen Institute had received any interventions aimed at the core psychological and emotional issues associated with growing up with learning disabilities. For many students with learning disabilities, or what are frequently called “hidden disabilities,” there is a tendency to internalize many of the messages they get from teachers and parents in a highly personalized way.
In Dr. Love’s extensive professional experience working with this population he has heard from many students that one of the most frequent messages they receive is, “If only you would try harder, you could do so much better.” The impact of this type of message for students is that they start to believe that there is something fundamentally “wrong” with them as individuals. Deeply personalized terms such as “lazy” or “poor motivation” or even “obstinate” and “resistant” often end up being used to characterize many students with learning disabilities. As a result, many of these students enter their successive academic challenges with significant problems with self-confidence that contribute to their continued academic failure. This then becomes a vicious cycle that students often cannot find their way out of because a frequent response of many schools is to give the students more of what they had failed at in the past such as specific academic skills and strategies training. In addition, the expression and experience of students with learning disabilities is highly individualized so the typical “one size fits all” approach of standardized interventions often end up being ineffective.
The Allen Institute’s curriculum was designed specifically to address the psychological and emotional needs of students who had experienced the impacts of well-intentioned but ineffective interventions. The curriculum included aspects of social-emotional learning, body-centered approaches, and a multiple intelligences approach to teaching. The Self-Mastery and Success (later Challenge Master) team approached Dr. Love after the first year of operation of the Allen Institute. It was immediately clear to Dr. Love and the faculty and residential staff that the program would be an excellent complement to the Allen Institute curriculum.
The Self-Mastery and Success program offered a novel, helpful and unique combination of cognitive, emotional, and body-centered aspects of skills development in a format that could be easily tailored to match each individual student’s needs and levels of competence in understanding the materials and practices of the program. In the original format of the program, physical workbooks were used with the students.
Twenty-two of the Allen Institute students, academic faculty, and residential staff worked with the creators of the Self-Mastery and Success program over a series of initial training sessions. For one-third of the 22 students, the benefits of the program were immediately accessible and they were able to experience increased success in areas of their lives that had previously presented significant challenges for them. The students reported experiences of “felt body shifts” as they applied the techniques in the face of academic challenges. Parents of students reported significant changes in challenging behaviors that had previously been resistant to intervention. Academic faculty noted that students’ attitudes and morale was markedly improved in the classroom as students turned to their own internal resources to manage challenges they were facing. Other students struggled with aspects of the program including some of the core concepts of the program and the use of the physical workbooks. For many of the students, the program was perceived as just additional “school work” instead of a tool that could help them with all aspects of their lives. There did not appear to be any significant correlation between IQ, severity of learning disability, or other diagnosed conditions and the ability of the students to benefit from the program.
The Development Director of the Allen Institute was engaged to secure funding for the program to continue it as an integral part of the school’s curriculum. Unfortunately, funding was not available and so the program was ended.
Since that time the creators of the Self-Mastery and Success program have done extensive research and consultation with experts to make changes to the program. The decision was made to abandon the physical workbook format and to place the program on-line as an interactive program. In addition, the program was changed to take advantage of the popularity of “gaming” among young people. While there are still unresolved questions about the long-term effect of gaming platforms in skills and capacity development, there is no question that an on-line, gaming oriented program is more likely to engage present day students in the program. One other significant change to the program was to create a “partnership” model between a student or students in a classroom and a parent, teacher, allied services professional, school counselor or paraprofessional.
With the changes made to the program, Dr. Love is pleased to endorse the Challenge Master program and looks forward to continued work with the Challenge Master team.
Respectfully submitted by:
In Dr. Love’s extensive professional experience working with this population he has heard from many students that one of the most frequent messages they receive is, “If only you would try harder, you could do so much better.” The impact of this type of message for students is that they start to believe that there is something fundamentally “wrong” with them as individuals. Deeply personalized terms such as “lazy” or “poor motivation” or even “obstinate” and “resistant” often end up being used to characterize many students with learning disabilities. As a result, many of these students enter their successive academic challenges with significant problems with self-confidence that contribute to their continued academic failure. This then becomes a vicious cycle that students often cannot find their way out of because a frequent response of many schools is to give the students more of what they had failed at in the past such as specific academic skills and strategies training. In addition, the expression and experience of students with learning disabilities is highly individualized so the typical “one size fits all” approach of standardized interventions often end up being ineffective.
The Allen Institute’s curriculum was designed specifically to address the psychological and emotional needs of students who had experienced the impacts of well-intentioned but ineffective interventions. The curriculum included aspects of social-emotional learning, body-centered approaches, and a multiple intelligences approach to teaching. The Self-Mastery and Success (later Challenge Master) team approached Dr. Love after the first year of operation of the Allen Institute. It was immediately clear to Dr. Love and the faculty and residential staff that the program would be an excellent complement to the Allen Institute curriculum.
The Self-Mastery and Success program offered a novel, helpful and unique combination of cognitive, emotional, and body-centered aspects of skills development in a format that could be easily tailored to match each individual student’s needs and levels of competence in understanding the materials and practices of the program. In the original format of the program, physical workbooks were used with the students.
Twenty-two of the Allen Institute students, academic faculty, and residential staff worked with the creators of the Self-Mastery and Success program over a series of initial training sessions. For one-third of the 22 students, the benefits of the program were immediately accessible and they were able to experience increased success in areas of their lives that had previously presented significant challenges for them. The students reported experiences of “felt body shifts” as they applied the techniques in the face of academic challenges. Parents of students reported significant changes in challenging behaviors that had previously been resistant to intervention. Academic faculty noted that students’ attitudes and morale was markedly improved in the classroom as students turned to their own internal resources to manage challenges they were facing. Other students struggled with aspects of the program including some of the core concepts of the program and the use of the physical workbooks. For many of the students, the program was perceived as just additional “school work” instead of a tool that could help them with all aspects of their lives. There did not appear to be any significant correlation between IQ, severity of learning disability, or other diagnosed conditions and the ability of the students to benefit from the program.
The Development Director of the Allen Institute was engaged to secure funding for the program to continue it as an integral part of the school’s curriculum. Unfortunately, funding was not available and so the program was ended.
Since that time the creators of the Self-Mastery and Success program have done extensive research and consultation with experts to make changes to the program. The decision was made to abandon the physical workbook format and to place the program on-line as an interactive program. In addition, the program was changed to take advantage of the popularity of “gaming” among young people. While there are still unresolved questions about the long-term effect of gaming platforms in skills and capacity development, there is no question that an on-line, gaming oriented program is more likely to engage present day students in the program. One other significant change to the program was to create a “partnership” model between a student or students in a classroom and a parent, teacher, allied services professional, school counselor or paraprofessional.
With the changes made to the program, Dr. Love is pleased to endorse the Challenge Master program and looks forward to continued work with the Challenge Master team.
Respectfully submitted by: