On June 20, Philip D. Zelazo, Ph.D., a Nancy M. and John E. Lindahl professor in the Institute of Child Development (ICD), and Andrei Semenov, a child psychology doctoral student in ICD, presented their research at the Mindfulness in Education Summer Institute.

The summer institute is a 3-day community event hosted by the University of Minnesota’s Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing. The institute aims to bring together researchers and educators for three days of professional learning and discussion on practices that support the wellbeing of school communities. The event offered programming for three cohorts: educators new to mindfulness, experienced mindfulness practitioners, and administrators.

This year, Zelazo delivered a keynote address that provided an overview of executive function skills and their importance in relation to early child development and education. In addition, Zelazo presented his findings from his recently published paper, “Mindfulness Plus Reflection Training: Effects of Executive Function in Early Childhood.”

Semenov’s presentation focused on program evaluation. In particular, he emphasized the importance of evaluation and measurement techniques to further build a classroom intervention. “It’s important not to treat evaluation and measurement as an afterthought and to plan the intervention in such a way that you can easily measure the desired outcome variables before and after the intervention,” Semenov said.

Further, Semenov discussed his current project with Douglas Kennedy, Ph.D., mindfulness in education lead at the Center for Spirituality & Healing. The project implements a mindfulness-based intervention for teachers in the Twin Cities.