Keynote
Presentations
MiraVia offers keynote presentations that inspire, inform, and instruct. These interactive sessions provide relevant content based on compelling educational issues. Our keynotes deliver research-driven ideas and effective tools that put theory into practice in your schools.
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Who We Are
As a publishing and professional development company, MiraVia brings learning theory into practice.
What We Do
MiraVia provides learning-focused professional development and products presenting practical strategies, useful resources, and innovative ideas for thoughtful educators.
Why It Matters
Navigating the demands of the current climate requires a professional culture committed to learning.
Spotlight
Summer Learning in Old Town Sacramento
We have recently completed our 2018 Summer Institute for Leaders and Learners, engaging 95 educators from across the United States in four days of interactive exploration of learning-focused relationships. The Institute, Making Mentoring Matter: An In-Depth Learning Experience for Mentors and School Leaders offered opportunities to consider what it means to be a growth agent and support the continued development of professional expertise in beginning teachers.
Using Charles Duhig’s habit cycle (The Power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and business , ©2012, New York: Random House) as a frame, we focused on distinguishing habit from choice, to increase awareness and offer a wider repertoire of choices for mentor decisions and actions. We closed the seminar by presenting 12 Habits that Matter for Mentors. Check them out and feel free to share with others.
As part of our feedback survey, we ask our colleagues to share five adjectives that they would use to describe their experience. Here are some of them:
brilliant, engaging, nuanced, structured, intense, stimulating, learning focused
We were particularly excited about using the newest edition of Mentoring Matters: A Practical Guide to Learning-focused Relationships as the primary text for this event.
To accompany the rich learning, good food, good fun, and good fellowship were all part of the experience.
It’s All About Mentoring
This newly revised 3rd edition of our best-selling book, Mentoring Matters: A Practical Guide to Learning-focused Relationships is an indispensable reference guide for growth-oriented mentors.
Now Available: Downloadable Study Guide for Mentoring Matters
Make the most of Mentoring Matters – download our free study guide to deepen the conversation and extend the learning.
Making better decisions: Why teams need tools
Without a well-developed process repertoire, non-productive patterns may be bogging groups down, leading to poor decision-making and possible team member alienation.
MiraVia’s products and publications are filled with practical strategies that focus group work, productively accomplishing relevant tasks and making decisions that stay made – while developing the critical collaborative skills for group development. Groups at Work offers 78 process strategies for structuring time-efficient, well-balanced, task-focused meetings and work sessions. Data-driven Dialogue provides teams with a powerful toolkit for using data to drive continuous school improvement.
Why Our Brains Fall for False Expertise, and How to Stop It
Once we are aware of the shortcuts our minds take when deciding who to listen to, we can take steps to block those shortcuts. One of the most important assets a group can have is the expertise of its members. But research indicates that even when everyone within a group recognizes who the subject matter expert is, they defer to that member just 62 percent of the time; when they don’t, they listen to the most extroverted person. Another experiment found that “airtime” — the amount of time people spend talking — is a stronger indicator of perceived influence than actual expertise. Our brains also form subtle preferences for people we have met over ones we haven’t, and assume people who are good at one thing are also good at other, unrelated things. These biases inevitably end up excluding people and their ideas.
Each month look for additional resources for exploring essential processes.