Applications for Lumosity Education Access Program Soar Higher Than Ever
September 15th 2011 06:55
When science teacher James Trainer of the Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST) began to prepare for his summer school session in July, he looked for new technologies that would give his students a chance to improve their critical thinking and problem solving skills. DSST is one of the highest performing schools in Colorado, a rank it achieved by being results driven—and so Jim also knew he’d have to be able to quantitatively evaluate the success of the technology he implemented. As with most schools, budget was definitely an issue. And so, joining an increasingly large and diverse body of hundreds of educators around the world, Jim decided to apply for Lumosity’s Education Access Program (LEAP).
LEAP gifts teachers with up to 50 6-month Lumosity memberships to be used in class with their students. In exchange for valuable feedback and research data about student performance in Lumosity training, LEAP teachers have an opportunity to run pilot studies of cognitive training in their classrooms at no charge to schools. Since LEAP’s launch in 2009, the program has given thousands of students from dozens of schools around the world an opportunity to develop core cognitive functions through online training.
After Jim’s detailed and well-thought-out protocol document clinched him a spot in the program, his students spent July completing Lumosity training in addition to their coursework. The students also completed a comprehensive battery of cognitive assessments as pre- and post-tests. Though the school will need time to fully assess the impact of Lumosity training, the before-and-after snapshots of cognitive performance are compelling: Jim’s students experienced significant overall improvements.
The promising data came packaged with some glowing personal anecdotes as well. Most students reported that they felt they had benefited from Lumosity training. Jim’s own praise for Lumosity sums up the positive sentiment:
“Our students at the Denver School of Science and Technology loved using Lumosity over the summer. You could see them get into tracking their scores and improving their performance. We had a competition between students and teachers and the students were thrilled to beat the teachers in some of the games. Students overwhelmingly reported that they felt smarter in other classes because of what they did on Lumosity.”
With such successes under its belt, Lumos Labs is excited about the possibility of conducting further controlled studies with the Denver School of Science and Technology and will continue to analyze the results. And while DSST looks forward to future Lumosity-assisted classroom activities, other schools are just beginning their own LEAP experiments: the latest round of LEAP acceptances have just gone out for the fall semester! This application period, the most selective in LEAP history, saw more than 150 schools applying for a limited number of spots. Institutions from over two dozen countries made this fall’s LEAP student body the most geographically diverse yet: applications flew in from the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Sweden, Norway, Egypt, India, China, Australia, the UK, Canada, the UAE, Bangladesh, Denmark, Malaysia, Turkey, Sudan, New Zealand, Bahrain, Italy, Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand, and Jamaica.
If you or an educator you know is interested in participating in LEAP this spring, here’s the link to the online application! Applications are due November 15th and schools will be notified by December 1st if they are accepted. Note that Lumos Labs is especially excited to work with schools that are able to include control groups as part of their pilots.
And if you’re not closely tied to a classroom, remember that the LEAP results have implications far beyond students: cognitive training can benefit anyone, regardless of age or occupation. Take note of the surprising enthusiasm for learning that Lumosity can spark—and so whether you’re an educator or elementary schooler, former student or current college co-ed, why not grab at the opportunity to brighten your mind? Try some training for yourself today!
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