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Because the Kagan structures are so easy to learn and apply, Kagan participants spontaneously created the Kagan motto: Learn it Today; Use it Tomorrow; Apply it for a Lifetime!
Kagan Professional Development conducts training institutes and seminars world-wide. Kagan Publishing is the world's largest publisher and distributor of cooperative learning and multiple intelligences books and resources. The spirit of Kagan is evident at all levels of the company. Kagan employees — from shipping clerks, to workshop registrars, to national presenters — enjoy the reputation of being extremely teacher-friendly. The Kagan staff is dedicated to serving teachers and those who support them. Its mission is to improve education by providing the highest quality resources and trainings designed to create in teachers a love of teaching, and in students a love of learning. On a regular basis, attendees world-wide state that one of the Kagan institutes has provided their single most formative and enjoyable professional development experience. |
Kagan
Publishing and Professional Development is based on a research program conducted by Dr. Spencer Kagan beginning in 1968. Dr. Kagan and his associates discovered that, world-wide, children of all ages in many parts of the world became more cooperative when they were placed in certain types of situations. Dr. Kagan began a research program to apply those findings to classrooms. For a full list of Dr. Kagan's research which includes over 200 publications, 
Dr.
Kagan and his team have developed and perfected well over 200 Kagan Structures.
Kagan Structures are simple teaching techniques or instructional strategies
to guide the interaction of students with each other, the curriculum, and
the teacher. Popular Kagan structures include Numbered Heads Together, Timed
Pair Share, RallyRobin, Pairs Compare, Kinesthetic Symbols, and Lyrical
Lessons.
Dr. Kagan's book, Cooperative Learning, is the single most comprehensive
and most popular book in the field. Instead of emphasizing complex cooperative
learning lessons, theme units, projects, and centers, all of which demand
extensive planning, preparation, and special materials, Kagan Structures
make cooperative learning easy. Kagan Structures are used as part of any
existing lesson — with little or no special preparation and no special
materials.
Recently,
the educational community has attempted to implement the theory of multiple
intelligences. In approaching multiple intelligences, the Kagans have applied
the same structural approach which has been so successful with cooperative learning.
The Kagan multiple intelligences structures have been enormously empowering
to teachers world wide. Together with Miguel Kagan, Dr. Spencer Kagan completed
the most comprehensive book to date on Multiple Intelligences for teachers.
In Multiple Intelligences, the Kagans demonstrate the power of simple
MI structures which are now doing for Multiple Intelligences what the
Kagan co-op structures did for cooperative learning. Instead of emphasizing
complex multiple intelligences lessons, theme units, projects, and centers,
the Kagan approach makes multiple intelligences part of any lesson by inclusion
of simple MI structures — it is an integrated approach to multiple intelligences.
As in the area of cooperative learning, the Kagans are providing for multiple
intelligences, structures which teachers can learn today and apply tomorrow
and for a lifetime.
The
Kagan Structures are easy to learn and implement, fun for teachers and students,
and produce profoundly positive outcomes along a remarkable number of dimensions.
Different structures are designed for different outcomes, including enhanced
mastery of subject matter, improved thinking skills, teambuilding, classbuilding,
development of social character and social skills, communication skills, classroom
management, classroom discipline, and development of and engagement of each
of the multiple intelligences.
The
demand for training of teachers and training of trainers in Kagan Structures
has led the Kagans to form one of the world's foremost training companies for
teachers. Dr. Kagan's wife, Laurie Kagan, former Director of Elementary
Education
for the state of Nevada, directs all workshop design, development of training
materials, and training of trainers. She personally trains and selects all
Kagan
trainers who go through a highly effective training process designed to ensure
clients will have the very highest quality training possible. At present
there
are approximately forty Kagan Certified Trainers across the United States and
other countries, providing keynotes, awareness sessions, workshops, and
multi-day institutes.