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Unlock the Power of Brain-Based Teaching

Educational Consulting with the Brain in Mind: responsive to sex, gender, trauma, and culture

A Deep Dive into How Boys and Girls Learn and Grow

Understanding average developmental differences between male and female brains helps
educators and families respond without stereotyping.

● Brain development follows different timelines
● Average differences influence attention, emotion, and stress response
● Environment shapes how development shows up in learning and behavior
● Understanding differences supports culture, climate, and access
● Individual needs always matter

What We Do

We improve student engagement and performance, increase teacher effectiveness with strategic professional development, decrease the academic gender gap in literacy, math, science, and technology.

How We Do It

● Customized, on-site, on-going, and embedded professional development designed for early childhood through high school staff

● Online courses that will arm you with powerful gender-friendly strategies to transform your classroom and school

● Parenting Education delivered on-site with a Gurian Certified Trainer or on-line through the Gurian Parenting Community

What Boys Need

Understanding how boys’ brains develop, learn, and respond to school and life—translated into practical strategies that improve engagement, behavior, and outcomes.

● Learning environments that align with brain development
● Opportunities for movement, structure, and purpose
● Instruction that supports engagement and motivation
● Discipline approaches that build regulation, not shame
● Adults who understand behavior as communication

Our work responds to the present crisis in boys’ educational and mental health.

Speaking & Consulting

Keynotes, professional learning, and consulting partnerships that help schools and organizations align practice with how the brain learns.

Gurian Institute Services can be delivered both in person and virtually.

Trainer Certification

Become a certified trainer in Gurian Institute brain-based frameworks and deliver research- grounded learning experiences.

Save the Date:

Gurian Summer Institute

Join the Gurian Summer Training Institute for research-based learning grounded in brain science, gender, trauma, and culturally responsive practice

Virtual Institute:

June 27–28, 2026

Certification: June 29, 2026

To receive Michael’s latest writing to your inbox, subscribe to his Substack at michaelgurian.substack.com/

Educators and Professionals

Speaking, Training, and Consulting Areas Beyond General Educational Consulting and Training Include:

• Boys and Girls Learn Differently: Strategies for Teaching Across the Curriculum

• The Minds of Boys and Girls: Helping Our Children Do Their Best in School and Life

*Culturally Responsive Teaching: Effective and Holistic Approaches to Help Children of Color

• The Digital Brain: Assets and Effects of Screens, Smart Phones, and Social Media on the Developing Brain

• Trauma and Learning: ACES and Gender-Specific, Trauma-Informed Strategies for Helping Children Learn and Grow

• Parenting with the Brain in Mind: Success Strategies for Children of All Ages

• The Teen Brain: How to Nurture and Educate Brains That Are Changing Daily!

• Effective SEL: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys, Girls, and the Sexgender Spectrum

• For More Speaking and Training Topics, Please Click Our Programs Button

To bring Michael Gurian or Gurian Certified Trainers to your school, conference, or community, please contact info@gurianinstitute.com

 

To learn more about Helping Boys Thrive and the Helping Boys Thrive Summits, please click www.helpingboysthrive.org.

Gurian Institute Success Data Over Twenty-Five Years

Parents

Diane Roberts - Gurian Institute Consulting Director

“The Gurian training was the best professional development I ever had; it changed my teaching career—it gave me a different angle on education. The applications are practical, user friendly, and do not require a huge investment of money or technology.”
--Bill Rook HS Teacher and Coach, Hope, Arkansas
“The Gurian Institute’s approach teaches brain-based learning theory that recognizes gender differences in learning and combines the theory with effective strategies that bring out the best in both genders. Our implementation of the superb Gurian Institute methods proves that ALL students can achieve proficiency if teaching is directed at how they learn best.”
--Jackie Bedwell Elementary Teacher, Boulder, Colorado
``When educators understand how boys and girls learn differently, classrooms become more learner-friendly and discipline referrals decrease while student engagement and teacher effectiveness increases!``
--Dakota Hoyt, 40 years in schools as teacher, principal, leader
“Michael Gurian’s work in gender is at the leading edge of our profession and can significantly affect the field of psychology.”
–Tracey J. Shors, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, Rutger’s University
“Michael Gurian provides invaluable insight into how understanding our children’s unique core natures can help us raise happy, successful, and emotionally fulfilled children.”
–Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D., Former Chair, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, and founder/director of the Child Mind Institute
“We are a credit recovery program district (largest in Ohio with 1500+ students) with three traditional school models included and several specialized programs that target specific needs of students, including single gender and gender-based. At the center of all of these programs is helping credit and academic deficit students find a path to graduation. We have found the Gurian Institute’s work extremely helpful in our mission.”
–Dr. Adonica Park-Jones, Dean of Curriculum and Instruction, Dohn Community High School

The Wonder of Parenting Podcast

To subscribe to our weekly Podcast, please visit 

https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/wonderofparenting

Michael Gurian and Tim Wright serve as your guides through what they believe is the owner’s manual for your child: Your child’s brain. While the brain doesn’t tell the whole story, it does offer a treasure trove of insights into your son or daughter.

Helping Boys and Girls Reach Their Potential
Helping Schools Close Achievement Gaps

Serving…
Schools

Public, Private
Charter, Independent
Single-sex, Coed

School Districts
State Departments of Education
Colleges, Universities

Research-Based & Strategies-Oriented

More than 60,000 professionals

have been trained in the Institute’s programs and interventions from thousands of schools across the world with some schools becoming “GI Model Schools.”  We provide the critical training missing from most post-secondary education related to how boys and girls learn.  We have also reached more than one million parents with practical training for raising and educating boys and girls in the digital age.

Data Matters

Get ready to improve teacher effectiveness, student achievement, school safety, mental health wellness, social media responsibility, and parent involvement.  Gurian training is not an expensive new curriculum. Its holistic nature grows from its fidelity to all three fundamental areas of child development: nature, nurture, and culture. It builds understanding of boys and girls in curricular, extra-curricular, and behavioral areas.

Testimonials

“This is one of the best PDs I have had after 18 years of teaching. So much normal PD is repetitive ‘how-to’ information with new names to old ideas. This PD was fresh, new information that will be helpful and quickly instituted in the classroom. Hopefully, our whole school and parents will be able to receive this information.”
--Angela, 10th Grade Teacher
``We understand that boys and girls need different approaches as we manage classroom behavior, and when school disciplinary measures are needed, we are more effective in working through these issues because we know how to communicate differently with each gender, taking in account that each person, male and female, is also different.``
Tracie, Elementary School Principal

Our Summer Training Institute 2026 occurs online this June 26 – 27, 2026. We hope you can attend individually or in groups from your schools and communities. To learn more and to register, please visit: https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-summer-institute-2026/.  As always, the Training is innovative, practical, strategic, and inspiring. The …

March 6, 2026

Diane Roberts, Consulting Director of the Gurian Institute, was previously the Principal of a High School in Maryland that inculcated Gurian Institute theory and strategies and saw powerful and profound results. She has provided us with that story today. Diane will be one of the speakers featured …

February 26, 2026

Jack Kammer is a social worker and author (jackkammer.com) who wrote us in connection with our January What Boys Need Conference. “I would like to suggest that we need to assure that boys see demand for their own future output. We know that the longing to give, …

February 13, 2026
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The Gurian Institute | professional development and consulting