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Virtual Conference on June 27 - 28
Recordings and Videos Available through July 12
Co-Sponsored by the Santa Fe Boys Fund, the Kellen Cares Foundation, and the Farrell Family
All presenters will focus on the healthy social-emotional growth of our students and children as emotional, academic, digital, and mental health issues are on the rise all around us. Because most questions we are asked are about how to help, manage, and teach boys in schools and home, this Summer Training will include an emphasis on helping boys in ways that also help girls and others.
Keynotes
We are living in a complex age, one in which children are overusing digital and tech, our definitions of sex and gender are being negotiated in social media, academe, and our schools, violence surrounds us, and teachers and parents feel almost desperate for tools to help the children in their care.
In this dynamic keynote presentation, Dr. Gurian will explore how the minds of boys and girls learn and grow, including brain differences that impact K – 12 education, early childhood, family life, and social emotional development throughout the lifespan. He will provide insight into best teaching, parenting, counseling, and mentoring practices targeted to sex of the brain.
Michael’s presentation include PET, SPECT, and MRI scans that display sexual dimorphism (male/female brain differences) as he focuses on educating, raising, and counseling boys, and educating, raising, and counseling girls. He will also show brain scans that help us understand the whole gender spectrum.
Some of Michael’s most recent books are Saving Our Sons, The Minds of Girls, and Boys, A Rescue Plan, with Sean Kullman. We hope you will read one or more these books at your convenience. In the afternoon workshops, Michael will strategize topics from the keynotes and answer questions participants have from their own educational and community work.
Dr. Gurian’s second keynote is a deep dive into what boys need in an era that has awakened to the boy crisis–the now-acknowledged loss of boys from pre-schools, schools, homes, community, and purpose. While inclusive comparisons will be made with girls and others, this keynote will focus mainly on helping boys, including helping boys with trauma-informed education from a brain-based perspective.
Dr. Gurian will explore how pre-school classrooms, schools, playgrounds, and homes may mismatch with male neurobiology as we grapple with what boys need, both in standards of care and evaluation. There is implicit bias against males we can explore and heal. There is also a “trauma advantage” in childhood if we look at boys in trauma and boys at risk from a lens of resilience. Dr. Gurian will link this advantage to gender-specific, poverty-sensitive, and trauma-informed strategies for helping children learn resilience.
A product of significant childhood trauma, Michael scores a 7 out of 10 on the Adverse Childhood Experiences, ACE survey. The publication of his young adult novel, The Stone Boys, made public some of that childhood trauma and his memoirs continued that exploration with brain science connected to story. We hope you will read The Stone Boys (available on amazon.com and other outlets) and/or The Storm In My Mother’s Eyes and My Darling, You’ve Flown Away (michaelgurian.substack.com) ahead of time for a deep dive into potential male trauma-responses and resilience-development.
Obstacles are built into life as elemental motivators of maturity. This keynote, focusing on trauma and the development of resilience, can also help heal adults on their own journey. Saving our sons is as much about exploring ourselves as it is about helping one boy at a time, and one person at a time, thrive in a complex society and complex schools.
Director of the Global Initiative for Boys and Men, award winning educator, and expert in various states and around the world on what is happening with boys and boyhood, Sean Kullman has pioneered political efforts to help schools, states, and government agencies create policies that help boys without harming girls. His substack, InHisWords, often features these efforts, and is always a compelling read.
With Michael Gurian, Sean has written Boys, A Rescue Plan, which is being used by schools, parents, and policy makers to focus on what boys need. The subtitle of the book, Moving Beyond The Politics of Masculinity to Healthy Male Development, reveals the angle of the book–that our culture must look at who boys are by nature and meet those needs rather than getting too caught up in culture conversations over masculinity.
In this keynote, Sean focuses on interesting politics and practical strategies for solving the issues boys and their caregivers, teachers, and community members face. A long time advocate for the Gurian Institute’s school-focused programs, Sean will explore how effective and useful the Boys and Girls Learn Differently work has been in schools he has worked in. His research, data, and passion will powerfully affect your perceptions of what is going on and what is needed.
Michael Gurian will join Sean for part of this keynote to discuss the issues and topics and ask Sean questions that Sean is uniquely qualified to answer. To learn more about Sean Kullman, visit The Global Initiative for Boys and Men.
We encourage groups to come to our events because that can bring systemic change to buildings, schools, and communities. Our keynotes and workshops cover children from birth – college age.
We have group registration discounts available for 5 or more or 20 or more. For more information on the group options or with any questions, please email us at info@gurianinstitute.com.
Pay via Pay Pal or Credit Card here. After paying, please send your preferred email address to info@gurianinstitute.com so that we can send you a registration/welcome email. This button only handles individual payments of $345.00 per person: if you would like to send a group, please contact Dakota Hoyt at info@gurianinstitute.com. Let her know the number of people you would like to register. She will arrange a group registration with you.
This Keynote will focus on the newest science of digital life in children. Dr. Gurian will explore how to help schools, teachers, and children use tech safely and effectively. Overuse of social media and tech is a national mental health problem, yet tech is here to stay, especially with expanding use of AI by children and adults. Limiting screen time–which is necessary and important–is not the whole story.
This keynote focuses on tech use as both a positive and negative in children’s lives. Dr. Gurian looks carefully at the neural connection between tech use, especially among young children, and then brain issues later. Because some schools are one-to-one, he will bring parents into the equation, who may need to cut back on child tech use at home so that teachers can use tech in school. Dr. Gurian will also explore specific tech issues faced by boys and by girls–some are the same but many include brain difference and brain different responses to tech and screen time.
Some schools are going to a no-phone-during-the-school-day policy, and Michael will endorse that with brain science to show why it is a good plan. Other schools are going toward more hands-on, project-driven, and nature-based learning. Michael will provide brain research that also supports this direction in education. In this dynamic and moving keynote, Michael will provide insight and tools, strategies, and real-time conversations you can have with children as their parents and teachers to help them navigate their increasingly intense digital world.
Diane Roberts, Bonus Keynote, Solving the Classroom Management Puzzle, Including a Special Emphasis on Working with Diverse Learners
For more than two decades, Diane Roberts was a teacher and administrator in public education. She recently retired and is trained in restorative practices, AVID, positive behavior intervention and supports, and youth mental health first aid. Her specialties are Classroom Management and Inclusive Teaching Practices.
Diane served as a member of the Charles County Public Schools Equity Task Force, the Superintendent’s Task Force on the African American Employee Experience, and was group facilitator and pilot school leader for the Task Force on Achieving Academic Equity and Excellence for Black Boys for the Maryland State Department of Education.
As a Gurian Institute Certified Trainer, she has provided Boys and Girls Learn Differently training as well as Classroom Management training for Pilot schools in the Maryland Initiative. A dynamic and inspiring presenter, Diane will explore the challenges teachers face, how to leverage the science and strategies in classrooms and buildings, how to focus compassionately on the needs of diverse learners, and how to increase parent involvement in student self-management.
To learn more about Diane Roberts, please click https://gurianinstitute.com/member/diane-roberts/
Bonus Keynote, Authentic Fatherhood for Preschool Kids and Beyond
IAG Solutions, LLC, led by Marion Hill & Edward Casillas, specializes in designing and implementing innovative fatherhood and family-strengthening programs. For more than 20 years, Marion was Program Coordinator of Head Start of Phoenix. With extensive expertise in community-based services, IAG Solutions offers strategic leadership, training, and technical assistance to foster responsible fatherhood, improve family dynamics, and promote community resilience—as evidenced by its fatherhood program, Dad Together & M.A.N.C.A.V.E.
In this bonus keynote, Marion & Edward share proven strategies and best practices for developing effective fatherhood programs for fathers and children of all ages. Learn how to implement culturally responsive, trauma-informed initiatives that strengthen families, foster responsible father engagement, and create lasting community impact. This bonus keynote is an opportunity to enhance your organization’s capacity to support families and build resilient communities.
Bonus Panel: What Boys Need In School from an Asian Perspective, with Dr. Mark Ryan and Four Students at Army and Navy Academy
We asked four boys from Asia, who are students at Army and Navy Academy, a boarding school for boys on the Pacific Ocean in Carlsbad, CA, and a Gurian Center for Educational Excellence, to discuss what boys need in school from their perspectives both as young men and also young men born and raised in Asia. Dr. Mark Ryan, Dean of Academics at Army and Navy Academy, led this panel, asking questions and engaging the young men in dialogue on key themes. This recorded video is illuminating.
Hanliang (Jack) Niu (China) Grade 12, Nam Nguyen (Vietnam), Grade 9, Renya Suzuki (Japan), Grade 12, and Mingjun (Jarvis) Wang (China), Grade 11 join Dr. Mark Ryan for this Panel discussion.
What Participants Have Said About Summer Training Institutes
“Mind blowing! Our schools brings a team to this event every year to learn the newest brain-based research. The Gurian Institute emphasizes strategies we can apply in classrooms immediately. This is some of the best PD I have ever been involved in.``
``For more than ten years, the Gurian Institute has been working in early childhood programs, including ours. The strategies and the training on the brains of boys and girls has changed the way we do things. Our teachers are more successful now, especially with the boys who can sometimes confuse early childhood educators.``
``Thank you for making this work possible! Every year our teachers leave with leading edge theory and a huge toolbox of strategies they can use right away. As a school principal, I also appreciate including parents in the groups we bring to the zoom event: The school/family connection is so important for helping our children learn best.``
“I am that guy who hates to sit for an PD of any kind. The GI Summer Institute is an exception to my self-imposed rule (and I don't just sit...I wander around the room as I watch and listen). The use of brain scans by Michael Gurian and GI taught me why I and my students, especially my boys, do what they do. This is some of the best training I have ever had and I've been a teacher and administrator for 31 years.”
THE GURIAN SUMMER TRAINING INSTITUTE
VIRTUAL AND ONLINE
Ensuring Academic and Social-Emotional Success for All Children, Pre-School to College
To register, scroll down to the button.
To register groups of five or more, email info@gurianinstitute.com
Boys and Girls Learn Differently Training
The Human Brain: Setting the Stage, with Dr. Michael Gurian (for Saturday Morning, June 27). Body, mind, and soul are not three isolated systems. Intricately woven together, they give us the human experience. In our culture now, our children’s bodies, minds, and souls are experiencing significant stress. This opening session of the conference will link our weekend of training to the deep issues of our time in schools and neighborhoods, and provide a primer on the amazing human brain–both its natural resilience and its potential fragility.
Boys and Girls Learn Differently – Two-Part Strategies Session, with Dr. Michael Gurian and Diane Roberts, Gurian Institute Consulting Director. This two-part session, led by Dr. Michael Gurian, will give participants a tool box full of practical strategies that can be adapted for use in any pre-school through high school classroom to increase teacher effectiveness and make sure the needs of both boys and girls, including the gender spectrum, are met. The two-part workshop will include via video clips that show strategies working in classrooms and schools so that participants can easily model the strategies in their own settings. The workshop includes innovations for coeducational and single sex classrooms, academies, and schools.
Strategies in these sessions will help you inculcate brain-based strategies into pre-school through high school classrooms, the school culture, homes, counseling offices, non-profits, coaching structures, and community organizations to include:
–Brain Breaks
–Integrated physical movement for every 10 – 20 minutes of sitting
–Project-based learning
–Literacy strategies across the curriculum
–Math strategies across the curriculum
–Use of graphic organizers and utilization of graphics before writing
–Use of multi-sensory approaches for transitions
–Culturally sensitive strategies for inclusion
–Adaptation of evaluation techniques and tools in light of boys’ learning differences
–Ways to challenge girls toward leadership and resilience
–Many more strategies for increased teacher, counselor, and coach effectiveness as well as enhanced school climate.
This Training, led by Dr. Michael Gurian on Saturday afternoon continues on Sunday with how the Boys and Girls Learn Differently Training works in one school, Army and Navy Academy, including its staff, teachers, and students (see below). The Conference will then conclude with a dynamic action planning session led by Dr. Mark Ryan, Gurian Master Trainer at Army and Navy Academy, and Dr. Michael Gurian.
As a bonus workshop that gives yet another practitioner’s view of how to teach the strategies, Gurian Consulting Director and Master Trainer, Diane Roberts, who is not available on the day of the workshop, will pre-record her two-part Saturday Boys and Girls Learn Differently training so that participants get Dr. Gurian’s Saturday teaching and that of a recently former classroom teacher and principal who inculcated Gurian educational theory and strategies into her school system in Maryland. See how this happened in this blog post from Diane Roberts:https://gurianinstitute.com/how-one-school-used-gi-to-change-its-culture/.
How the Boys and Girls Learn Differently Training works in One School, with Barry Shreiar, Dr. Mark Ryan, and Army and Navy Academy Staff, Teachers, and Students
Barry Shreiar and Mark Ryan are President and Dean of Academics, respectively, of Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, CA. The Academy is a Gurian Model School and Gurian Center for Educational Excellence. Mr. Shreiar, Dr. Ryan, and the Gurian Institute team have asked GI Certified Trainers and staff at the Academy to videotape Gurian strategies being used in classrooms and in the school community. These staff and teachers will appear in the penultimate session at the Summer Training Institute to show their strategies, via short videos, and discuss how they utilize the strategies and take questions from conference participants on rationale, technique, and impact.
By registering for this Zoom Event and its video recordings, you are agreeing to the following:
- I will not share the videos, links, or materials unless the other person has paid for the event.
- I will not record any of the sessions in any way (screen shots, personal video or audio recordings, and/or similar capturing of content, people, or discussions).
- I understand that the Gurian Institute is not responsible for my connection to the internet.
- I understand that my face or image may be used without compensation by GI e.g., via a group screen shot used in the future on its website.
Training Schedule
Welcome to our 2026 Summer Training Institute!
All times listed are Pacific Time.
Saturday, June 27
8:30 – 8:50 The Human Brain: Setting the Stage with Dr. Michael Gurian (Pre-recorded).
9:00 – 10:15 First Keynote, Michael Gurian, The Minds of Boys and Girls: A Science-Based Approach to Social Emotional and Academic Education.
Bonus Keynote, Watch Anytime: Authentic Fatherhood for Pre-School Children and Beyond, with Marion Hill and Edward Casillas.
Break
10:30 – 11:45 Second Keynote, Michael Gurian, Saving Our Sons: Gender-Specific, Trauma-Informed, and Poverty-Sensitive Strategies for Helping Our Boys Thrive in an Age of Boy Crisis.
Bonus Keynote, Watch Anytime: Boys, A Rescue Plan: Moving Beyond the Politics of Masculinity to Healthy Male Development, with Sean Kullman.
11:45 – 12:30 Lunchtime and Break.
12:30 – 2:45 Training Session. Boys and Girls Learn Differently Strategies Parts I with Dr. Michael Gurian. This session will include time for Q @ A on the morning keynotes. Dr. Gurian will take us in depth on strategies and applications with numerous successful strategies. Today and tomorrow, he will show video clips of strategies in use in classrooms at Gurian Model Schools and interactively discuss how to use them in your school or other environment.
Bonus Session, Recorded by Diane Roberts, How One School Inculcated the Boys and Girls Learn Differently Strategies, Watch After June 27.
Break
3:00 – 3:30 Meeting with Dr. Michael Gurian, Dakota Hoyt, and people interested in becoming Gurian Certified Trainers. Renewing Certified Trainers are also welcome.
Sunday, June 28
9:00 – 10:15 Keynote, Dr. Michael Gurian. Saving the Digital Child: Strategies for Empowering and Protecting Our Children in a Digital World.
Bonus Keynote, Watch Anytime. Solving the Classroom Management Puzzle, with Diane Roberts.
Break
10:30 – 11:45 Boys and Girls Learn Differently Part II and the Science of Literacy. This session will continue in depth work on strategies and applications with more successful strategies, many of them improving literacy and reading, viewed on video clips from classrooms and interactively discussed.
11:45 – 12:30 Lunch Hour and Break
12:30 – 2:00 Q & A, Afternoon Workshop on Strategies, including the science of literacy, with Army and Navy Certified Trainers, Barry Shreiar, President of Army and Navy Academy, and Dr. Michael Gurian.
Bonus Keynote, Watch Anytime. What Boys Need in School from an Asian Perspective, with Dr. Mark Ryan and four Asian students from Army and Navy Academy.
Break
2:15 – 3:00 Q & A and Action Planning Based on Theory and Strategies with Dakota Hoyt and Dr. Michael Gurian.
End of Day 2.
Logistics for the Recordings
You will be sent an email that includes a password protected website on which recordings of the presentations will be housed. These recorded sessions and this website are only for use by paid registrants of the SI. Please make sure we have your best email address (i.e. one that will not go to your spam folder!) for correspondence and access.
The sessions over the weekend will be recorded then available once uploaded for viewing through July 12, 2026. Thus, you won’t have to miss a single session. Some sessions will be prerecorded and available from June 22 – July 12.
All keynotes and workshops highlight brain sex and gender-friendly theory and strategies applicable to coeducational and single sex classrooms, schools, and academies.
Schedule is subject to change.
Monday Morning – June 29 – Certification of Trainers Session, 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 a.m. for those individuals becoming Gurian Certified Trainers, with Dakota Hoyt, GI Managing Director. To begin the process of becoming a GI Certified Trainer, please visit the Trainer page on www.gurianinstitute.com.
Please send any questions to info@gurianinstitute.com.
Certificates of Participation
Upon request, participants who complete the two days of training (all sessions over the two weeks) are eligible for a Certificate of Participation for 16 hours via email; participants who also complete the Certification training on Monday can receive 20 hours. After you have completed your participation and viewing of the Training Institute Content, please email info@gurianinstitute.com to request your certificate.
Learning and Training Objectives
Describe how the field of gender neuroscience is altering what you know about the psychology and education of children in early childhood, K – 12, and later adolescence.
Discuss specific needs and issues of boys and girls from birth to adulthood, including analysis of the gender spectrum, with focus on both academics and social-emotional development.
Assess how generally institutionalized educational, counseling, and parenting models do or do not fill the specific developmental needs of preschool through high school age girls and boys.
Identify new logic models and strategies for motivation, learning, and behavioral intervention beginning at birth and proceeding into emerging adulthood.
Summarize key stressors and social-emotional factors that differ between girls and boys beginning in early childhood.
Demonstrate new strategies for learning, counseling, and assessment, including strategies for working with highly sensitive girls and boys of all ages.
Implement new strategies and practical tools beyond the training institute, in your own curricular areas and environments.
Target Audience: educators, administrators, counselors, social workers, early childhood specialists, coed and single sex educators, parents, mentors, coaches, government agency professionals, and policy makers working with children and young adults.
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Prices for Registration:
$345.00 per person
$315.00 discount price for 5 or more.
$285.00 discount price for 10 or more.
This button handles individual payments. If you would like to send a group, please contact Dakota at info@gurianinstitute.com. Let her know the number of people you would like to register, and whether you would like to pay via credit card, check, or PO. She will arrange a group registration with you.
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GURIAN SUMMER TRAINING INSTITUTE 2026 - GURIAN INSTITUTE