E-Learning Insights from Digital Media Expert Nicole Dreiske

There are few things harder than getting your child to focus on schoolwork outside the classroom, let alone inside one. Now that home and school are one in the same for so many students, their e-learning experience can quickly become chaos.

That’s where digital media expert and education innovator Nicole Dreiske, also founder and executive director of the nonprofit International Children’s Media Center (ICMC), comes in. Through her research-backed program, Fast FOCUS!, teachers nationwide can diffuse disruptions and re-engage students in a matter of seconds. It may sound too good to be true, but Dreiske has presented it to more than 3,600 educators and 500,000 students, and it has worked time and time again.

“We work with educators to teach them super-fast brain-body exercises, hand play, and articulation activities that raise kids’ energy and engagement and unify classroom focus,” said Dreiske in an interview with FOX 32 Chicago. “So think about it, the hand play can be super high energy, or it can be really focused like yoga for the fingers, so doing these very brief exercises improves kids’ connection to the remote learning without taking time away from the lessons teachers have planned.”

Fast FOCUS! was originally developed for the in-person classroom experience, but has nonetheless proven to be an invaluable resource for the virtual classroom.

Children in the 21st century now spend more than 1,600 hours per year looking at screens. Whether they’re on social media, watching videos, or playing video games, kids have a million things to distract themselves with, which, for an all-digital classroom, becomes a major issue. With that in mind, the Fast FOCUS! program emphasizes physical and vocal activity in order to keep the mind of the child “awake.”

Nicole believes that once young students cross that first hurdle of mastering Zoom or Google Meets, educators will need the confidence to know that they can engage students at a distance. There’s a lot of research showing that exercise and physical activity drive brain function, particularly in one study by the National Institutes of Health called “Exercise and Children’s Intelligence Cognition and Academic Achievement.” She works with educators to provide them with portable activities from her FastFOCUS! program that ensures students use physical energy and concentration to engage their minds. In return, the elevated focus supports better learning in any lesson the teacher uses in the virtual classroom.

"There’s a lot of research showing that exercise and physical activity drive brain function, and one study by the National Institutes of Health is called Exercise and Children’s Intelligence Cognition and Academic Achievement, but you can’t tell kids to drop to the floor and give me 50 pushups before reading a book, so what we’ve done is create micro movements and brain-body exercises that teachers and kids can do anywhere,” said Dreiske. “You think about priming a pump, we prime the mind and body for e-learning by giving kids quick ways to use their physical energy to engage their minds. First, we teach about energy and get them to define energy, then we teach about concentration and keeping our minds awake. Once students are using energy and concentration to keep their minds awake, that elevated focus supports better learning in any lesson the teacher uses.”

Educators from around the world have sung its praises. Kindergarten teacher Madison Brake has been teaching her students remotely since March, and has had exceptional results from implementing Nicole’s techniques into her daily lesson plan.

“Every day I utilize the skills I learned from Nicole,” said Brake. “These techniques truly supplement my training as an educator, ensuring that the kids are engaged and ready to learn.”