For the past couple of years the teachers at New Haven Residential Treatment Center have embraced a philosophy of teaching called Quantum Learning. Quantum Learning is a body of learning methods and philosophies that integrate how the brain organizes information and includes immediate classroom implementation. The methodology of Quantum Learning takes research-based best practices in education into a unified whole, making content more meaningful and relevant to students' lives. The goal of Quantum Learning is to integrate learning and life skills, resulting in students who become effective lifelong learners - responsible for their own education.

The Quantum Learning Design Frame that drives the presentation and facilitation of content was formulated from many years of research on effective delivery methods and is the structural frame upon which content is designed to ensure student mastery. As a school, we have implemented the Quantum Learning approach in our classrooms. This has been achieved through a number of different activities and methods. We have focused mainly on VAK teaching which we felt encompassed the best of what Quantum Learning had to offer.

VAK stands for visual, auditory and kinesthetic. All individuals have a certain learning modality for which they have a preference. Each student in the classroom will prefer one of these methods of receiving information more than another. If instruction in the classroom matches their preferred modality, they are more likely to remember and effectively process information.

First, the students completed a modality survey which highlighted their areas of preference. Next, the teachers also completed the VAK modality preference to discover which style they preferred. Teachers are most likely to teach according to the modality they themselves prefer so it is important for each teacher to know which style they rely most on in the classroom. Based on these areas of preference, each department implemented different strategies and techniques to better facilitate student learning.

Quantum Learning provides teachers with a number of methods to engage students in a visual sense, an auditory sense and a kinesthetic sense. By utilizing these techniques and bringing more VAK strategies into the classroom, we have attempted to better meet the needs and learning strengths of our students to help them become stronger academically.