Doctoral Capstone Report: Brain Breaks with the Joseph Maley Foundation

Abstract

In order to address the needs of elementary school teachers and students in the Indianapolis area in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Person-Envionrment-Occupation-Performance Model of occupational therapy was utilized to develop Brain Breaks. Brain Breaks in the category of mindfulness were created to be shared with Indianapolis area schools with the goal of addressing both physical and mental health of students in the community while they adhere to social distancing guidelines. To create easily accessible and useful content for teachers, Brain Breaks were developed in the context of videos with corresponding traditional style teacher guides. Literature suggests that students engaging in mind-body activities during the day may improve attention-to-task and overall enjoyment of lessons.