How to make class fun… enjoy.
Matthew’s April 1st class:
Matthew’s Halloween class:
If you’d like to learn how Matthew Weathers did this, you can find out more here.
Transparent Teaching.
You present a key point, using an overhead as a prompt for yourself. Now it’s the student’s turn to put it in his or her own words. You can number sentences, so that each student takes the odd ones. You can also color-code them so one takes those in blue and the other takes those in red. Everyone stand, mix up to find a partner. On cue, one person translates the sentence into their own words, creating meaning for themselves and maybe others. This is a good way to ensure that everyone understands the material.
Voting With Their Body.
This strategy is a kinesthetic affirmation based on others taking an action to respond by doing something with their body.
As an example, first ask your students to stand up. Ask them to vote with their body. Say, “If you believe this is true, go to that side of the room. If you disagree, go to this side of the room.” Then, they might do an activity such as a pair share.
Before they go sit down, you might say, “Now take in a slow deep breath and hold it…good. Now let it out. If you feel more confident, have a seat.”
Or, “If you’re ready to learn something new, please have a seat.”
Filling “Holes”.
Good for students using a notebook or those with any collection of pages with notes.
Each student finds the weakest page (one he or she’d like more info on) from his or her workbook from the last unit or learning segment. They open that up and leave it exposed.
This activity works best with a “set-up” beforehand. Talk to the students about learning from others and the fact that we all value other’s opinions and that no one can know everything. Remind students in advance, that his is a chance to “give ideas and get ideas,” and it’s not the time for rude comments or love letters.
Students stand up and walk around the room (use music for this one). Make it mandatory that they stop and write on at least one open notebook page. Give students about 3 minutes and keep them focused. Once students have returned to their seats, you can evaluate how many actually did get comments. If they are seated in a cooperative learning group, you can also have students pass their notebooks or the pieces of paper to solicit comments. Then they can share with their team what they learned from the comments.
Be sure to check out our summer workshop on Tools For Maximum Engagement here. It’s filling fast and is one of our more powerful teacher workshops.
photo credit: woodleywonderworks
Today, many of the school- and learning-related disciplines are looking to the brain for answers. There’s no separating the role of the brain and the influence of classroom groupings, lunchroom foods, school architecture, mandated curricula, and state assessments. Each of them affects the brain, and our brain affects each of them. Schools, assessment, environments, and instruction are not bound by one discipline, such as cognitive science, but by multiple disciplines.
In short, schools work to the degree that the brains in the schools are working well. When there’s a mismatch between the brain and the environment, something at a school will suffer.
Schools present countless opportunities to affect students’ brains. Such issues as stress, exercise, nutrition, and social conditions are all relevant, brain-based issues that affect cognition, attention, classroom discipline, attendance, and memory.
Our new understanding is that every school day changes the student’s brain in some way. Once we make those connections, we can make choices in how we prioritize policies and strategies. Here are some of the powerful connections for educators to make.
1. The human brain can and does grow new neurons.
Many survive and become functional. We now know that new neurons are highly correlated with memory, mood, and learning. Of interest to educators is that this process can be regulated by our everyday behaviors. Specifically, it can be enhanced by exercise, lower levels of stress, and good nutrition. Schools can and should influence these variables. This discovery came straight from neuroscientists Gerd Kempermann and Fred Gage.6
2. Social conditions influence our brain in ways we didn’t know before.
The discovery of mirror neurons by Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues at the University of Parma in Italy suggests a vehicle for an imitative reciprocity in our brain.7 This emerging discipline is explored in Social Neuroscience, a new academic journal exploring how social conditions affect the brain. School behaviors are highly social experiences, which become encoded through our sense of reward, acceptance, pain, pleasure, coherence, affinity, and stress. This understanding suggests that we be more active in managing the social environment of students, because students are more affected by it than we thought. It may unlock clues to those with autism, since their mirror neurons are inactive. This discovery suggests that schools should not rely on random social grouping and should work to strengthen prosocial conditions.
3. The ability of the brain to rewire and remap itself by means of neuroplasticity is profound.
The new Journal of Neuroplasticity explores these and related issues. Schools can influence this process through skill-building, reading, meditation, the arts, career and technical education, and thinking skills that build student success. Neuroscientists Michael Merzenich and Paula Tallal verified that when the correct skill-building protocol is used, educators can make positive and significant changes in our brains in a short time.8 Without understanding the “rules for how our brain changes,” educators can waste time and money, and students will fall through the cracks.
4. Chronic stress is a very real issue at schools for both staff and students.
Homeostasis is no longer a guaranteed “set point.” The discovery championed by neuroscientist Bruce McEwen is that a revised metabolic state called “allostasis” is an adjusted new baseline for stress that is evident in the brains of those with anxiety and stress disorders.9 These pathogenic allostatic stress loads are becoming increasingly common and have serious health, learning, and behavior risks. This issue affects attendance, memory, social skills, and cognition. Acute and chronic stress is explored in The International Journal of Stress Management, The Journal of Anxiety, The Journal of Traumatic Stress, and Stress.
5. The old-school view was that either environment or genes decided the outcomes for a student.
We now know that there’s a third option: gene expression. This is the capacity of our genes to respond to chronic or acute environmental input. This new understanding highlights a new vehicle for change in our students. Neuroscientists Bruce Lipton and Ernest Rossi have written about how our everyday behaviors can influence gene expression.10 New journals called Gene Expression, Gene Expression Patterns, and Nature Genetics explore the mechanisms for epigenetic (outside of genes) changes. Evidence suggests that gene expression can be regulated by what we do at schools and that this can enhance or harm long-term change prospects.
6. Good nutrition is about far more than avoiding obesity.
The journals Nutritional Neuroscience and the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition explore the effects on our brain of what we eat. The effects on cognition, memory, attention, stress, and even intelligence are now emerging. Schools that pay attention to nutrition and cognition (not just obesity) will probably support better student achievement. (more…)
Anticipatory traditions.
Doing something once is okay, but creating a positive, predictable and practical tool repeated enough to be called a ritual is even better.
Many are as simple as raising your hand and asking others to raise their hand once they see your hand is up. This simply means you want the group’s attention.
When others see that other’s hands are up, they too raise their hand. Soon, they entire group has their hand up and the room is quiet.
Also: 1) You clap once, then say, “If you can hear me, clap twice.” Then you clap twice and say, “If you can hear me clap three times.” Then you clap three times and say, “If you can hear me, clap four times.” Then you clap four times. By this time, all your audience will be clapping with you and ready for you to jump in and start talking with complete attention.
Comeback Response.
These are strategies that are used the moment the group is back from: 1) yesterday’s class 2) the previous class 3) a break 4) lunch.
Almost any tool, vehicle or group response activity can be used if it is: a) short, b) solves the “return to seats” problem, c) ends in a positive state, d) engages everyone.
An example would be if, when the group’s back, you said, “If you made it back on time, raise your hand and say, ‘Yes!’ Now, turn to your nearest neighbor and say, ‘Welcome back!’”
This aligns the group, reorients them to you and their social
structure and quiets them for a couple of seconds. Naturally, you’ll need to jump
in right after that moment and begin the class before the noise starts up again.
Inhale Slowly.
Breath is affects us powerfully. Stretching helps engagement.
Taking in a deep breath is often a precursor to taking on a challenge or knowing something is coming up. You might say, “Let’s pause for a minute. Take in a slow deep breath… inhale, inhale and hold it. Now, slowly release it out. Very good. Now, one more time. Breathe in slowly, as if you’re taking in a divine gift. A little more… very good. Now, hold it ….and slowly exhale as if you’re releasing all the stress of the day.”
After the breath, there’s a pause in anticipation of the next thing.
photo credit: Thomas Hawk
Demonstrate with the Body.
Say, “We’re going to do something very interesting in just a moment. But first, please stand up.” This raises heart rate and arousal states.
Ask your audience to take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now you, a group leader or assigned person can lead a team, group or those at a small table in some slow stretching.
Now, take a math problem and ask students to use their hands and body to act out the numbers. Use the body to demonstrate connections, links, relationships and key ideas. Your body can make a number, a movement or a show a plant, rock, mineral, cloud or river. They can show prefixes, suffixes or periods (stomp).
Who is Doing the Work?
Any time you have materials to get to the students, get lazy. Under 90% or more of the circumstances, your students should be passing out papers, materials, handouts or any other item.
Organize this through 1) the team leader 2) a volunteer 3) assigned in-class delivery students 4) a quick vote 5) form small impromptu groups, then ask those in them to pick the “fastest runner” or other fun designation.
In other words, if you want more engagement, stop doing the student’s work for them.
Peer Drawings.
They can stand up and use their elbows to draw out a key word for the lesson. Spell out or they can use their head, knee or toes. This gets the epinephrine up!
There are other types of drawings. For example, keep a bag, bowl with some or all of the student names on cards or paper slips. The students do a drum roll on their tables for added suspense. At a point during each class let one student come up to the container and draw out two student names. One of the names gets a standing ovation (pure fun!) and the other gets to answer two questions from the group and they get one “lifeline” (ask another student, or they can look it up on the spot.). The peer pressure is both fun and stressful! If both answered correctly, then win a silly prize or favor.
photo credit: jackdoc101
“Musical arts” or “music-making” means much more than playing music or listening to it. Singing, rap and musicals are also part of the musical arts. In addition, the musical arts include composing music, reading music, analyzing, arranging, notating and creating music.
Neurobiologist Mark Jude Tramo of Harvard Medical School says, “Music is biologically part of human life, just as music is aesthetically part of human life.” Compelling evidence supports the hypothesis that musical arts may provide a positive, significant and lasting benefit to learners. There is no single piece of evidence, but the diversity and depth of supporting material is overwhelming. If this were a court case, the ruling would be music is valuable “beyond reasonable doubt.”
Hard-wired?
Music is part of our biological heritage and is hard-wired into our genes as a survival strategy. If Darwin was right, traits and behaviors which enhance the survival of a species will be selected by nature because they’ll better insure the perpetuation of a species from one generation to the next.
Could the use of music increase survival chances? Cave paintings depicting the use of music go back 70,000 years. Flutes have been found in France dating as far back as 30,000 years. Music, vocalized or played by an individual or sung as social chorus (birds, whales or ape choruses) may have been used to attract a mate. It’s possible others were attracted to those producing louder,better or more pleasing sounds. In addition, music was often used for intra-group communication which increased group safety and identification. Likely, robust vocalization improved notification of pending threat or environmental changes.
Music may be used to increase harmony and social bonding among those playing it or listening to it. Music may have also contributed to changes in the brain (i.e. verbal memory, counting and self-discipline), which may have enhanced survival. And, finally, making music probably strengthened listening skills, certainly a valued trait when hunting game or escaping predators. In fact, the human brain appears to have highly specialized structures for music: For instance, melodic contour, has corresponding brain cells that process it. Other cells in the mammalian auditory cortex have been found that process specific harmonic relationships (Sutter & Schreiner 1991). The rhythmic, temporal qualities have been linked to a specific group of neurons in the auditory cortex.
Music Enhances Cognition
Music-making contributes to the development of essential cognitive systems which include reasoning, creativity, thinking, decision-making and problem-solving. It does this by activating and synchronizing neural firing patterns that orchestrate and connect multiple brain sites. The neural synchrony ensembles increase both the brain’s efficiency and effectiveness. These key systems are well-connected and located in the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes as well as the cerebellum. The strongest studies support the value of music-making in spatial reasoning, creativity and generalized mathematical skills. The activation between family groups of cortical neurons assist the cortex in pattern recognition. (more…)
So many who work in the arts have asked me if the arts are good for learning and the brain. It is common knowledge that arts can arouse passions.
The brain-based approach is to check out how it interfaces with the brain. Some believe that arts should be in school simply because many students thoroughly enjoy them. Others advocate a higher curriculum standing for arts on equal footing with math, science and language arts.
There’s real science behind why arts should be in every kid’s school experience, every day. There is now substantial evidence that arts are a stand-alone discipline. I would argue that arts support the neurobiological development of the brain in ways that enhance the social and academic performance of our students.
You’ll see that arts alter the neurobiological trajectory of the brain in ways that strengthen the academic and social skills unlike any other intervention. Arts change the brain like no other discipline. When schools reject arts, kids lose out. For students to do well in school, their brain must function in ways that are academically and socially useful.
What do the arts bring to the table?
The teachers are constantly trying new classroom strategies learned from books, trainings and conferences. The administrators are constantly inspiring, motivating and coaching their staff in endless ways to sharpen their collective saw. Unfortunately, this approach of trying to get better performance from students and staff can become overwhelming.
There seems to be no limit to the quantity of available strategies, so it becomes very much of a hit or miss approach. This results in a dizzying and endless stream of programs, themes, missions, projects and, ultimately, burnout among many educators.
But what if there was another way to go about this process. What if you could do less and get more? What is actually different in the brain that matters in the school context? The brain-based approach is to find out what works in the brain that runs academic achievement.
I suggest the existence of multiple operating systems in the human brain, each of which actually determine success in school. These operating systems (e.g. academic, social, athletic, survival) contribute towards your student success. But ultimately, since schools are all expected to reach performance goals, the academic operating system is of most relevance. Understanding this system is critical to a school’s success. (more…)
Host a staff development workshop on your own, using Jensen Learning’s workshop to go. It’s a program that you can deliver school-wide with positive, practical, research-based methods that can skyrocket student achievement scores.
Click here to find out how your school can overcome the challenges of teaching kids in poverty.
Music for Call-backs.
A musical deadline can create anticipation. Use a set-up song; otherwise known as a cue-signal or “call-back” song to get attention for a beginning or start time. This song should have the following criteria:
1) it’s short—under 3 minutes
2) it’s has either positive lyrics or no lyrics,
3) it ends with a clear predictable “pa-dum” and does not trail off, fading slowly into the quiet.
Songs like “Pretty Woman” or “Chantilly Lace” can work. Make an agreement that everyone must be in their seats, ready to learn before the song ends. Then enforce it by walking around the first few times you play it and “rounding up” everyone so they know you mean it.
Walking Fast to the Music.
Use this as a tool for “mixing” up the group. Sometimes a class forms too-familiar “social niches.” This means accountability drops because your audience becomes TOO familiar with each other. They stick up for and cover for each other, dropping accountability for thinking and learning. What’s needed is a vehicle for mixing up the group.
Music can do that because people can “lose themselves” in the music. It works this way. Say, “It’s time for a change of pace. Take in a deep breath… and let it out. Great. Now, please stand up. In 10 seconds, the music will begin. When it does, walk away from your chair. You can go anywhere in the room quickly until the music stops, then wait for directions.” The directions are usually, “Find a neighbor. Hand up if you need a partner. Now, here’s who goes first…”
You might do a think-pair-share activity next.
We hope you find these strategies valuable. Please join is at our summer workshop on Tools For Maximum Engagement here. It’s filling fast and is one of our more powerful teacher workshops.
photo credit: Horia Varlan
Can Relevant Research Help Your Students Score Higher on Your Upcoming BIG Tests?
Let’s focus on something I ordinarily NEVER focus on: testing. As much as I dislike the types, timing, policies, content and uses of existing state and national tests (is there anything I left out?), the reality is, we’d rather our students get higher than lower scores.
I’ll focus on three things that can help your students improve their chances to score up to their potential.
By the way, kids never score above their potential; they’re just not going to randomly make enough lucky right answers time after time after time. (In statistics, it’s called regression to the mean.) But, they often underperform for a host of reasons, even when they should perform much better.
While we could focus on dozens of variables that influence standardized testing, we’ll focus on 1) brain chemistry 2) priming and 3) episodic memory triggers.
Brain Chemistry and Testing
There are three chemicals to focus on for optimal testing results: 1) dopamine (It generally facilitates informational transfer within limbic and cortical networks to promote working memory and reward-seeking behavior, says Luciana, et al. 1998), 2) noradrenaline (It generally promotes a more narrowed focus, sharper attention and improved memory. This system plays a specific role in the regulation of cognitive functions, including sustained attention, working memory, impulse control, and the planning of voluntary behavior.), and 3) glucose (It provides short term energy and, in low to moderate doses, promotes enhanced memory. (Krebs DL, Parent MB., 2005.)
The Power of Priming and Positive Suggestion
Can you influence testing outcomes by “prepping” their brain for success? It has long been proposed that motivational responses that were subtle could serve as priming to affect academic performance. A recent study showed that yes, priming can help students do better. You can prep the brain several ways. One is by showing and asking the students to write them the letter “A” in advance in a certain way. We’ll tell you “how” in a moment. The other one of our two “prepping” strategies is to give peppermints to all kids for your final review, then use peppermints again at the time of the big test (Barker, et al. 2003.) This raises attentional levels and provides glucose for learning and memory.
Location of the Test Itself
We feel stressed when we are in a novel location. Not surprisingly, stress impaired memory when kids were assessed in an unfamiliar surrounding, but not when assessed in the original learning location. (Schwabe L., and Wolf OT., 2009.) In short, if your students can’t be in the test-givers room to learn the material, at least bring them into the testing room and do a review in that room days before the event.
In the paragraphs above, we’ve offered three “angles” for improving the testing outcome. First, the science is solid when you consider each strategy separately. But combined, these strategies may help you get to the next level. The chef, Emeril, would say they could give you “BAM!”… Power. (more…)
