Tag Archive for: Eric Jensen

Fool-Proof Strategies to Jump Start any New Habit

It’s Time to Do a Simple Experiment at Work;

Have you ever tried to start a new exercise routine, only to quit a week or two into it? Or had the best of intentions to give students more frequent and specific feedback, but never got it jumpstarted? Believe it or not – even the best of intentions and motivation only get you so far … and in many cases it’s not very far.

The key to successful habit formation is NOT you. Yes – you read that right! Prepare to be SHOCKED to learn what you are missing and how EASY it can be to become a pro at starting and breaking habits. Your life is about to get really good, really fast. Read more

How to Get the Brains of Your Students to Change

brain based learning

I am on a mission to help more educators become extraordinary this year. In this article, you will get an insight into how our brain works. Stay a learner for a moment and we can help you achieve the best professional year of your life.

Today, we will lock down one of the most core understandings about the human brain: how to get it to change. Let’s learn how to do this right. The reason you may care about this is because… Read more

Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind

Engaging-Students-Poverty- Brain Based In this galvanizing follow-up to the best-selling Teaching with Poverty in Mind, Eric Jensen digs deeper into engagement as the key factor in the academic success of economically disadvantaged students. Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind reveals:

  • Smart, purposeful engagement strategies that all teachers can use to expand students’ cognitive capacity, increase motivation and effort, and build deep, enduring understanding of content.
  • The (until-now) unwritten rules for engagement that are essential for increasing student achievement.
  • How automating engagement in the classroom can help teachers use instructional time more effectively and empower students to take ownership of their learning.
  • Steps you can take to create an exciting yet realistic implementation plan.

Too many of our most vulnerable students are tuning out and dropping out because of our failure to engage them. It’s time to set the bar higher. Until we make school the best part of every student’s day, we will struggle with attendance, achievement, and graduation rates.

This timely resource will help you take immediate action to revitalize and enrich your practice so that all your students may thrive in school and beyond. In Eric’s latest book, he shares student engagement strategies that are strongly tied to socioeconomic status. Learn the seven factors that are crucial to engaging disadvantaged students: health and nutrition, vocabulary, effort and energy, mind-set, cognitive capacity, relationships, and stress level. To address those factors, Jensen provides actions and solutions you can use in every day practice to:

  • Cultivate a high-energy and positive classroom climate that fosters success every day.
  • Build your students’ capacity to focus their attention, think critically, process content, and recall it from memory.
  • Create greater excitement that spurs student motivation and effort.
  • Develop students’ deep, sustained understanding of content.

The strategies in this book will empower you to automate student engagement efforts in your classroom and school so more struggling students succeed. You can get it at Amazon by clicking here.

Eric Jensen’s Extreme Schools: How Miracles Happen

foster-elementary

This is an update on an “Extreme School” in Los Angeles County, California. Not long ago, this high K-5 poverty school had neighborhood drug dealers coming ON CAMPUS. The outside aesthetics of the school were deplorable, with deteriorating buildings. The district rates schools (academically) on a scale from 1-10 (with 10 as highest). This school was a “1” out of ten (the lowest possible ranking.

RESULTS? Today, it is the envy of the school district! What did they do and how did it turn out? Are you ready for another miracle? Read more

Eric Jensen’s Teacher Workshops

When students attend an Eric Jensen event, the content is made compelling, memorable and engaging. Here’s a follow-up video on a recent training sent by Vickie Kaufman.

Click here to check out our upcoming Teacher Workshops.

Turnaround Tools for the Teenage Brain – Eric Jensen’s Latest Book

Turnaround Tools Teenage Brain

New book announcement: “Turnaround Tools for the Teenage Brain”

Learn how to help underperforming students become lifelong learners.

With countless teens struggling in school, the stakes are higher than every before.

Turnaround Tools for the Teenage Brain offers teachers research-based and classroom-tested strategies that prove every student (no matter what their past experience) can learn and succeed, if you know how to do it. This new book shows you how to do.

Education experts Eric Jensen and Carole Snider reveal one powerful tool after another to help teachers, parents and support staff be the real difference-makers in their student’s lives.  Drawing on cutting-edge science, this breakthrough book outlines the core mindsets and actionable strategies that are needed to increase student effort, build attitudes, and improve behaviors.

Step by step, teachers can learn how to tap into a student’s internal motivation to help them become determined learners. The authors also offer guidelines on how and when to use “workarounds” or lasting interventions that rely on the “rules” of how the brain changes.  In addition, the authors include vital information on the role of nutrition, exercise, and life balance on academic achievement.

From the very first chapter, to the final page, you’ll find solutions to many of your toughest challenges so they can become become excited, lifelong learners.

Praise for Turnaround Tools for the Teenage Brain

“I highly recommend this book for all secondary educators. Jensen and Snider have written a teacher-friendly book filled with proactive strategies to reclaim struggling students.” —Dr. Sheryl Feinstein, Department Chair, Education, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD; author, Secrets of the Teenage Brain

The Authors

Eric Jensen, CEO of Jensen Learning,  is a former teacher and cofounder of SuperCamp, the nation’s most innovative and largest academic enrichment program. He is the author of numerous popular books about teaching and brain-based education, including Teaching With Poverty in Mind (ASCD) and Enriching the Brain (Jossey-Bass).

Carole Snider is a former teacher and school counselor. She serves on the state governing board for Ohio school counselors, is an adjunct professor, and recently authored the graduate course, Succeeding with Students of Poverty.

This book clearly shows you how to succeed with teens. Research, background and classroom-tested strategies you can use immediately.

  • Build effort so kids will work hard
  • Create better attitudes so kids choose to succeed
  • Build learning capacity so kids can succeed
  • Understand the “different” learners to help them succeed
  • Teach strategies so kids know HOW to succeed
  • Give guidance so teens have a lifelong path to succeed

This is the book that gives you immediate tools, right away.

164 pages of  inspiring ideas, inspiring stories and focused strategies.

You can purchase the book at Amazon by clicking here. Kindle version available now.

10 Powerful Steps for Improved Learning

Brain Based Teaching and Teacher Workshops

How to Make Your Job Easier and Give Students an Amazing Gift
for a Lifetime:

It’s the “Gift” of “How to Learn”

Usually, we feature a column on how to be a better teacher, administrator or trainer. This month, we’ll pause for a moment and work at the other end of the process. What do STUDENTS NEED to be doing to become far more effective learners? Some of the research tells us things we already knew.

PART ONE: The Research

We all know that teaching kids HOW to get more organized for study is important. But there might be a few surprises that are downright counter-intuitive. For example, you’ll be surprised to find out that quizzing MORE OFTEN actually promotes learning. But that’s just one of the 10 powerful steps for improved learning. If you are in a position to share these with staff that can reach students, please share this upcoming list. The research for this month was collected by the following scientists:

Harold Pashler (Chair)
University of California, San Diego
Patrice M. Bain
Columbia Middle School, Illinois
Brian A. Bottge
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Arthur Graesser
University of Memphis
Kenneth Koedinger
Carnegie Mellon University
Mark McDaniel
Washington University in St. Louis
Janet Metcalfe
Columbia University

Typically, I use this area to fill your brain with the “why” behind all the action. This month, it’s posted, so you can look it up. The full research document is posted on the web. Only one of 50 of you either: 1) work with students in this capacity, or, 2) are hungry enough to look it up. The document can be downloaded here (pdf).

The research tells us that the following suggestions have reasonable scientific support for them. If something’s not a good idea, you won’t hear it from me. But wait, there’s more! The online research posted 7 ideas and I have added 3 of my own, for a total of 10. Read more

Extreme Schools: Miracles Happen Every Day

Roosevelt Elementary School

Our featured “Extreme School” is…Well, let a staff member tell her story…

“We needed help; our socio-economically deprived children were not progressing as we wished that they would. About 77% of our students are served by free lunch and free breakfast, and we knew that those students specifically needed to be able to read to realize their maximum success.

Many people thought that this school out in the rural cotton fields probably could not do much differently or much better. After all, we serve the local Children’s Home and the local Boys’ Ranch. These students also had some stumbling blocks in their way toward success.”

What did they do and how did it turn out? Read more

Eric Jensen Shares His Thoughts On Motivation and Education

Eric Jensen was asked how to for his perspective on motivation in the classroom… his answer is found in the video below.

Can Learning And Fun Go Together?

Master trainer Eric Jensen knows how to blend learning, solid research and fun for everyone. Here’s a quick visit to a recent training for Leander School District in Texas. Take a look at the engagement, the smiles and full participation that you get with every Jensen workshop.

By the way, topics like “Teaching with Poverty in Mind” don’t have to be serious or “heavy.” That’s the topic of this training. Every single teacher and administrator left this event with a clear plan for what to do next and they had their staff aligned with the goals.

If you’d like to attend one of our summer teacher workshops, time is running out. Dates are filling fast, so you’ll want to register today. Click here for a list of available teacher workshops