Tag Archive for: Poverty

Teaching Kids In Poverty.

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.

Teachers: How Much Testing is Too Much?

You May Be Surprised at What the Research Says

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear an educator grumble about “the evils of testing.” You know what I mean: the evil empire of state and national tests that drive staff and kids into stressful zombies who learn only test-taking skills and to dislike school.

Along with, “How’s the weather?” the testing complaints have become the single common denominator in conversations about kids and learning. But what if everything you believed about testing was wrong? What if the actual science behind it was different than what you thought?

Is your school a Title 1 or Title II school? Are you struggling with raising achievement in kids who grow up in poverty?

One solution is the new ASCD book, Teaching with Poverty in Mind just released. But several, brand-new discoveries in neuroscience are now spring-boarding a revolution in how we can change the student and the school for low-income students. I’ve just had to completely reinvent my already cutting-edge workshop on poverty.

You can get it two ways: 1) Attend our 4-day event this summer for details) or, 2) bring me to your school. Yes, I am now offering this breakthrough event to individual schools (like yours). My available dates are scarce, but the kids at your school deserve to achieve. I’ll show your staff exactly how to do it. If you want to start seeing dramatic results at your school, contact my wife Diane at diane@jlcbrain.com

Here’s what the genuine “real deal” research says about our brain, testing and learning.

First of all, let’s be clear about it: there are many, many types of testing. We don’t need to list them all here, but there are as many types of testing as there are types of learning.

The list might include:

1) objective and subjective
2) abstract and concrete
3) deductive and inductive
4) classroom or “on-site” real world
5) recall or constructive knowledge
6) priming quality or in-depth knowledge and
7) etc.

In short, one must be very, very careful about generalizing the results of one type of testing to ALL types of testing.

So, given these variables, what does the research say? Read more

Factors that Contribute Most to Student Achievement

Brain Based Learning

What Does the Neuroscience Say Are the Factors that Contribute Most to Student Achievement?

Almost every teacher I meet has a theory about kids. Well, actually, he or she has many theories.

But if I ask the million dollar question, “What is it that contributes most to student learning?” the teacher usually gets quiet. I like that response. It’s good to be thoughtful about questions like that. The great news is that recent neuroscientific studies are opening up the brain of the student and telling us what matters most in learning. You might be surprised at what they’re finding.

While a HUGE numbers of variables may influence the brain on the macro level (physical environment, food, safety in the classroom, interest in the content, etc.) it turns out that very few factors influence student learning inside our head at the micro level. In fact, the number of factors is so few, I highlighted them in the new ASCD book, Teaching with Poverty in Mind. But let’s say you want just a few goodies from the book. I trust you; I know you’ll want to buy it soon!

Let me share just four with you.  Let’s start with how we learn.

While we naturally and accidentally “pick up” millions of bits of information daily, our focused attention is what tells our brain to “log this in and save it.” Part of the brain tells you to “save” the learning, the nucleus basalis. This skill, locked in attention, can be taught. Second, our brain has to be able to process what is occurring, making the processing and reasoning pathways highly valuable. This skill can be, and must be, taught. But much of these tasks ask you to juggle more than one item in your working memory.

The strength of the working memory is another critical variable in learning. This must also be taught. Each of these neural events has to occur in a sequence, so it turns out that the temporal ordering of every step is critical.

Now, I’m the first to admit that other variables come into play. We know that students need to feel safe to take risks and a host of other variables. But the so-called environmental factors each influence these neural events. For example, unless I feel safe in the classroom, I might not be able to pay attention. So, for the moment, trust me. Those four neural events would be near the top of any neuroscientist’s list for learning. How do I know that? What makes me so sold on those four? Well, you know I love the research, so here it is.

First, the science is solid when you consider each system separately. But they work synergistically. When one of them is off, others falter. That’s why kids with serious AD/HD (low executive function) struggle in all areas academically.

Now, the information I’m going to share with you is exceptionally powerful. However, only 1 in 100 educators who reads email this will actually implement these findings. Why? In spite of the solid science behind what I am sharing with you and, in spite of the “miracles” that these applications can produce in your kids, many of the policy-makers have gotten so lost in filling out forms, inept mandates, feel-good “professional” communities, that they forgot the real goal of education: prepare kids for the real world with social skills and thinking skills.

OK, enough of that. What can you do to boost these four brain functions? Read more

Professional Development for Teachers – When You Have To Do It Yourself

In today’s world, budgets are tighter than ever. Principals are now tasked with a great amount of staff training.

When preparing a presentation for your teaching staff, the most difficult element is getting that &*%$ PowerPoint finalized.

We’ve all been there.

After receiving numerous requests for copies of Eric Jensen’s presentations that he’s held in our workshops, we’ve decided that we’d organize all of the top topics, and offer them to you.

Some of the topics covered are:

  • AD/HD Insight and Solutions
  • Brain Based Principles to Strategies
  • Enrichment for Learning
  • Fierce Teaching – 7 Factors That Matter Most
  • How Teaching Changes Brains
  • How to Implement Brain-Based Education
  • Teaching with Poverty in Mind
  • Teaching with the Brain in Mind
  • Tools for Engagement

…and many more.

Eric Jensen has prepared these PowerPoint presentations to help deliver a powerful, concise presentation…

Those who have asked us for PowerPoint presentations are most often:

1. Trainers who work with groups of 20 or more
2. Staff developers who really want to make a difference in the lives of others
3. Teachers who want a more energizing classroom and
4. Anyone who currently or will in the future, spend a lot time in front of groups.

The staff development presentations will have title slides and closing slides. Average presentation will be 75-125 slides, depending on the topic.

You may customize (in fact, you are encouraged to do so), your slides by adding your own titles, key themes, strategies, persons of interest, school pictures and activities.

So save yourself time, and headache, and check out the PowerPoint presentations available here.

Teaching High Poverty Kids Using A High Impact Curriculum

wide_shot_2

Kids from poverty do not need a “dumbed down” curriculum.

These are the three “As” that matter” most: arts, AP (advanced placement curriculum) and activity (P.E., recess, sports).

Before these kids even get to school, they have been subjected to years of “doing without.” Poor children are half as likely to be taken to museums, theaters, or to the library and are less likely to go on culturally enriching outings. Low-income children have fewer or smaller designated play areas in the home and spend more time watching television and less time exercising than non-poor children.

Financial limitations of parents also often exclude low-income kids from healthy after-school activities such as music, athletics, dance or drama. In addition, kids from poverty are more prone to depression.

This is critical information for educators because school sports, recess and physical activity all reduce the likelihood of depression in kids via increasing neurogenesis. In fact, part of depression is the inability to recognize novelty, which makes them disinterested in class and harder to teach.

Boosting neurogenesis is the ultimate low-budget anti-depressant… Read more