GUEST AUTHOR: MRS. BOND
Do you remember sitting through class while your teacher stood up front and talked for 45 minutes? When it was time to do an assignment afterwards, was it easy to recall or apply the information? A few of the teachers at Oak Hill remember sitting through those exact lessons and then not being able to retain that information. We want to do everything we can to change that. This is why a few of us have adopted a method called Whole Brain Teaching.
What is Whole Brain Teaching? It is an integrated method that combines effective classroom management with pedagogically sound approaches to student engagement that are effective with a wide range of student learning populations. Basically, like I tell my Second Graders, “Whole Brain Teaching is using all parts of our brain (our whole brain) to learn and teach each other”.
Mrs. Bentley, Mrs. Hernandez, Ms. Kittredge, Mrs. Thompson, and I all attended a very informative Whole Brain Teaching Conference this summer in hopes to apply this strategy in our classrooms. We have been very successful so far. The kids are able to use physical motions, repetition, images, spoken language, and the brain’s emotional core to help with learning.
This is Mrs. Bond’s Class. The back row is holding the punctuation mark while the front row is showing the motion we do for that punctuation mark.
Mrs. Bentley’s class is showing us the Place Value Power Pix. Each subject has a picture, question, answer, and gesture that goes along with it. All of these come together to allow the students to utilize many different ways to remember the information.
These two are showing part of how we do oral writing. At this age, we are trying to make sure the students are using capitalization, punctuation, and sentence extenders. He is showing us the motion of a capital letter and she is showing us the sign we use for because. Students come up with their own sentences and share them with the class. They use the proper motions while presenting the sentence to us. This is also reflected in their journal writings. Since their brain is using multiple ways to remember what to do, it is also applied in their writing.
Mrs. Kittredge's class reviews the class rules.
Obviously, there is a lot that goes into Whole Brain Teaching. I can tell you that the results I have seen are wonderful. The kids get so much more involved in learning because most of it feels like a game. They teach their partner’s about what we have just learned. They apply the skills/concepts we have learned into their everyday work, and then they beg to do more Whole Brain Learning.
