It is time to get started on our book study! I am looking forward to being able to take the time to read and reflect from the comforts of my own home or even pool chair! As several of you know, I attended a workshop presented by this author earlier this year and absolutely loved his work. Even more, I loved what I feel like this could do for our students. We have spent the last few years defining and then fine tuning our core in both math and reading. Yet, we talk often about how we still feel like something is missing. Hearing Mr. Jensen share his studies gave me several ideas that I think might help our kids. I am excited for us to learn more about this together.
We are going to post a few questions for each chapter of the book and ask that you respond to as many as you can. To receive the full five hours of PD credit for the book study, we ask that you read the book in its entirety, participate in the blog discussion a minimum of three times, complete the final questions after reading chapter 12 and submit those questions to me.
Happy reading/blogging!
Sara
Discussion Question #1 - Introduction -
Considering what you just read about the brain, what implications do you already see for your classroom and our school?
I like the idea of crossing the midline to balance and incorporate both sides of the brain.http://sharinwithsharron.blogspot.com/2008/12/crossing-midline-cross-lateral-movement.html I also have been doing some research on core strength and the effect on fidgeting (http://www.balancedandbarefoot.com/blog/the-real-reason-why-children-fidget). It is really interesting! I think I am going to do "physical phonics". I had my kids run on one foot during making words and sight words to cross hemispheres and encourage balance.
ReplyDeleteTeresa, I love the idea of "physical phonics". I had cards with "Active Ways to Spell Spelling Words" on a ring. Some examples included Frog jumps (shrink lower and lower as you say each letter and jump to say the word), boxing (punch each letter, kick for the word), and snap it clap it (snap the vowels, clap the consonants). I had a different student choose each week how we were going to "do" the spelling words.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of creating a balance in using both sides of the brain makes complete sense when reaching diverse learners. Physical phonics sounds like it would do a great job of incorporating this type of instruction. I hope, as we read this text, it will spark more ideas for us to use in the classroom!
ReplyDeleteLove the physical phonics idea! Great way to implement strategies from the book with what we are ALREADY doing. My hope is that together we can come up with ways to do just that - improve without adding to!
ReplyDeleteI feel our school is on the brink of great things and brain-based research and responding to that research can help us get there! Our teachers work so hard for our students and we still feel like we are banging our heads against the wall! Let's work together to map out the direction of our school so that we can change the lives of our students in ways we would never have dreamed of before!
ReplyDeleteI really liked this quote from the introduction, "If we waited for irrefutable evidence on everything we did in education, we'd need to stay at home." I love that NES is a school that promotes trying new things (even if there isn't "irrefutable evidence" that it will "work"), and that we all work together to implement new ideas and share them with each other. I think this book will give us new strategies that we can combine with our own ideas (like physical phonics) to create engaging instruction for our students. I'm excited to start using some of these ideas in our classrooms and get feedback from our students on what works and what doesn't!
ReplyDeleteAs a brand new teacher, I am very excited to receive and share instructional strategies with everyone! While reading the introduction of the book, I thought about the fact that no two students’ brains are alike, and how important it is to implement instruction that appeals to multiple intelligence areas. Since exercise is so important for cognition, I agree that we should give our students every opportunity to “get moving” while learning at the same time. Theresa, “Physical Phonics” sounds like a fun and engaging way to target bodily/kinesthetic learners! Kim, I really like your “Active Ways to Spell” idea because it is not only fun and engaging for students, but it also promotes memory development! An idea that I plan to implement in my classroom is taking “brain breaks”. The student leader for the day will choose a mind and body challenging activity. These are meant to refresh the brain so that students may refocus their energy to learning, and I've found them to be effective in various classrooms. I found some examples at this blogspot account: http://brainbreaks.blogspot.com/ . I also plan to research effective ways to incorporate music into content area instruction. I can’t wait to meet all of you, and to see how brain-based research and practices will positively impact our school!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kayla Dubois that I am happy that NES will do whatever it takes to make kids successful even if that means we are trying new things. I am excited to learn from this book new strategies that will help us reach those kids that sometimes seem unreachable.
ReplyDeleteI am excited to learn new brain based strategies for learning. Also, I agree that the teachers at NES have high expectations for each of their students. This research will help up to learn new ways to meet all the needs of all the students.
ReplyDeleteKayla, have you heard of GoNoodle?? It's a great tool that a lot of the 1st grade classrooms used last year for brain breaks!
ReplyDeleteInteresting intro, though I was quite intimidated by the 13,000 hours that students will spend in our presence! I'm hopeful that brain-based research can help us learn to help them make the most of all those hours!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of focusing on the brain to find effective teaching strategies for the classroom. I think this book will provide a lot of insight into different strategies that will help stimulate students' thinking processes. I am excited to see what strategies this book will present and can't wait to use them!
ReplyDeleteGoNoodle also has activities to help calm students down, which we used in my student teaching placement after recess to help them refocus! It was a great tool!