Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites

All content moved here from My Big Campus

▼ THIS IS YOUR POP WINDOW ▼

Strategies 1 - 4
Strategies 5 - 8
Strategies 9 - 12
Strategies 13 - 16
Strategies 17 - 20

Strategy 1 Brainstorming and Discussion

Strategy 2 Drawing and Artwork

Drawing and Artwork:

Important reasons to add drawing and artwork to your lessons:

1. Drawing helps students to develop their thought process.

2 When students draw/doodle it helps them to be more successful when they need to recall new information.

3. Drawing helps make the lessons fun for students, which makes students engaged more.

Examples of how you can implement drawing in yoru classroom:

Drawing vocabulary words

Drawing out math problems

Retell stories by drawing out the different parts.

Strategy 3 Field Trips

Strategy 4 Games

Strategy 5 Graphic Organizers, Semantic Maps, and Word Webs

Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites - Strategy 5 Graphic Organizers, Semantic Maps, and Word Webs

Why we should use graphic organizers, semantic maps, and word webs:

1. Having students create a mind or concept map is a meaningful strategy for helping them make a sense of and learn vast amounts of new content.

2. Graphic organizers activate prior knowledge which help teachers better connect with students.

3. The brain remembers images more easily than just words, graphic organizers are one of the tools that are effective for organizing patterns.

4. Graphic organizers are used to change words into images, both left-and-right brain learners can use those images to see the big picture.

Ways to use graphic organizers, semantic maps, and word webs in the classroom:

1. KNL Chart (know, need to know, and learned) used for all content areas

2. Word web for new vocabulary in all content areas

3. Story map after reading a book

4. Sequencing chart detailing tasks from any content area

5. Venn Diagram to compare/contrast subjects in any content area

Strategy 6 Humor

Strategy 7 Manipulatives, Experiments, Labs, and Models

Strategy 8 Metaphors, Analogies, and Similies

Strategy 9 Mnemonic Devices

Strategy 10 Movement

Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites - Strategy 10 Movement

Teaching in 3rd grade requires a lot of movement! It's a survival skill to keep the kid's attention. Turns out, Marcia Tate has proven that it also engages the students procedural memory. This procedural memory is one the strongest memory systems in the brain. The body and brain are involved and so it uses 100% of the brain. Using motion in the classroom decreases behavior problems, it is fun, and it increases energy. This is good because it supplies more oxygen to the brain. Students need this change in stimuli. If they are 8 years old, there attention span is about 8 minutes long.

Some instructional activities would include:

Assign an "energizing partner" to reteach what they just heard

Stand if you agree, sit if you disagree (stand on left foot if true, hold paper in the air if this is true,)

Read outloud without taking a breathe

Jump rope while memorizing

Appointment clock

Give each child an event in a story. They have to put the events in sequential order.

Cathy Gray

Movement is a big key to keeping our students attention. Students of any age, even adults, have issues with staying focused in a classroom setting. We always say that the kids need recess or need pe to help release all of the energy they have bottled up, but we can help do that in the classroom. I have personally done a few things with my class to get them up moving and they really enjoyed it but I need to do a lot more. Marcia Tate says, "When there is a brain-body connection, memory is enhanced." There is a reflection and application page for us to use in the book. You can write down the standard/objectives you are teaching and the movement activity you can use to teach it.

Some movement strategies:

number line hustle - the example in the book is for middle/high school but there are so many for elementary as well

seasonal dates - same as appointment clock except using the seasons

circumference conga

Skip counting - clap their hands or jump rope while skip counting

Stephanie Ross

The traditional classrooms consist of students sitting for long periods of time and this makes learning boring. Movement is the solution to this problem in our classrooms. Not only does movement strengthen memory and decrease behavior problems but it also makes teaching and learning fun!

     There are many rationale to back up this strategy that explain why movement is important. Some of the ones that spoke to me are, “Because physical movement increases the energy of students, it, therefore enhances their engagement.” (Marzano, 2007) and “Physical performance is probably the only known cognitive activity that uses 100 percent of the brain.” (Jensen, 2008).

     Marcia Tate offers numerous instructional activities that incorporate the movement strategy. I particularly favored the following:

1. Have students take turns standing and reading short passages aloud in a choral response. Because students are reading together , those students who may be struggling can still participate and will hear the passage read correctly by others. Make this activity more fun by having students read while standing on one foot, holding their paper in the air, or reading without taking a breath.

2. When teaching sequential order (such as events in history, action in a story, or steps in a process), put the separate events or steps on index cards and them pass them out to some students. Put on some fast paced music and have students place themselves in sequential order before the music ends. Then have the class decide if they are in the correct order.

   I am excited to add these activities to my classroom teaching and hope my students love them.

Amy Harden

Strategy 11 Music, Rhythm, and Rap

Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites - Strategy 11 Music, Rhythm, and Rap

Every one of us can hear a song and suddenly we are transported back in time to a memory of an event or person. Music can be so powerful that our senses feel as if we are experiencing the same emotions again. The chapter begins with a short story about a teacher named Denise from Tennessee, and the experiment she conducts on a long road trip to New Orleans with several teenagers. Having training with this book, she knew the power that music has on the brain. She decided to only allow the students in her van to listen to classical music while all of the other vans allowed the students to listen to their IPods with any music they wished. The other drivers were frustrated at how the teenagers were complaining and arguing the whole trip. Denise’s car the students were relaxed and slept most of the way. Studies have proven there is a strong correlation between music and the brain and its relationship with mathematics. Students are able to remember content easier when incorporated with music, rhythm, rhymes or rap. The chapter contains a Theoretical Framework list of examples from some studies.

For example: There is evidence that some types of music actually boost intelligence. After just 10 minutes of listening, some Mozart compositions have assisted students in increasing their intelligence scores on test of spatial-temporal reasoning. (Jensen, 2007)

The chapter ends with instructional activities for all levels on how to implement music in to the classrooms.

Sandy Stidham

Douglas Intermediate

Strategy 12 Project-Based and Problem-Based Instruction

Strategy 13 Reciprocal Teaching and Cooperative Learning

Reciprocal teaching is effective. 95% of what students teach to others is learned. Their memory is strengthened when they have a buddy or a group to reteach, clarify, summarize, and predict the content being taught. This also enhances social skills. Two heads ARE better than one.

3 steps of reciprocal teaching:

1. small group discussion-this helps low achievers. Diversity in groups is best.

2. independent group discussions- students take on the role of the teacher while revising.

3. scaffolding- teacher gives support at the beginning. The goal would be to back away eventually and let the students take over the process.

Teachers should help set up jobs within the groups. Assign a facilitator, scribe, time keeper, reporter, material manager, and a process manager. This person will tally the social skills observed. Social skills might involve head nodding, one person speaking at a time, smiles, eye contact, and verbal encouragement. Teachers should also establish a signal to come back to the big group.

Instructional activities used in the classroom:

1. think, pair, share

2. jigsaw

3. Make two cirles (one inside the other) and rotate to the music. When the music stops, stop and give/get an answer to the questions being reviewed.

Students learn 20% of what they hear, 30% what they see, 50% what they hear and see, 70% what they say as they talk, and 90% what they say as they do a thing. 95% is retained when they teach others what they learned.

Cathy Gray

Strategy 14 Role Plays, Drama, Pantomimes, and Charades

Why we should use drama/role play:

1. Role playing is a way to help make a lesson for students more memorable. When students are having fun they are engage more. This helps to reinforce the content we are teaching.

2. It results in positive emothions and healthy learning for all involved.

3. Students can be more creative.

4 information is stored in the body and brain

Examples of teaching drama and role play in the classroom:

acting out the planets and how they rotate

acting out word problems

acting out important events in stories in order of how they happened.

Strategy 15 Storytelling

Strategy 16 Technology

Strategy 17 Visualization and Guided Imagery

Based on the Steven Covey quote, " Everything happens twice, once in the mind and once in reality."

Intriguing chapter about the importance of visualization in student successes. Also, interesting to note that current research shows that most students struggle with this concept because they no longer have to visualize anything-- the TV, cell phone, video game console does it for them, unlike older generations, who on a daily basis imagined their bikes as race cars one day and dragons the next.

GOOD readers must visualize what they read, otherwise there is little to no comprehension.

Practicing visualization helps the brain access important prior knowledge, associative images, and pre-exposes the reader to meaningful data.

Visualization enhances learning and retention because during mental imagery, the same sections of the brain's visual cortex are activated as when we are actually witnessing something from the real world.

Some classroom applications for your students:

Visualize:

scenes from a story

steps in a word problem

word pictures for definitions

shapes

processes

steps in a lab experiment

timelines in historical periods

Strategy 18 Visuals

Fascinating chapter that emphasizes the importance of good visuals in teaching and learning. Telling students is not enough--if we want them to truly get it, we need to let them both see something and then do it too.

Research shows that our brains need a visual to accompany the information since the visual cortexes of our students' brains are much thicker than those of older generations.

Visuals are a great aid for the sheer amount of detail we can absorb at once-- the eye can take in 30 million bits of information/second!

Some effective strategies:

--Write key words or draw pics on board, most people see blue and red better for emphasis.

--Use graphic organizers or semantic maps

--Pictures of places or things help greatly (we show students a picture of a chiffarobe from To Kill a Mockingbird).

--Working out word problems on the board for all levels of mathematics.

--Anchor charts, word walls, timelines, etc.

--Powerpoint or Prezi presentations WITH a miniversion handout (so students don't miss key visuals as they are taking notes!)

--SQ3R

--Changing your position in your classroom helps keep your students visual attention locked on you

*NOTE--> Be aware of what's in your students' peripheral vision because it will interfere with their attention on the main visual! You can have too much on your walls.