One of my favorite commercials is one for Walmart where a father surprises his teenage daughter with her own cell phone. In her euphoric state, she …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #15 Storytelling
There once was a man named North. His last name was America. He fell in love with a beautiful woman named South. They got married and she took his …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #14 Role Plays, Drama, Pantomimes, and Charades
I go into classrooms when requested and teach model lessons to the students. Teachers observe the lesson while I use brain-compatible strategies to …
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #13 Reciprocal Teaching and Cooperative Learning
Reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning are two of the best ways to have conversations about content. In the original definition of reciprocal …
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #12 Project-Based and Problem-Based Learning
When I teach math, if the objective involves problem solving, I never use the problems in the book as my initial examples. Most do not have any real …
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #11 Music, Rhythm, Rhyme, & Rap
When I teach model lessons to K-12 students, I always play classical music before the lesson begins. If I am teaching elementary students, I go to …
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #10 Movement
When students move while learning, they put information in procedural or muscle memory. Procedural memory is one of the strongest memory systems in …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #9 Mnemonic Devices
IVAN CAPP: Interjection, Verb, Adjective, Noun, Conjunction, Adverb, Pronoun, Preposition (Language arts) HONC if you’re alive! Hydrogen, Oxygen, …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #8 Metaphors, Analogies, and Similes
I was teaching the story When Charlie McButton Lost Power to a third-grade class in Mesquite, Texas. The curricular objective was for students to …
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #7 Manipulatives, Experiments, Labs, and Models
The use of the hands and brain activity are so complicated and interconnected that no one theory explains it. I can’t explain it either! I just know …
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #6 Humor
“Did you hear about the mathematician who's afraid of negative numbers? He’ll stop at nothing to avoid them.” If the math pun above made you laugh or …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #5 Graphic Organizers, Semantic Maps, & Word Webs
Whether referred to as concept, mind, or semantic maps or as word webs, graphic organizers are one of the best friends of a teacher who desires to …
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #4 Games
As I travel around the United States presenting, I am realizing that the fun has gone out of teaching and learning in so many classrooms. With …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #3 Field Trips
A while back, I was invited to present for the Honolulu Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. My husband and I went one week earlier …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #2 Drawing and Artwork
I worked for 30 years with a major school district in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Even though I have been retired from that system since 2003, I …
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20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain: #1 Brainstorming and Discussion
Thousands of years of history support one major concept: When students are actively engaged in experiences with content, they stand a much better …
Teach Your Children Rules: The Brain Benefits of Boundaries & Routines
There appears to be a recent movement among some parents that childhood should be a carefree and joyful time and that their children are happier when …
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Talk To and With Your Children
Several years ago, my husband Tyrone and I were in New York City when I saw something that made me cringe internally. We were in a hotel lobby in …
Let Them Play!
Remember when you were little and you used to play outside for hours on end? Or maybe you’d be inside in a playroom pretending to be a teacher or an …
Hug, Rock, & Love Your Children
I once heard a brain consultant by the name of Fritz Mengert say that if he had to choose between putting his grandchild in a day care center where …