Our workshops take the core strategies outlined in Dr. Marcia Tate’s books and present them in an engaging and active way to participants.
Click any of the links below for more details about that particular topic; and to schedule your workshop, call us today at 770-918-5039.
- Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain - “Sit & Get” Won’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Professional Learning Strategies that Engage the Adult Brain - Shouting Won’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Techniques to Detour Around the Danger Zones - Reading and Language Arts Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Literacy Strategies that Engage the Brain - Mathematics Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Numeracy Strategies that Engage the Brain - Social Studies Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain - Science Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain - Preparing Your Child for Success in School and in Life:
20 Ways to Increase Your Child’s Brain Power - Formative Assessment in a Brain-compatible Classroom:
How Do We Really Know They’re Learning? - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®
- Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement (TESA)
- True Colors: Understanding Personality and Temperament Types
- The Power of Positive Thinking
Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain
Have you ever wondered why some students cannot understand or recall important content after a 24-hour period? If your students are not learning the way you are teaching them, then you must teach them the way they learn!
Experience 20 instructional strategies based on brain research and learning style theory that maximize memory and minimize forgetting. Increase learning for all students when strategies like drawing, metaphor, movement, music, and storytelling are used to teach curriculum objectives and meet international standards. Explore research that shows why these strategies are preferable to others. Ensure that brains retain key concepts – not only for tests, but for life! This workshop has been called both professionally and personally life-changing and lots of fun!
“Sit & Get” Won’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Professional Learning Strategies that Engage the Adult Brain
Visualize the worst presentation that you have ever been a part of as an adult learner. Now, visualize the best one. No doubt, there is a considerable difference between the two scenarios.
Unfortunately, many of those presenting to adult audiences do not realize that having participants “sit and get” information is not very effective. It’s simply not a good way to ensure that the information will stick to their brains. Adults don’t retain information by passively viewing (or worse – being read) slide after slide…after slide.
This workshop is designed for administrators, staff developers, teacher leaders, instructional coaches and coordinators, college and university professors, business and community leaders, and anyone else who teaches the adult brain. Participants in this workshop are engaged the entire time while they learn the answers to the following three basic questions:
- What are 20 strategies that I can use to make my professional learning experience unforgettable?
- What are techniques that appear to result in sustained adult behavior change?
- And, as a bonus: What are 10 things that keep adults living well beyond the age of 80?
Shouting Won’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Techniques to Detour Around the Danger Zones
Have you ever noticed that the louder some teachers get when reprimanding students, the louder those students then become? Learn strategies for managing an active, brain-compatible classroom without ever raising your voice. Experience the following five techniques that proactive classroom managers use to avoid problems in the first place:
- Develop a personal relationship with each student.
- Create a physical classroom environment that is conducive to optimal learning.
- Deliver engaging lessons with the use of brain-compatible strategies.
- Develop a proactive management plan.
- Tackle the most challenging 10% of students by using techniques that appear to work with chronic behavior disorders such as attention-deficit, conduct, or oppositional disorder.
You will also experience the bonus of learning to create a home environment, which minimizes stress and maximizes calm!
Reading and Language Arts Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Literacy Strategies that Engage the Brain
According to experts in the field, reading and language arts skills and abilities are best acquired when students are actively engaged in their own learning. This practical, highly-engaging workshop will show you how to do just that: actively engage students in learning to read at the lower grades, and reading to learn at the upper grades.
The content is structured around the standards for teaching reading and language arts. The methodology for teaching those standards comes from our 20 strategies that take advantage of the way all brains learn best. By the time the workshop is over, you will have experienced how to learn vocabulary by drawing it, role playing it, and singing it, along with how to learn comprehension skills through the use of graphic organizers, visualization, and storytelling.
Mathematics Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Numeracy Strategies that Engage the Brain
We all know that “math” is short for the word “mathematics”. However, did you know that it is also a mnemonic device that stands for Math Ain’t That Hard? This acronym definitely rings true when brain-compatible strategies are used to teach mathematics.
Learn to separate your math content into chunks – and experience how easy it can be to teach those chunks when your students are role-playing, drawing out or visualizing a word problem, dancing the number line by doing the Number Line Hustle, singing the quadratic equation, or creating an original story to remember the steps in long division. Teaching math while using our 20 brain-compatible strategies will make the content understandable, memorable, and so much fun!
Social Studies Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain
Have you ever crammed for a social studies exam? If you have, then you know that as soon as the test is over, the information remembered for the test pretty much disappears. Instead, what if your teacher had told you unforgettable stories about historical people and places? What if you had formed a living timeline to help you remember events in chronological order? What if you had created a song or completed a project that helped you compare and contrast land forms or types of government?
In this highly-interactive workshop, you will experience just that: 20 brain-compatible strategies for teaching the social studies standards in ways that are truly unforgettable!
Science Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites:
20 Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain
If there were ever content that should be taught using hands-on, relevant activities, it is in the area of science. We are honored to have Warren Phillips, one of the best science teachers in the world, teach this workshop. Warren was named the 2004 Disney Teacher of the Year, was one of the 2007 USA Today Top Teachers, and has turned countless students on to science in Plymouth, Massachusetts, during his illustrious teaching career. He is also the author of SingAlong Science, a three-CD set of original songs designed to teach science concepts to a variety of familiar tunes, and is the co-author of Science Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites.
During this workshop, you will learn to teach selected content standards through the use of 20 brain-compatible instructional strategies. You will sing the States of Matter, hear the story of the Amber Rock to help students understand the discovery of electricity, and witness countless experiments that can be replicated in the classroom. This workshop always leaves participants wanting more!
Preparing Your Child for Success in School and in Life:
20 Ways to Increase Your Child’s Brain Power
Since the most rapid period of growth for brain cells is zero to four years of age, that would make a parent a child’s first and best teacher! Yet, there are few manuals which are given to parents to show them exactly how to perform this all important job successfully. Participants in this workshop will learn techniques which can help them get their children off to a healthy start, build relationships with them throughout their lives, equip them with the necessary structure for healthy brain development, and assist them in increasing their academic achievement. Instructional strategies which parents can use to address the visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic modalities of their children will be modeled throughout. Many parents have stated that this workshop and the accompanying book should be a required experience for everyone who calls themselves a parent.
Formative Assessment in a Brain-compatible Classroom:
How Do We Really Know They’re Learning?
If are waiting until after you have planned your lesson to determine how you will assess it, you are already too late! Instead, as soon as you have decided what you want students to know or be able to do, the second step is to define how you will know when they get there. Furthermore, for your assessment to be as effective as possible, you must take into account the different ways of learning and knowing that students have (often called “multiple intelligences” or “gifts”).
This highly engaging workshop will deal with both traditional and more authentic forms for assessing those ways, since both types should be included in a student’s portfolio, in order to best enable their success in their college or career path. You will leave this session with over 50 products and performances to help you know if they are learning, as well as the methods (i.e., checklists and rubrics) for assessing them. This workshop has been called practical, informative, and a great deal of fun!
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® by Stephen Covey has been on the New York Times bestseller list since the 1980s because its teachings are just as valuable today as they ever were! This workshop is based on that book and acquaints participants with seven principles that effective people practice on a regular basis, both professionally and personally.
While actively engaged in the workshop the entire time, you will learn to be proactive, not reactive; to identify and prioritize your life with the things that really make the most difference; to improve your ability to understand where others are coming from, so that you might help them to achieve goals which are mutually beneficial to you both; and to work for mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, and social balance in your life. You will walk out of this workshop a person changed for the better!
Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement (TESA)
Over 50 years of research has taught us that you get what you expect. If you don’t expect much from your students, you won’t get much from them. In fact, students tend to live up or down to the expectations afforded them by the important people in their lives!
During this highly-engaging workshop, you will experience 15 interactions that teachers should use to convey their high expectations to all students. These interactions include calling on all students, taking a personal interest in their lives, standing in close proximity to them, praising their academic work, complimenting their personal characteristics, and remaining cool and calm when correcting misbehavior. When these interactions are used, academic achievement and attendance increase, and behavior problems are reduced.
True Colors: Understanding Personality and Temperament Types
Have you ever questioned why some people in your workplace are more difficult to get along with than others? Have you ever wondered why your spouse or significant other is different from you in ways that sometimes drive you crazy? Have you considered whether your children are really yours, or whether they were switched at birth?
Regardless of race, religion, or national origin, people come in four personality types. Hippocrates called them Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholic, and Sanguine. Don Lowry called them Gold, Blue, Green, and Orange. The more you comprehend the differences in human temperament, the easier it becomes to understand and get along with the important people in your world. This workshop is exceptional for building an effective team in the workplace, in organizations, or anywhere. Find out your personal preferences and the preferences of others as well!
The Power of Positive Thinking
Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you’re right! People don’t realize how they severely limit their brain’s potential with negative thinking. It is amazing how confidence in one’s ability to accomplish a task positively impacts one’s success at actually achieving it. When people approach situations with a confident attitude and a positive belief system, life-changing things can occur!
Based on a combination of brain research and the book The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, this workshop explores the detrimental effects of stress on your life and how it is the number one cause of aging and a major contributor to illness. You will learn how to lengthen your life by determining your purpose, reducing damaging stress, and creating an optimistic daily outlook. You will also learn the importance of laughter. After all, consider how long many of your favorite comedians lived, or the age of those that are still living!