With that said, I was a little overwhelmed by the information presented so I decided for this school year to work my way into Whole Brain Teaching. I almost wish Mr. Biffle would create an instruction manual with day by day instructions of when to present this idea to class or when to teach this strategy; the author does give a general outline of how to use these methods, but I need it spelled out for me.
Since I have not found such a manual, I do not plan to go 100% WBT for the 2014-2015 school year, but I feel I will use 50% of this incredible information.
What I liked and think I can implement...
- "The Big Seven"--Class-Yes, Teach-Okay, The Five Classroom Rules, Scoreboard, Hands and Eyes, Switch, and Mirror. I will defiantly be using ALL seven of these. I love these so much, and I truly believe these will help my students be the best they can be. I love how Biffle describes how each of these in regards to how they stimulate different parts of the brain. I could tell that he researched the brain and knew his stuff when creating WBT. Also, this book gives scripts for all of these so teachers will know exactly how to present these concepts to their students.
- Micro-lecturing: "The more we talk, the more students we lose," Chris Biffle says. He suggest this wonderful strategy of "micro-lecturing" which is lecturing in small doses (no more than 30 seconds). The same information will be covered, but when you pair this with "Teach-Okay" or "Switch" students are more engaged in the information.
- Daily Test Taking Skills: I LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea, and I am a little annoyed that I did not think of this, but Biffle suggests that students need 10 minutes a day in math and 10 minutes of Language Arts of test taking strategies every single day. I also love how this book gives concrete examples of how to teach test taking strategies. (There is even a timeline of when to introduce new test taking strategies.)
- Practice Cards: These serve as a consequence for breaking a rule. Basically, teachers are suggested to make students practice a rule that was broken instead of a pointless punishment like writing lines. This part of the book is very detailed and very informative.
- Challenging Students: Biffle gives practical strategies of how to get through to the toughest kids.
What I was confused about or thought was too time consuming...
- This book suggest dividing your class into 4 groups (Alphas, Go Alongs, Fence Sitters, and Challenging Students) and assign points to each student in each group. Biffle suggests helpful strategies you may implement to move students up the behavior ladder. You must reevaluate your class weekly using the point system to hopefully move each child to a more favorable category. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a fantastic idea, but I feel like this might be too time consuming for me. (You must keep detailed records of students behavior throughout the week to categorize them properly.)
- Brain Toys: This concept intrigues me, but I am still a little confused about how to use these. I do know that this part referenced http://www.youtube.com/user/ChrisBiffle to see how these "brain toys" may be used.
Now you must know, that I only scratched the surface of the information found in this book. You really need to check it out. It states in this book that out of 2,000 educators surveyed, 98% thought that Whole Brain Teaching was a better method of teaching. I really LOVE that statistic.
The freebie for this post is an activity that I created for "Rule 5: Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy." This is a cut and paste sort of items that would keep your teacher happy and what would not keep the teacher happy. You may also find it at my TeachersPayTeachers store here. I plan on using this the first week of school, and I hope you find it helpful too.
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