Skip to main content

Hold On - I'm Coming: Motivating Unmotivated and Difficult to Teach students

By
This session presented by Charles Beaman was phenomenal.   He is such a dynamic and engaging speaker.  His main points were how important it was for teachers to try to reach students by using expression, stimulating AHA moments, use multiple strategies to reach all types of learners and have "hooks" to increase engagement.    He shared ideas on the importance of using brain compatible strategies and how critical it is to make learning fun.  He emphasized 3 things the Brain Loves:  Choice, Novelty and Challenge.  Lastly, he talked about how important it is for teachers to be  "Life Touchers" for students.  The slightest word of encouragement can make all the difference in the world and you may not ever realize just how big your impact was but how critical it is to be mindful of the impact you can have.

The Difference between Teachers and Life Touchers.  All Life Touchers are teachers but not all teachers are life touchers.  Strive to be a Life Toucher.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

By Anonymous
I attended a short Speed Learning Session with Vicki Meigs-Kahlenberg and enjoyed it so much that I ended up purchasing her book The Author's Apprentice . Essentially, Vicki's session was on not letting narrative writing fall by the wayside in the world of high-stakes testing. She talked about teaching students to develop their writing voices by studying the works and process of popular young adult authors such as Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds, and Lois Lowry. I have always been interested in using mentor texts to teach students writing strategies such as "Show, Don't Tell" and dialogue that develops characters, but I felt like Vicki's process takes this one step further because she has students research the actual authors and learn about their lives and writing processes. There is no one correct way to write. Every author plans, drafts, and revises differently, and I think sharing this with students makes the whole writing process seem m...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lead Like A Pirate

By
I think my favorite session was called "Lead Like A Pirate" which was titled after the book.  The presenter's school theme is "Making school a place where kids are banging down the door to get in, not out".  I thought this sounded a lot like our school philosophy. She shared LOTS of great ideas that her school uses including Teen Tweet, hiding secret eggs, Birthday carts, and more.  It got me thinking about different ideas we could do in our school and I can use in my Advisory to make school an enjoyable place for the students and for the teachers.  There was an emphasis on taking care of the teachers so they will take care of the kids.  It made me try to think of ways we can take care of each other.  I went online and bought the book "Teach Like A Pirate". I also went to another presentation on scheduling intervention in a tight schedule.  It gave me some great ideas for trying to help us bring math intervention into the school day.  I don't ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bridges to Wellness - Countywide Conference

By
While at the Bridges to Wellness conference, I attended a session highlighting the program "Rachel's Challenge"  Although this program has been around for many years, and may be familiar to us, I am still inspired by its message. Rachel Scott was killed in the Columbine High School shooting, and she was a student who reached out to students with disabilities, new students, and students who were picked on.  She wrote about her moral principles in her diary, which was found after her death.  Her father has since created an educational program, spreading Rachel's ideas internationally.  The CCIU is promoting Rachel's Challenge in Chester County again. "Rachel's Challenge builds compassion in relationships and strengthens community within schools.  Guided by a set of five challenges, students and faculty are encouraged to model and enforce behaviors, and start a chain reaction of their own." The five Challenges are: 1. Look for the Best in Others ...
Post a Comment
Read more