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

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.

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Lead Like A Pirate

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 ...

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

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...

Brain Basics 101: Creating Socially and Emotionally Healthy Classrooms

Brain Basics 101: Creating Socially and Emotionally Healthy Classrooms Key ideas/emphasis: Trauma and stress are big challenges to learning Emotional health is not an “appetizer” or a “dessert”- it is the plate Teaching students about the parts of the brain and what they control Helping students understand dysregulation (acting out and acting in) Teaching students the proper way to breathe-the prefrontal cortex (which is used for complex thinking) “goes offline” during times of stress, and correct/deep breathing helps bring it “back online” and also releases oxytocin Pyramid of trauma, stress and learning (below)- students who form ONE healthy, supportive adult relationship can offset this pyramid Big takeaway: CHASE THE WHY-The Posture of Curiosity Easy to begin using tomorrow When dealing with students who are either dysregulated or not exhibiting the desired behavior, use the following phrases: “I wonder…” or I noticed…” Exampl...

Patton @ AMLE 2017

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