Whole Brain Teaching
Moore Public Schools
Early Childhood Department
wholebrainteaching.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgB0W1eXPAY
What is Whole Brain Teaching?
• Whole Brain Teaching rests upon the principle that teachers at every level share the same difficulties:
students lack discipline, background knowledge and fundamental problem solving skills. From
kindergarten to college, teachers face students who have difficulty with reading and writing. Nonetheless,
our students respond to challenges, enjoy well-designed learning games, and can make, in the proper
setting, astonishing educational progress.
• At the root of Whole Brain Teaching is a large amount of highly structured, educational tomfoolery.
Students learn the most when they are having fun. Whole Brain Teaching classrooms are full of taskfocused laughter. Humor and games are used to increase the number of times students repeat core
information and practice basic skills. Our classes are highly disciplined and tightly organized because
students have more fun following our rules, than ignoring them.
• All of our seminars and downloads are free. Whole Brain
Teaching is a movement, not a business.
Why does it work?
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Here are four secrets of our method:
If you make your rules fun to follow, students will be more likely to follow
your rules.
Highly energetic students with short attention spans respond remarkably
well ... to short lessons peppered with learning opportunities to be highly
energetic.
Rebel students become significantly less rebellious when the teacher is
eagerly supported by the rebel’s former allies.
If classroom instruction entertainingly engages the whole brain, students
don’t have any mental area left over to create challenging behavior!
Procedures the Whole Brain Way
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Here are some simple ways to turn six of the most common classroom procedures into
entertaining, highly efficient routines.
Lining Up: When you want your students to line up, say, “lines!” They say, “lines, lines, lines,” and
clapping and cheering, they line up. You “time” them by counting out a rhythmic cadence, (1, 2,
3, 4, ...) When your class is in line, they put their hands up (or, if you wish, behind their back). If
they have lined up quickly, and/or broken a class time record for lining up, the class earns a
positive mark on the Scoreboard.
Sitting Down: Follow a similar procedure for sitting down. You say “seats!” Your students say
“seats, seats, seats” and clapping and cheering, they sit down. You “time” them with a rhythmic
count. When your class is seated, it’s hands up, or folded, as you wish. Sitting down quickly, or
breaking their class record for sitting down, earns them a positive mark on the Scoreboard.
Opening Books: If you want your class to open to page 34 of their science book, you say, “34,
science book.” Your class says “34, science book” three times. Follow the same timing and
reward procedure as above.
Handing in Papers: You say, “papers in!” Your class says “Papers in!” three times. Everyone
cheers and claps. The papers are handed in to one person who stacks them neatly on your
table. Follow the same timing and reward procedure as above.
More Whole Brain Procedures…
• Handing Out Papers: You say, “papers out!” and your students say “papers out!” three times. You
give a student a stack of papers. That student splits the stack to two other students, who split the
stack to other students and so forth. No one leaves their seat (yet). If a student has extra papers,
she slowly waggles the papers over her head. If a student doesn’t have a paper, he goes quickly
to get one from the paper waggler. All extra papers are handed back in to one student who puts
them in a neat stack on your desk. Students cheer and clap, encouraging each other. Follow the
same timing and reward procedure as above.
If the cheering and clapping is too much for you, or neighboring teachers, have students do a
“quiet riot” by whisper cheering and patting one finger against another.
Great Hint: Practice these procedures several times a day, when you aren’t actually involved in
lining up, sitting down, opening books, or distributing papers.
• Sharpening pencils: Pencil sharpeners are wonderful machines for creating chaos in the
classroom. Students distract each other on the way to the pencil sharpener, at the pencil
sharpener and on the way back. Here is a simple solution
• Buy an electric pencil sharpener; put 100 sharpened pencils in a coffee can.
• Put a red sheet of paper on one side of the can, a green sheet of paper on the other side.
• When the green side faces the class, any student can get up, trade their pencil with a sharpened pencil and sit
down. When the red side faces the class, no one can leave their seat to trade a pencil. If students don’t have
a pencil to trade, they can get a sharpened pencil anyway.
Class? Yes!
• Whole Brain Teaching is educational tomfoolery based on brain based
learning. The technique to consistently catch the attention of your class is
simple. It is so simple, and effective that I kicked myself for not having
thought of it myself years ago, and have lamented many times since the
instructional time I lost for not having known this.
• To get my classes’ attention I simply say ‘Class!’ and then they reply ‘Yes!’.
Next is the catch, the hook that makes this fun, and gets them invested in
it in a way that has them looking at me and grinning rather than
continuing their conversations.
• When I say ‘Class!’ and they say ‘Yes!’ they have to say it the way I said it.
If I say ‘Classity-class-class!’ they have to say ‘Yessity-yes-yes!’. If I say it
loudly, they have to respond loudly. If I whisper, they respond in a
whisper. They have to match my tone and intensity.
5 Simple Classroom Rules
Teach…OK!
• Ben Franklin (and an ancient Chinese proverb) said “Tell me and I will forget, teach me and I will
remember, involve me and I will learn.”
• Additionally, learning research indicates that teachers, as a general rule, TALK TOO LONG! The longer we
talk, the more students we lose.
• Short term memory for most people is limited to 3 to 7 items. As new information is added to short term
memory, recently acquired information is dropped. You can only fill the cup so full and then it
overflows. Your students have small cups! What we do in Power Instruction is talk in shorter chunksthirty seconds to one minute. We focus our lessons into groups of two, three or at most four points. We
are teaching to short term memory, a small cup, which quickly fills. Teaching for shorter periods of time
and presenting fewer points, takes some practice ... but it is easier than it seems.
• Teach-OK works like this:
• Divide your class into teams of two. One student is a One, the other member of the team is a Two.
• You want students to do a large amount of the teaching. Present a small amount of information, complete
with gestures. When you finish, look at the class and clap two times, say “Teach!” Your students clap twice
and respond “OK!” Look at our Power Teachers videos for examples of this approach.
The Scoreboard: Motivator
• On one side of your board you are going to draw a grid. The grid will be divided into two
columns. In the top box of one column draw a smiley face; in the top box of the other
column draw a frowny face. These simple drawings are perfect for elementary school kids.
• During class you will be rewarding a mark in the smiley section for procedures performed well.
When you reward them with a smiley for their performance, you can involve the kids in a really
fun way. Walk to the board, raise your chalk or marker, or stylus, and address the class.
• “One second party!” You proclaim enthusiastically. Make a mark in the smiley section then
point to the students. They respond by clapping and throwing their hands in the air and yelling
“Oh, Yeah!”
• But there is a dark side here. Can you feel the tremor in the Force? Because, as you know, the
kids do not always do as you ask (Gasp!). When this happens the frowny strikes!
• You walk to the board and add a mark to the frowny column. Loudly proclaim, “Mighty Groan!”
and point to the class. They must lift and then drop their shoulders and groan loudly! Since they
are getting to make noise in class it is usually nearly as enthusiastic as the one second
party (also known as, the Mighty Oh, Yeah!)
Hands and Eyes
• Whenever you want your students to pay close attention to an
important point, say, "Hands and eyes!" Your students respond,
"hands and eyes!," fold their hands and stare at you intensely. We
have found that this command is also very effective if you have said,
"Class!" and your kids are not entirely focused on you when they
respond, "Yes!" Follow up with "hands and eyes!" and you'll be
delighted at the quality of attention you receive.
Mirrors!
• Mirror is one of WBT’s simplest and most powerful techniques. You say “mirror” and
your students respond “mirror.” They then pick up their hands ready to mimic your
gestures.
• As students imitate your motions, their motor cortex, the brain’s most reliable memory
area, is automatically engaged. Use mirror when telling a story, giving directions,
describing the steps in a procedure, demonstrating a process ... anytime you want your
class locked in to what you are saying. In general, there are three kinds of gestures
that you can use with mirror:
-- casual: these are hand motions that come naturally while speaking
-- graphic: match your gestures to exactly what you are saying. For example, if you’re
talking about walking somewhere, walk your fingers through the air. If you want to explain
a hard problem, scratch your head. If you are presenting a big idea, spread your arms far
apart.
-- memory: these gestures are linked to core concepts and/or state standards. Every
memory gesture should be unique.
Super Improver Wall
• Super Improver Wall is a unique piece of the Whole Brain
Teaching system. It is a truly democratic approach to recognizing and
rewarding student improvement. Using the Super Improver Wall,
students earn stars as indications of personal improvement. Since
stars are awarded on an individual level, each student is only
competing against their last effort in a particular area. It’s perfectly
individualized and differentiated for the needs of each learner!
http://thereflectiveeducator.com/super-improver-wall/
How Can You Learn More?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uTcxZ2OUIo
Christin Russell at Fairview Elementary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6qXPSDdYE0
Second Grade Class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8zHAK0vJM
Third Grade Class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8zHAK0vJM
First Grade Class
http://www.wholebrainteaching.com/