For this comment I want you to read Chapter 6 in Dr. Jensen’s book, and then think about your future teaching practice. Effective teaching demands an inordinate amount of time for preparation, but it is worth it. This chapter synthesizes the core ideas of the book, and this will assist you in thinking about how you can apply the practices you have learned about in this book in your future classroom.
“The phrase ‘instructional light and magic’ refers to your ability to shine a spotlight on what matters most.”
Read the chapter and then choose three practices that you will consider using in your classroom. Focus on the factors that matter the most to you, and emphasize the strategies that will reshape the brains and enrich the lives of your students.
For example, health is really important to me, so one of the strategies I chose was “Framing the Content” on page 148. “This powerful strategy creates an intentional bias toward what follows so that the students are more likely to buy into the content.”
The framing is the setting of the stage for the lesson, it’s the “hook”, information that appeals to the student so that they want to learn more. Jensen writes that it “creates an emotional invitation to learn”. I like that.
He gave an example of a story by reading a passage that engages the students and gets them thinking about the lesson. He told about an African American man who was drafted during the Vietnam War. So, this man was out there in a war, fighting for his country, but he could not vote in his country or in his home town because of illegal voter registration quirks.
The reading of the passage caused a conversation to ensue about prejudice, both at the national level and at school. Prejudice is an excellent topic to discuss with your students if it is developmentally appropriate. It relates well to health.
I like the idea of framing the content, and I love telling stories that I can relate to content. I also know that stories and bits of anecdotal data can break up a lesson and reduce the boredom of dry lecture material.
Okay, now it is your turn. What three practices would you choose from chapter 6, and tell me why, and provide an example.
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Dr. Jensen used the example of storytelling to get his students motivated and involved in the classroom. He told of an African American man who served in the Vietnam War and was refused voting and other rights. I admired three of his practices 1. Collecting Data about Your Students 2.Physical Activity 3. And Building Hope in Students and Affirming Their Dreams.
One practice that I will consider using in the classroom is having enough passion and love for teaching to show concern for your children’s wellbeing. Get to know the students, show them that you care and they are loved. Good teachers should collect personal data about each student such as parent/guardian names, important contact and emergency numbers; on a lighter note ask them what are their favorite foods, cartoons, colors, and subjects in school. Knowing the diversity of your classroom is beneficial to you having a plethora of teaching strategies. You can incorporate SpongeBob math flash cards; infuse scientific method with Scooby Doo, and counting with CyperSpace. When students see their favorites incorporated in the lesson they will be more attentive and interested. Make learning fun for your kids.
A second way to get students amp and motivated is by getting them to move their muscles and juices flowing. Getting students physically involved in class can create stunning results. Studies show that children who are more physically active compared to peers who are not are more likely to be active in the classroom. In my classroom, I will begin mornings by having students do warm-ups for 10-15 minutes. We will do jumping jacks, stretches, run in place, and lunges. Some children wake up and jump right in the shower or go directly from the bed and put on their clothes. They don’t stretch or consume a warm and healthy breakfast. This lack of physical activity before class will show by them being sluggish, unmotivated, tired (red eyes, baggy eyes, bad hair day), groggy, angry, moody, and lose focus during lectures. By stretching and getting the heart pumping will stimulate the brain and prepare them to do their best!
A third way to keep the flow of a stable and healthy environment in the classroom is by giving them hope. Tell your students that they are worth it, they are loved, they will be the best, they can achieve and to reach for the stars. Encouraging a child from a broken home, or bad past could help instill in them hope for one day becoming the next President of the U.S., heart surgeon or Michelangelo! As a teacher I will have the kids write their dreams, and goals for the future and the requirements they will have to take. We will begin with the small such as “I will complete all of my homework, I will walk my dog each day for 1 hour, I will eat healthy snacks etc.” by the end of the week we will take have self-evaluations and see who have stuck to their goals. Then we will have higher goals to try and meet. I will instill in my students that they can be whatever they want to be and with hard work and dedication it can all be theirs…if they try hard enough.
Dr. Jensen used the example of storytelling to get his students motivated and involved in the classroom. He told of an African American man who served in the Vietnam War and was refused voting and other rights. I admired three of his practices 1. Collecting Data about Your Students 2.Physical Activity 3. And Building Hope in Students and Affirming Their Dreams.
One practice that I will consider using in the classroom is having enough passion and love for teaching to show concern for your children’s wellbeing. Get to know the students, show them that you care and they are loved. Good teachers should collect personal data about each student such as parent/guardian names, important contact and emergency numbers; on a lighter note ask them what are their favorite foods, cartoons, colors, and subjects in school. Knowing the diversity of your classroom is beneficial to you having a plethora of teaching strategies. You can incorporate SpongeBob math flash cards; infuse scientific method with Scooby Doo, and counting with CyperSpace. When students see their favorites incorporated in the lesson they will be more attentive and interested. Make learning fun for your kids.
A second way to get students amp and motivated is by getting them to move their muscles and juices flowing. Getting students physically involved in class can create stunning results. Studies show that children who are more physically active compared to peers who are not are more likely to be active in the classroom. In my classroom, I will begin mornings by having students do warm-ups for 10-15 minutes. We will do jumping jacks, stretches, run in place, and lunges. Some children wake up and jump right in the shower or go directly from the bed and put on their clothes. They don’t stretch or consume a warm and healthy breakfast. This lack of physical activity before class will show by them being sluggish, unmotivated, tired (red eyes, baggy eyes, bad hair day), groggy, angry, moody, and lose focus during lectures. By stretching and getting the heart pumping will stimulate the brain and prepare them to do their best!
A third way to keep the flow of a stable and healthy environment in the classroom is by giving them hope. Tell your students that they are worth it, they are loved, they will be the best, they can achieve and to reach for the stars. Encouraging a child from a broken home, or bad past could help instill in them hope for one day becoming the next President of the U.S., heart surgeon or Michelangelo! As a teacher I will have the kids write their dreams, and goals for the future and the requirements they will have to take. We will begin with the small such as “I will complete all of my homework, I will walk my dog each day for 1 hour, I will eat healthy snacks etc.” by the end of the week we will take have self-evaluations and see who have stuck to their goals. Then we will have higher goals to try and meet. I will instill in my students that they can be whatever they want to be and with hard work and dedication it can all be theirs…if they try hard enough.
If I could choose all of the practices discussed in this chapter to talk about in my blog I would, because I feel that all are very important and will be useful in my future classroom. But because I am only allowed to choose three practices to discuss, I would choose to use delivering the content, elaborating and correcting errors, and strengthening memory.
I chose to use delivering the content because this particular practice is a great way to get the students interacting with one another, but at the same time they are learning. This practice allows students to team up and go outside of the box to find answers (rely on other sources). If this practice was used in my future classroom, I would more than likely would have wanted to set it up the way that Mr. Hawkins did from the book. The assigned unit that we would be covering would be poetry. We would be studying all types of poetry and the meaning behind the word itself. I would divide my class up into different groups and give each group a particular question that aligns with the standards that are meant to cover. Just like Mr. Hawkins gave them the responsibility for exploring the questions and answers, my students will have to do the same.
I chose elaborating and correcting errors because if you don’t take the time to elaborate on the mistakes that your students make, they will never know the differences between what’s right or wrong. There will be plenty of positive reinforcement in my classroom. Showing students great positive reinforcement makes the students feel safe, and lets them know that it is okay to mess up, just get up and try again. For example, after a unit is completed I will gradually review all the information learned with my students. We will play games that relate to the unit such as Jeopardy, to keep their brain processing the information. Then after reviewing I will test them on the information. After the tests have been administrated and graded they will be handed back to the students. After the students review their test we will elaborate on the overall grading and we will correct the errors as a class.
I chose strengthening memory because I believe that it is best to always try to keep a brain going and strengthening it. For example, in my future classroom after all material has been taught, two weeks prior to the unit test, I will review all information with my students each day. Reviewing with them ensures me that they are comfortable and they know their material. Just like Mr. Hawkins from the book, it pleases me to know that each individual student of mines feels successful before he or she leaves to go home. I was taught that if you are not comfortable with it, don’t take it. If my students aren’t comfortable with the material learned, I am not going to test them on it until they are.
One of the three practices I would choose is creating a positive physical environment because it is very important to me. Having as much control over how comfortable my classroom is for my students to succeed is tremendous because if my students are only focused on the how bright the room is so they can see, how hot or cold the room is they aren’t going to be getting their work done. I know I’m not going to be able to make every comfortable but I’m going to do by best because my students need to know that I do consider what they want. My students don’t need to worry about what’s going on physically in the room all they need to be concerned about is whether they are understanding the material and how much help they need from me. let’s say that one of my students has asthma problems, I’m going to need to be able to take control of the ventaliation in the room as much as I can so that my student with these problems can stay focused and not have to worry about having an asthma attack during the day.
The second practice that I would choose to incorporate in my classroom is the taking care of administrative task. Taking care of getting the attendance, lunch orders, taking up homework, and other task like this need to be done very quickly so I can get to the instructional time. The more time I have to teach my students the lesson they better they are going to be able to understand the concepts related to the lesson. If this isn’t done right away, chaos can happened because I, the teacher, am not going to be able to know what’s going on with lunch and who is here on time and who is absent. If I were not to take attendance right away and carry on with my day, I’m not going to know if one of my students is here which could lead into problems because I could think that someone is here and go down to the office saying that someone is missing when really they never showed up in the first place.
The third practice that I would choose to incorporate in my classroom is connecting with real life. I will tell stories about my daily life because it will show my students that I am willing to open up my life to them and they can tell me what is going on with theirs. This could lead to me being a support system to my students because they know that they can maybe relate to them or just listen to what is going on in their lives. My students are going to know that I care about them and have as much as an open communication relationship as I can with them. Me telling them about my daily life can also lead into what I’ve been learning and incorporate it with my lesson because they are getting real life examples and they are learning that what the lesson is going over they aren’t just going to need it in the classroom, they can actually use it in their lives as well. For example, if I’m going to be learning how to make a new food recipe and mess up on the measurements and tell that to my students they are going to know that the measurement exercise I gave them yesterday is going to come in handy in activities like cooking.
The three strategies I chose are jump-starting the brain, getting physical, and assigning homework.
Jump-starting the brain- This strategy helps the students review the previous day’s information and lets the teacher know where they need to start. I like this because it will give me a place to start when I am beginning my lesson for the day. In the book Jensen gives the example of the teacher using a graphic organizer in a PowerPoint presentation with 12 words missing of the 25-30 words that review the previous day’s concepts. Each team gets three minutes to figure out what content belongs and in which blank it belongs. This brings about a little class competition and helps the kids to learn at the same time. After the three minutes the teacher reviews and corrects the errors. I like this strategy and will use it in some way in my classroom. I may not do the way the example describes, but I will give my kids a way to review previous material so that they can reinforce what has been taught and so I know where I need to focus and possibly re-teach if some students are having issues.
Getting physical- This strategy helps the students to get active and produces the chemicals that are needed for the working memory to work correctly. Physical activities increase heart rate, circulation to the brain, and the production of other “uppers” for the brain, like adrenaline. This contributes to the working memory and helping kids understand and remember what is being taught during the day. In the book the example is given that the teacher has his kids every 12 to 15 minutes up and doing some type of physical activity, an example would be selecting one team member to lead the rest of the tem in a dance step or other energizer for 30 seconds or stand up touch three walls, find a partner, and engage in the think-pair-share strategy. This helps his kids retain the knowledge that he is trying to teach them. I like this strategy and will very likely use it in my classroom. I will call it a “brain break” where the kids will stop what they are doing and engage in some type of physical activity, such as playing a math game on the SMART Board because they are doing something physical but at the same time learning a concept. Really it will just be a way to sneak learning by them by getting them to think they are doing something fun.
Assigning homework- This strategy allows the kids to do their homework the last five minutes of class and allows for one on one help from the teacher and helps children who do not have the resources or have questions to be able to get the help needed to complete their homework before going home. The example given is that the teacher gives a list of optional short answer question at the beginning of each unit and allows time at the end of each day to do their homework. He allows for one on one time with students who are having issues and then collects the homework from those who are done. This allows for him to get a better understanding of his students and to help them in whatever way possible. I like this strategy and will use it a lot in the classroom. I may not use it every day but most of the time I will. This will allow me to get to know my students strengths and weaknesses and be able to improve their weaknesses and better their strengths. I will also get to help those who are having issues with the concepts being taught. I really like the idea the teacher had about giving the optional short answer question at the beginning of the unit and will probably steal it in the future.
Part 1
“The phrase ‘instructional light and magic’ refers to your ability to shine a spotlight on what matters most.” Three practices that I have considered using in my classroom are getting physical, elaborating and correcting errors, and jump starting the brain. These are the factors that matter the most to me, and are great strategies that I feel will help reshape the brain and enrich the lives of my students.
Getting physical is a strategy that I believe should be used in the classroom because I think that students needed to be active and out of their seats ever so often so that they don’t become bored and stiff. Jensen states, “working memory needs a dopamine for optimal functioning, and Mr. Hawkins knows that a good way to boost it is to engage in fun physical activities.” Physical activity is important because it gets the heart rate going, which then begins circulation to the brain and other productions that are helpful to the brain such as adrenaline. Some fun ways to allow students to get physical in the classroom would be, have a student stand-up, touch three walls, find a partner and engage in the think-pair-share strategy or “jigsaw” which is a way of learning by spreading out and joining new teams, then returning and sharing what they have learned. Although these activities may get the students revved up there are calming activities to get them back to work.
I like the thought of getting your students out of their seats because they’re not forced to focus on one task for long periods of time, because negative states of worry and distress contribute to lower cognitive performance and positive states help students learn more. Students many not be able to perceive how much control they have over their feelings so getting them out of their seats is a way to lessen their state of worry or disengagement.
Elaborating and correcting errors is one of the practices that I would use in my classroom because I feel that it is important for students to understand what it is that they did wrong. You have to stay positive when critiquing a student’s work. Students have to learn from their mistakes and they cannot do that if you are constantly lecturing them. Jensen writes that, “repeated testing on the same content produces better scores than repetition, studying, or new testing.” I think that this is important because if you are constantly tested and quizzed on certain material it is something that is embedded in your memory and is not as easily lost or forgotten.
I like the idea of elaborating when correcting errors, because I feel that this a good way of reinforcing something that a student is not clear on and allowing them to understand why something is not correct and different strategies they can use to correct their mistakes.
Part 2
Another strategy that I feel should be used in the classroom, is jump starting the brain. This strategy is helpful because it is a way to quickly review information from a previous lesson. A quick way to do this is by putting up a PowerPoint presentation from the previous lesson with a few of the words missing. By doing this in groups and giving each team a certain amount of time to fill in the blanks, you are creating competition and fun at the same time. When the time is up and the corrections are made to each the groups work, as a teacher you are able to see where the focus needs to be if students were not able to fill in all the blanks.
I think that this is a fun learning strategy for students. To them they may think that they are just being competitive but they are really learning and having fun at the same time. I feel that it is important to have fun when you’re learning and that as a teacher it is a good way of finding out what your students have learned from a previous lesson without having to give a quiz or test. The students are learning as they go through a certain lesson without waiting until the last minute to review and ask questions about certain information.
All of the strategies that were given in this chapter were very useful and I feel that they all could easily be incorporated in the classroom. When teaching children of poverty you have to be able to provide emotional support while engaging the students’ interest and building their intellectual skills. By building caring relationships and the students’ resilience and self-esteem, and setting high academic standards in the belief that all students can learn, you are enriching the minds of students and changing their lives.
One of my favorite applications that are mentioned in this chapter is connecting with real life. In the book it is described as Mr. Hawkins discussing an everyday simple problem that he ran into over the weekend. He puts it on the students to help him solve it or ask the what they would have done in his situation. It is a great policy for kids on many levels. For one, it gives the students an opportunity to see the teacher as a person, not just somebody they have to listen to from 8:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m. Students get to know their teacher on a whole different level. It is also critical for students to recognize an adult who makes good decisions. It helps students become real life problem solvers without the ramifications of failure.
Building hope is another attribute of teaching that is very useful. In the book it uses the example of having notecards that have stratagies to use. I would personally have them write down in the first page of their daily planner what they want to do after they get out of school. That way they have to look at it every day when they use it. It is vital for students to realize that their learning experience is not just something that the state makes them do. It is crucial for their function in society as well as their only hope to accomplish their dreams. School is the highway to do whatever they want to in life. Building hope does that.
Assigning Homework and allowing them to do it before class ends is a great policy to use as well. It allows students to do homework with help that many of them might not be able to access at home. They can complete it in class an it gives them more incentive to finish it rather than forget about it. Homework is vital for success, but the only way it is going to work is if it is completed properly. Allowing students to start it while still in school gives them the best opportunity to complete it.
The three practices that I would use are connecting with real life, building hope, and getting physical. I feel like these are very important when teaching your students so that you can insure that they are learning. Connecting with real life is something I like to do because it can show the students that they are not the only ones that are going through a bad situation. I also think it will help me connect to my students because I know what’s going on in their life. Then after I tell them my story, whether good or bad, I would as what they would do if it were them. This would make me feel so good because I know I’m helping them to learn problem solving which will come in handy as they get older. In the book Jensen says something I really love, that problem solving encourages kids to be participants in life and not spectators. Then building my students hope is going to be a part of my everyday routine. The reason I want to do this is because I have a big heart and I really care about people and want them to have everything that they want. I feel that building my students hope will kind of build their confidence and make them want to strive to get what they are dreaming about in life. It will make me feel really good to see them later in life living their dream because I know I had something to do with it. I do believe in order to get them to their goals they have to learn and they learn better when they are less stressed. Getting them physical will help them with that. I have learned that being physically active can help reduce stress and help with learning capacity. Getting my students up and making them move and have fun doing will help them relive some of the stress that is preventing them from learning. In the book Jensen list things that another teacher used that I would definitely use for my students. I am really looking forward to when I start teaching because I know it is going to very rewarding, plus I get to be surround by plenty children that look up to me to teach them what they need to know so they can live their dream.
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