Whole Brain Teaching

 

What is whole brain teaching? What does it look like? Today we will be discussing this topic in a little bit of detail. When someone is referring to whole brain teaching, it is a way teaching that involves the students' full attention. Full focus and total engagement are achieved when whole brain teaching is done right. You might ask, "But how do I be sure to get my students full attention?" Most resources that talk about whole brain teaching will give you seven major steps to follow through with in order to receive your students focus. Below I will list the six that I plan to use in my future classroom:

1. Class-Yes

This is where the teacher initially gets the students' attention off prior engagements and directs it toward herself. The teacher may choose how she wants this to look, but one example of this would be "Class, class, class... Yes, yes, yes"

The teacher may even let the students be involved with picking out a little chant that is used for this step. It is just to be sure that the teacher gets a response from the students. 

2. Teach-OK

  For this step, students will be divided into partners and will follow the teacher's lead. The teacher will "teach"  apart of the lesson and then have the students replicate what she did and said. From the hand gestures to the words, it is the student's job to mimic exactly what the teacher did to the best of their ability. Since the students will be mimicking, it is best that the teacher keep it short and only pull highlights from the lesson. After the teacher says "teach", the students say "OK" and then begin. 

3. Switch 

This step is just like step two but with swapping partners, so that both students have the chance to teach.      

4. Class Rules

This step is pretty self-explanatory. The and possibly the students too, come up with a set of rules to stick too. Example: "Raise your hand to ask questions"

"Follow directions quickly"

Getting the students involved in making these rules gives them a sense of responsibility to follow them and probably a desire to do right. Then when rules are broken, it must be made clear to the student which one it was.

5. Scoreboard

This is kind of used as a motivating step. Students go against teacher to see who can earn the most points, and whoever wins gets rewarded. Students earn points when the teacher notices good behavior, and bad behavior is resulted in her getting points. How often the rewards are given is totally up to the teacher. If you want to tally at the end of the day, week , month, or quarter, whatever works best for you is how it should be done.  

6. Hands and Eyes

This step is very similar to the Class-Yes step. Students put their hands together n front of them to show they are not working on anything else. Eyes are then on the teacher and the students can sometimes repeat what the teacher says.