The Power of Whole Brain Teaching

Not too long ago one of my students came in and handed me a piece of paper with writing on it that she had done at home.  This is not unusual.  Quite often students will bring me short notes they have written or pictures that they have drawn for me.  It is really sweet.  This one, however, was quite different.  It demonstrates the power of Whole Brain Teaching in a way that nothing else can.  Below is a picture of the paper that she gave me.

It was like receiving a recap of what we had recently been studying.  This came from one of my average students.  The first thing I noticed was that she indented.  We have been using the indent Brainie for awhile, but it still amazes me how easy it is to get students to indent independently.  After all, it is only the first semester of second grade.  The Brainies are amazing!

Next, I noticed the use of the "If-then" Brainie.  We were studying character traits at the time and using the "If-then" Brainie to state evidence supporting a character trait.  I know that the writing is a little hard to read, so let me share with you, unedited, the five sentences that she wrote:

"If a dinosaurs eat a person, then he is mad.  If Carmen was crying, then she is sad.  If Carmen erned a super improver star, then she is happy.  If Jenk did not want to go with Carmens mom, then she is shy.  If a princess made a person feel better, then she is helpful."

Of course, her sentence about earning a Super Improver Star is my favorite!  All three of those sentences were punctuated correctly, which demonstrates the power of the Brainies.  Also, I don't know if you can see it, but if you look carefully at the two Carmens, you will notice that she had orignally written lower case c's, but changed them to capitals.  I attribute this to all of the revision practice that the students get with red/green writing.  (For more information on red/green writing, please see my post on this subject.)

From there she went on to write three different lists.  The first is a list of long vowel words.  The second is a list of long "o" words", and the third is a list of long "e" words.  All three sentences were written correctly with commas and the word "and" before the last item in the list.  This can be attributed to the "Triple Whammy sentence".  A triple whammy sentence is a list with three parts.  An example would be:  My three favorite subjects in school are reading, math, and science.  Once students have learned how to write a triple whammy sentence, it becomes very easy for them to correctly create longer lists.

She ended with examples of the first two steps of Whole Brain Teaching's five step lesson plan.  When introducing a concept using WBT, the first step is to ask the students a question, which they ask to their partner.  The second step is to answer the question.  The answer is the definition of the concept.  You may notice that her definition of a noun is incorrect on her paper.  However, when she handed the paper to me she informed me that she had got mixed up there (pointing to that sentence) and that she meant to say an adjective describes a noun.  She went on to explain that she didn't have time to fix it.  Her second example came from math.  We have been studying place value.  I had created my own power pic to go with a place and defined it as "A place is a home for a number." (For my information on Power Pics, please see my post entitled "The Power of the Pics".)  It had been a number of weeks since I introduced this Power Pic to my students, but because we are constantly reviewing the Power Pics, the students are retaining the concepts.  I would also like to point out that both of her questions ended with question marks.

I chose to write this blog, because I know that there are some people who will be reading it that have not yet tried Whole Brain Teaching, but are curious about it.  Maybe you are one of them.  If you are like I was, you might be wondering, "Can anything be that good?  Do you really get the results that are claimed?"  My answers are emphatically "Yes and yes!"  This little girls' paper clearly demonstrates the power of Whole Brain Teaching.  I will never teach any other way!  I have spent 25 years in education and have never seen anything like it.  If I had to boil why Whole Brain Teaching works so well down into one sentence I would say the following:  It works so well,  because learning is fun and the students are always engaged.  The same day that this student gave me this paper, she turned to me as we were leaving for the day and said, "Miss Ray, I really love school!"  My reply was, "I really love school too!"  Whole Brain teaching makes coming to school everyday fun for both the teacher and the student.  So what are you waiting for.  Take the plunge and you won't be sorry.  Within a month you will find yourself saying, "This is the best educational decision that I have ever made."