Friday, July 22, 2011

New Classroom Rules Posters!

I've been tinkering around with The 5 Classroom Rules and created different posters.  I thought I'd share in case anyone wants to use them.  I plan to have them enlarged and laminated so that I can display them above my chalkboards.


Saturday, July 2, 2011

Whole Brain Teaching: So good...you'll pass out!

I was all set to spend 3 days at the WBT Texas Conference.  Apparently I was so excited after the first 2 awesome days of information that I fainted as I was about to leave for the third.  Twice.  Fortunately I was staying with family and they were there when it happened.  Unfortunately it meant I spent 5 hours in the Emergency Room having tests run instead of attending Day 3.  Mighty Groan!

But enough about that!

I am beyond excited to start using WBT in my classroom this Fall!  As previously posted, I only dipped my toe in the Whole Brain water by doing Class-Yes, but this year I'm going all out!  My classroom neighbors will probably hate me (we have extremely thin walls), but if the kids are engaged and learning--that's what counts.

I can't emphasize enough how helpful it is to attend one of these conferences!  You get to see the wonderful Brother Biffle in action and how to put all the pieces in place.  

The videos (while inspiring) are a bit daunting at times though.  The teachers go so quickly and (at least right now) it feels like "I'll never get that good!"  And I very well may not.  The videos we saw were well done and the students were engaged, but I felt were almost rushed.  There were times that I couldn't even understand what they were saying it was so fast.  The teacher's energy level was (on a 1-10 scale) at a 10.  I'm probably more of a 5--on a good day, so this will take some personal personality tweaking.

Or maybe it's just such a departure from the way I (and most of us) teach that it seems rushed.  I definitely think this will be my biggest challenge.  The steps and levels of WBT--those I think I can master and implement in class.  It's just my own energy level that's going to take some work.

A 10-finger rolling "woo" to Mr. Biffle and Region III for hosting this conference.  Never have I been to a more engaging and interactive conference.  Well worth the 2 hour drive from Houston!