Instructional Strategies to Enhance Engagement

Judy Willis, M.D. Engagement Strategies (2006)

• Attention Is Not Voluntary Choice

• Whatever is new or different will get priority

#1 Reason Kids Drop Out is Boredom (Bridgeland, Dilulio, & Morrison 2006)

• Judy Willis, M.D. Stated:• Boredom is stressful.

– The lower reactive brain is in control.

• Behavior– Fight (Disruptive) – Oppositional Defiant– Flight (Withdrawal) – ADHD and ADD– Freeze (Zone Out) social anxiety syndrome, seizures, OCD

– Children are misdiagnosed when the brain is not the problem. Kids are bored. Children want the dopamine pleasure that games and technology brings.

Judy Willis, M.D. Engagement Strategies (2006)

• The more ways something is learned, the more memory pathways are built

• Multiple stimulation mean better memory

• Examples:• Multiple forms of

review • Visual imagery• Personal relevance• Role-play• Produce product or

models

Engagement Strategies (Willis, 2006)

• Attention is not a voluntary choice – input must be selected by sensory filter. If it does not reach per-frontal cortex, it does not make it to long term memory.

• Must be selected to make it to the Reticular Activating System (RAS). Survival skills for animals.

The RAS – Judy Willis (2006)

• Curiosity alerts the RAS• Sound (voice volume, pitch, cadence)• Color, placement of objects• Your appearance (costumes, hats) do something

unusual• Novelty and curiosity• Predictions are great (which one do you want 1 penny

doubled for a year or $1,000,000?)• Optical Illusions http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/• Grumpy faces do not allow passage to pre-frontal cortex

Emotions and Learning:Brain-Targeted Teaching Strategies

Mariale M. Hardiman

• Predictability• Personal connection between teacher and students• Trust and acceptance• Safe environment• Control and choice• Humor• Music, art, dance and theater• Celebration

Connecting Emotions to Content

• It helps to make emotional connections to curriculum in order to achieve long term retention.

• For example by considering the emotional toll of the US Civil War may connect learning much more than isolated battles, and persons involved.

By Mc Knoell - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en

The two structures in the brain responsible for long-

term remembering are located in the emotional area

of the brain.

“Visual Tools Help Students Reach Higher Levels of Thinking”

• Arrangements of ideas that can be linked to previous learning

• Access both left and right side of brain

• Appeal to all learns starting at about age 5.

• Can have new info added easily and quickly.

• Are helpful in all subjects• Are fun and easy to create- Sprenger (2010)

Graphic Organizers

Sequence ChartFirst

Next

Next

Next

Last

Venn Diagram (comparison

Sim

ilariti

es

Diff

eren

ces

Diff

eren

ces

T- Charts (cause/effect) or (problem/solution) or Y - Charts

K What do we Know?

W What do we want to find out?

H How can we find out what we want to learn?

L What did we learn?

Mind Maps or Pictureshttp://www.mindmapsearch.org

• “With mind maps we are creating pictures that will enable student to remember 80 to 100 percent of what we have taught.” – Marilee Sprenger

• Nonlinguistic representations are a way of imaging information and are one way to improve student achievement. – Marzano, Pickering, and Pollack (2001)

• It does not have to be pictures, mind maps or graphic organizers. It may be movement, sounds and smells…

Engagement Strategies

Think-Pair Share• Ask students to reflect on

a question or prompt. Give them a brief amount of time (perhaps 30 seconds) to formulate a response.

• Ask students to pair up or to turn to their assigned partner.

• Ask them to discuss their responses.

Quick-Writes• Select a prompt that you would

like students to address.• Give students a specified

amount of time to collect their thoughts and jot down a response(~3-5min).

• Follow up with a Networking Session.

Quick-Draw• Reflect on meaning of “big

idea” and create a visual.• Follow up with Chalkboard

Splash.

“Ideas taken from Total participation Techniques” – Persida Himmele and William Himmele

Engagement Strategies

Networking Session• Prepare 1-4 prompts. Ask students

to reflect on or quick-write responses to prompts.

• Ask students to find someone (they have not spoken to) to discuss topic.

• Signal when to switch to next person with next prompt.

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down• Ask students a question for which

a yes/no or agree/disagree response is appropriate.

Chalkboard Splash• Copy responses to Quick-Write

or Quick-Draw onto random or selected places in classroom. (butcher paper)

• Ask students to walk around, analyze and jot down similarities, differences, and surprises.

• Ask students to get in small groups and share before sharing with larger group.“Ideas taken from Total participation

Techniques” – Persida Himmele and William Himmele

References• Willis, J. (2006) Research based strategies to ignite student learning.

ASCD: Alexandria, VA.• Willis, J. (2011) Sustaining students classroom attention in the digital age

[Presentation]. 2011 Learning and the Brain Conference. San Francisco.• Hardiman, M. (2004) Connecting Brain Research With Effective Teaching:

The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model. Lanham, Maryland: R&L Education• Sprenger, M. (2010), Brain-based teaching in the digital age. Alexandria,

VA: ASCD.• Medina, J. (2008), Brain rules. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.• Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D.J., & Pollack, J.E., (2001), Classroom instruction

that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.• Himmele, Persida, and William Himmele.Total participation techniques

making every student an active learner. Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 2011. Print.