ACE Report Cites Our Work in Self-Regulation and Metacogition

A recent report from the American Council on Education, Unpacking Relationships: Instruction and Student Outcomes, references our work in the areas of self-regulation and metacognition. The authors of this prestigious report write, “Students are more likely to persist and graduate when actively involved in the educational process.”

Citing our book, Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching, the authors continue, “Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers (2013) outline five ideas from cognitive science research that are applicable to teaching and learning, one of which focuses upon the role of metacognition and reflection to enhance students’ active engagement in their own learning.”

Educators Recommend Using Our HEAR Strategy During the Holiday Season

In the weeks leading up to the holidays, teachers tell us that it is sometimes difficult to help students stay focused on learning. Teachers around the world use our HEAR strategy to assist students to learn how to internalize the skill of active listening in order to understand what others are saying.

Susan Marie Poulette, CCC-SLP, a speech and language pathologist and educator, references our article in her piece titled “Classroom Listening Before the Holidays—Herding Cats?”

Helping Struggling Students Build a Growth Mindset

In one of our Edutopia posts, Marcus and I talk about the importance of helping struggling students build a growth mindset.

Our research aligns with Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset—acting on the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.

As we explain in the post, a positive mindset focuses on the gains that are possible when students persevere through learning challenges. It’s important to maintain a positive mindset, even when school can be difficult, and for teachers to help students remain motivated to work hard to persevere through those difficulties.

In the post, we present five strategies to help struggling students develop a growth mindset. They include:

• Encourage optimism about learning. You can do this by modeling practical optimism, sharing examples of how you overcame learning obstacles, and maintaining a positive learning atmosphere.
• Teach students to learn more effectively. We like the metaphor of teaching students how to “drive their brains” through the use of cognitive strategies.
• Maintain success files. This contains evidence that helps students internalize and remember their learning successes.
• Use growth assessments. This will help students identify their strengths and areas of weakness that need further practice and reinforcement.
• Let students choose. Giving students the opportunity to choose topics of personal interest to study helps them maintain interest and motivation.

For more information about how a growth mindset helps struggling students, read the entire post at Edutopia. 

Our Ed Week Post Stresses the Importance of the Caring Classroom Where Students Learn How to Learn

In responding to Education Week as a part of the popular Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo, Marcus and I described our exciting, unique, and productive approach that we have taught educators for relating with students.

The question for this blog post was: "What are the best ways to build relationships with students?"

“Our cognitive approach positions the teacher-student relationship as one where effective teachers are expert learners who explicitly teach students how to learn in ways they can use across contexts in academics, life, and on the job,” we wrote in our reply. “Teachers find this fulfilling because they know how important it will be for their students to be able to learn new skills to enjoy success across many jobs across their lifespans.”

Angel Rodriguez, Brain-Based (BrainSMART) Teaching Graduate, Finds His "Dream School"

We were pleased to see Angel Rodriguez, who earned his Ed.S. degree in Brain-Based (BrainSMART) Teaching, featured in a recent article of The Gainesville Times, as he takes on the role of principal at Lyman Hall Elementary in Gainesville, Georgia.

Angel is quoted in the article as calling Lyman his "dream school." The majority of the students at the school are Latino, which reflects Rodriguez's own upbringing as a child growing up with parents from Puerto Rico and Cuba. Much of the student population is learning English as a second language and receiving free or reduced-price lunches, which is exactly the demographic that he wishes to serve.

Prior to coming to Lyman, Angel was an assistant high school principal with Gwinnett County Schools. He had experience in the elementary school level, and he told The Times: "In my heart, I always wanted to come back to elementary."

Ann Arbor School References Our Work to Define Their Approach to Brain-Based Education

Clonlara School in Ann Arbor, Mich., references our work to help define “Brain-Based Education: An Overview of Research Supporting Clonlara’s Educational Approach.”

The school defined brain-based education “an approach that draws from the science of how the human brain learns naturally and aligns instructional strategies to support student learning at different stages of the brain’s development.”

Vietnam Blog Highlights our "Driving Your Brain" Metaphor

It's exciting that the internet has extended the reach of our writings and research around the globe. We recently became aware of a blog, Educational Designing World, created by Huong Dinh of Vietnam, in which the topic of metacognition—thinking about one's thinking—is featured.

Ms. Dinh has worked for GreenViet, a NGO in the field of saving biodiversity and combating the problems of climate change and global warming. She has taken a master's degree program at the University of Oulu, Finland, with a "Learning, Education, and Technology" major to further her goal of becoming an educational designer focusing on environmental issues.

Dallas School Highlights Our BrainSMART Strategies in Professional Development

Marcus’ and my professional learning strategies were featured in “The Weekly Armadillo,”  an online newsletter published by the Nathan Adams Elementary School in the Dallas Independent School District.

Quoting from one of our Edutopia blog posts, Inspiring Progress Toward Learning Goals, the excerpt drove home the point that, "By teaching students to monitor their thinking during learning by setting goals, applying strategies, reflecting, and adjusting, teachers will help them improve their learning ability."

The newsletter also drew attention to our strategies for “Goal Setting and The Brain,” which stressed the importance of setting learning coals; choosing the most effect learning strategies, reflecting on what you know and what you need to find out, adjust strategies accordingly, and learning from experience.

Our Work on Metacognition Is Cited in MultiBriefs Post by Sheilamary Koch

Our work is included in a blog post entitled “Preparing students for critical thinking: Incorporating metacognition,” which appears on the MultiBriefs website, a leading publisher of association-branded email publications.

Written by Sheilamary Koch, the post links to our thinking about how incorporating metacognition consciously in the classroom has been proven to promote the development a growth mindset while also empowering students to use strategies that will help themselves learn better.

The post recommends our process for introducing the term metacognition and explain what it entails in understandable terms for your students I am quoted in the post as recommending the use of the “Drive Your Brain” metaphor with younger students as a “concrete way to guide them toward thinking about how they can best learn.”

Checkout My Interview with ASCD Radio

Research suggests that metacognition is key to higher student achievement, but studies of classroom practice indicate that few students are taught to use metacognition and the supporting cognitive strategies that make learning easier. Educators, you can teach metacognition to your students, so why wouldn't you?

The Forgotten Secret to Leadership Success

By Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers

Follow these four guiding questions to improve leadership and student learning

 

Recent research by London neuroscientist Stephen Fleming indicates that metacognition—‘thinking about thinking’—is the forgotten secret to success across all domains. Educational leaders can use this powerful tool to question, monitor, and adjust their thinking in ways that help drive action toward achieving goals.

We believe that metacognition can be applied to school leaders’ support for teachers and teacher education and improvement. How? By providing opportunities for teachers to work together—and in effect think about their teaching and their thinking about teaching—to improve their teaching practice. By reflecting on best practices for classrooms together, teachers have a chance to become more effective educators, both individually and collectively.

During the past two decades of providing brain-based professional development and university graduate studies, we have seen that when teachers have opportunity for purposeful collaboration, they are more thoughtful, joyful, and resilient professionals.

Mississippi High School Encourages Positivity

At the Center for Innovative Education, we are inspired when schools and districts use our ideas to cultivate a more joyful place for thinking and learning to occur.

At the beginning of the U.S. school year, I want to applaud the educators at Kossuth High School in Corinth, Mississippi, for supporting positivity!

Using one of our articles on the power of positivity in schools, they state, “A positive community of educators within a school has a powerful effect on the students who learn there. Individually, teachers contribute to that positive environment by exhibiting and modeling an optimistic outlook and can-do attitude.”

Australia Report Cites the Importance of Metacognition in Teaching Financial Literacy

Having presented in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia earlier this year, Marcus and I are pleased to see our work is being used in New South Wales. The most recent example that we have learned about is in a report authored by Nikki Goldspink Chaffey of the Narranga Public School in New South Wales.

Ms. Chaffey found particular value in our post, entitled “Metacognition, The Gift That Keeps Giving.” In a report entitled, “Starting Young: An international study of successful primary school financial literary programs” sponsored by First State Super, she cited our article as a resource:

“Research shows a classroom encouraging positive emotions and optimistic viewpoints produces broadened thoughts and actions and improves resourcefulness and exploration, which can result in improved academic achievement and fulfilment. Students who succeed academically often rely on being able to think effectively and independently to take charge of their learning. These students have mastered fundamental skills such as being organised, completing tasks on schedule, making a plan, monitoring their learning path, and recognising when it might be useful to change course. These are skills that we now know can be taught through metacognition (the ability to think about your thoughts with the aim of improving learning).”

Laurel Springs Recommends How Parents Can Give Children the Gift That Keeps Giving: Metacognition

Laurel Springs, an accredited online private school based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, suggests to students’ parents that they utilize our “Drive Your Brain” approach for helping their children prepare to begin middle school in autumn. Specifically, linking to one of our articles on how to teach metacognition—defined as thinking about our own thinking to improve learning—educators at Laurel Springs recommend that parents teach their children this concept because it can have a positive effect on learning. 

In essence, Laurel Springs educators are utilizing our approach for guiding children to use metacognition as an essential thinking tool that improves learning and creates more independent thinkers. They advise parents that once you begin to understand metacognition, you can model it for your child by working through the steps of problem-solving or learning a new concept verbally.

BrainSMART In Bhutan

The leaders and citizens of the country of Bhutan, located in the Himalayas, are a thoughtful and intentional people and have shown it by making happiness a priority for every citizen.

As strong advocates for well-being, we are delighted to see that educators there are using our article, “Strategies for Strengthening the Brain’s Executive Functions,” which describes how to guide students on how to further develop the awareness and directive capacities of the mind.

An apparent national interest in continuously improving student thinking, alongside a focus on happiness, should be a formula for continued success and well-being.

Research Project Touts Optimism and Learning

One aspect of the BrainSMART Model that impressed Chuck Balogh was its emphasis on the power of positive thinking to increase academic success. As he described in the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students, the then-sixth-grade teacher not only put those techniques to work in his classroom, but he also he designed an action research project around optimism and self-reflection.

Balogh, who earned his M.S. degree with a major in Brain-Based Teaching, did his research with 300 students in the Peoria, Arizona, public school district over almost two full school years. The students in his science and social studies classes came from different economic situations and different backgrounds.

A central goal of his research was to increase the positive thinking abilities of learners through self-reflection. Balogh modeled positive thinking and taught his students the power of optimism. He also encouraged them to write daily in “Happy Books,” a technique he adapted based on BrainSMART research that involves writing about emotions, events, and people in students’ lives that make them feel happy and optimistic.

Using Positivity to Reach a “Tough Audience”

High school students can be a “tough audience,” especially for a physical education teacher, but Marlene Mendes described in the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Effective Students, how she learned a variety of strategies through the brain-based graduate degree program to create a positive learning state and to encourage students to approach new challenges with an optimistic outlook.

Ms. Mendes, who has more than 30 years of teaching experience, teaches secondary students in San Luis Opispo, California. At the time of her interview, she observed that her studies to earn her master’s degree have underscored the importance of the teacher and students maintaining a positive outlook on teaching and learning.

“I had a student who had a very negative attitude,” she reported. “I talked to her about it and asked her to name three positive things, trying to get her to focus on being positive.” As a result of that conversation, the student turned her attitude around. She started dressing out and participating. She became a lot more involved and a lot less negative.

Engaging Students With Brain-Based Learning

Direct instruction on how the brain learns best is an effective strategy, as borne out by Kim Poore’s experience in teaching a class of K-5 students with behavioral and emotional disorders in South Carolina’s Lancaster County Public School District.

Ms. Poore, who earned her M.S. with a major in Brain-Based Teaching, was enrolled in the Ed.S. program, at the time of her interview with the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. This coincided with her teaching in a Title I school with a diverse population.

“I was able to take what I learned in just one lesson and use it in my class the next day,” said Ms. Poore in the interview. She pointed to several strategies from the BrainSMART book, 60 Strategies for Increasing Student Learning, that had immediate practical use in the classroom.

Motivating Middle School Minds

Impassioned educator Christina Issac has never shied away from a challenge—like focusing her talents on tumultuous ’tweens in middle school.

Issac’s experience as a middle school teacher includes teaching sixth-graders at Washington Middle School in Cairo, Georgia. In an interview with the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students, she explained that BrainSMART retention strategies transformed her classroom, including inclusion students in special education.

Her students were allowed to look up during tests, to activate the visual part of the brain that is connected to memory. Practical Optimism and the EFFORT strategy helped get her adolescent students in a receptive mindset for learning.

BrainSMART in Japan

 Future Education Tokyo features several of our ideas and strategies as a part of a comprehensive and systematic plan to assist Japan as they seek to provide their young with a foundation for learning and skills so they can create their future. An article on the Tokyo website contextualizes the use of our BrainSMART strategies to help guide students to become metacognitive as a key aspect of active learning.

Active learning and metacognition are featured in Japan’s new course of study to be implemented from 2020 forward. The writer indicates that people may have heard about metacognition in business seminars and employee training. However, connecting to insights from our articles, “The Boss of My Brain” and “Building A Metacognitive Classroom,” it becomes clear that educators and parents can assist students to learn how to use metacognition too. On a personal note, having recently returned from a trip to Japan where Marcus Conyers and I had opportunity to engage with many lovely and forward-thinking Japanese people, we are greatly pleased for our strategies to be seen as an aspect of the Japanese vision for education.

University College Cork Applies a BrainSMART Strategy to Help Students Have a Successful First Year

Dr. Eithne Hunt, registered Occupational Therapist and lecturer in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at University College Cork, Ireland, includes one of Marcus Conyers’ and my strategies in an article for first-year students.

I found this article a good read and imagine that it could be of great interest for students when they first leave home and go off to college. In this piece, Dr. Hunt references our BrainSMART strategy “Explain It to Your Brain” as a way to assist students to become more metacognitive. Metacognition has been called the #1 key for success across professional contexts.

She summarizes our strategy as follows: “Students who use self-explanation tell themselves what they are thinking and doing when learning, a strategy closely related to metacognition, which is a characteristic of successful student learning and of professional success across careers.”

Celebrating BrainSMART's 20-Year Anniversary: Teachers Speak

Koh Huey Min, an educator who attended the BrainSMART seminar in Singapore, uses a number of strategies to improve her outlook on teaching and to help the well-being of colleagues as well. Here are two of the most effective:

 

Clothes Hanger

Being one of the more experienced teachers in the school, I am often given challenging classes to teach, and this did not change in 2017 (nor has it changed in 2018). In order to avoid bringing negative emotions into the next class, I made a point to collect myself during the walk to the next class. If any anger or frustration I was feeling was not shed by the time that I reached the next class, I made myself stand at the door, took three deep breaths, smiled, and walked in.

During the times that the venue for back-to-back classes was the same, I made myself walk out of the classroom after dismissing the first class before the next class came in. Sometimes I went to the washroom, while other times I walked up and down the short corridor outside the classroom. The brief detachment from the physical environment helped me to reset my emotions before the next class comes in.

"Building a Metacognitive Classroom" Featured in New Zealand Magazine

As Marcus and I prepare to present at the popular Hawker Brownlow Education [HBE] Conference, which is taking place May 18-20 in Melbourne, Australia, we are delighted that our work has been featured in a leading teachers’ magazine based in New Zealand. We hope to have an opportunity to meet teachers from New Zealand who may well have read this article prior to attending our sessions in Melbourne.

Our article, “Building a Metacognitive Classroom: Engaging Students to Understand Brain Function,” appeared in a recent issue of Teachers Matter, a 76-page glossy, coffee-table magazine focusing on professional and personal development for teachers with circulation in New Zealand, Australia, and other countries.

Thank you to Karen Tui Boyes, CSP, founder and director of Teachers Matter magazine, for reaching out to us to publish this piece that highlights our work in supporting teachers to assist students to become more metacognitive.

Respecting Others' Points of View Is Theme of Our Response to Education Week's Classroom Q&A

The ability to understand and respect other individuals' points of view is a vital skill that students of all ages should learn. That was a theme that Marcus and I stressed in responding to a question posed by Education Week as a part of the popular Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo.

The question for this blog post was: "When two or more students are having a conflict, what are the most effective ways teachers can respond to the situation?"

As we pointed out, students can be taught two valuable skills that will pay significant dividends throughout their lives—which is to identify, respect, and seek to understand points of view that differ from their own and to tailor their communications to their intended audience.

Strategies to Stimulate Thinking About Learning

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

During his time as a special education teacher with Bartow County Public Schools in Cartersville, Georgia, D’Jon McNair used BrainSMART teaching strategies supporting the concepts of state, meaning, attention, retention, and transfer to help students improve their performance in the classroom.

 “I was excited and stunned to learn that cognitive skills can be learned,” he said in an interview for the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “Teaching kids cognitive skills has been instrumental in helping them feel successful in what they’re doing and getting them motivated to learn.”

Teaching Young Children to Be Treasure Hunters

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

Christena Nelson’s goal is to create a classroom environment where energetic, optimistic children are excited to learn, and the BrainSMART strategies are among her most useful tools in accomplishing that aim. She shared some of these ideas in an interview for the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students.

At the time of the interview, she was teaching a year-round kindergarten class at Copper Canyon Elementary School in West Jordan, Utah. Ms. Nelson adapted many of the ideas in Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers’ book, 60 Strategies for Increasing Student Learning, for use with her young students.

We Explain in Ed Week Why Brain Plasticity Should Be Taught More in the Classroom

Marcus and I had the opportunity to stress the importance of teaching students about brain plasticity in responding to Education Week as a part of the popular Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo.

The question for this blog post was: "What is an instructional strategy and/or teaching concept that you think is under-used/under-appreciated in the classroom that you think should be practiced more widely?"

As we emphasized in our response, teaching students about how their brains change during learning can have a positively transformative impact in the classroom. This is something that is not traditionally taught in schools, but certainly deserves to be. When kids realize they can become smarter through study and practice, it often helps improve their dedication to the learning process.

Students With Learning Disabilities Thrive Using Cognitive Assets

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

As a veteran teacher, Paul Farmer appreciated a fundamental principle of the M.S. program with a major in Brain-Based Teaching—that all students, even those with learning disabilities, can become functionally smarter when they are taught how to learn.

“I am no longer content to see my job as an educator being limited to that of teaching A, B, C and 1, 2, 3, and I feel that such a limit is a disservice to the disabled students in my classroom,” said Mr. Farmer in an interview for the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “I feel that a greater and more profound service is provided by viewing all students as having the capability not only to develop their bank of knowledge and skills, but also their capacity to learn and function in the world in which they live.

Teaching Students How They Learn Best

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

A productive learning environment puts the cognitive assets of Clear Intent, Practical Optimism, and Thoughtful Behavior to work on a daily basis, according to Theresa Dodge, who has taught in the Greenfield School District in Greenfield, Massachusetts, for more than 20 years.

Ms. Dodge earned her M.S. degree with a major in Brain-Based Teaching from Nova Southeastern University in 2009. As quoted in the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students, she said the degree program equipped her “with an incredible arsenal of instructional strategies to meet just about any challenge I could have in the classroom.”

For Ed Week's Classroom Q&A, We Urge Principals to Promote Teacher Leadership and Purposeful Collaboration

In responding to Education Week as a part of the popular Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo, Marcus and I described the school principal's role in emphasizing teacher leadership and purposeful collaboration among teachers.

The question for this blog post was: "What are the biggest challenges faced by principals, and what are the best ways to respond to them?"

We point out in our response how quality of teaching has a significant impact on students' ability to achieve their full learning potential. Principals play an important role in elevating the level of teaching by understanding and emphasizing  teacher leadership and purposeful collaboration among teachers to support effective teaching.

Guiding Students to Persevere to Achieve Their Potential

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

Dr. Kelly Rose’s educational career has been greatly influenced by her studies of brain-based teaching. While earning her Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Instructional Leadership, with a Minor in Brain-based Leadership, she was teaching second year at Sullins Academy in Bristol, Va. She recalls asking students to write about their most important body part and was excited that many of them decided to write about their brains.

Dr. Rose has sparked interest among her second-graders about the human brain, based on conversations she had with them describing this amazing organ that is growing and changing inside them. “Students often get frustrated when they can’t reach an answer right away,” said Dr. Rose in an interview for BrainSMART’s publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “Reminding them that their brain is growing when they have to think helps them to persevere.”

The Power of Music Drives Learning

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

Holly Linder has been known to sing the praises of her elementary school students in the Kent City School District in Kent, Ohio. She is a music teacher, after all, so any singing of praise—either literal or figurative—is highly appropriate.

Sometimes, when her students’ voices are raised in song, Ms. Linder simply cannot contain herself. “I feel so good about them that I shout out the window how great they’re doing,” she said in an interview for the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students.

Building a Metacognitive Classroom

Teaching students basic knowledge about the brain’s potential can have a positive impact on their motivation, grit, and achievement. In particular, explicitly teaching them that learning changes the structure and function of their brains can be transformational in building a stronger belief in the value of working hard to master new material.

Teachers who explain these findings report that the knowledge has a positive effect on students’ perceptions of their abilities as well as on their expectations for success.

Examples from Elementary Classrooms

Diane Dahl of Texas, a participant in our brain-based teaching program, enjoys teaching her elementary students about the brain and strategies for learning. Students learn what neurons, dendrites, and axons are and how connections between neurons created by axons and dendrites create learning. Dahl emphasizes that each child has an amazing, unique brain and that through their practice and effort, all students will learn and remember a lot during the year. (Marcus discusses these brain basics and classroom implications in a short video.)

Courageous Learners Help Reduce Bullying

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

Maureen Ryan, known as “Coach Mo” to her students, credits BrainSMART’s Thinking for Results model for helping her to reach the “courageous learners” in her class.

The Thinking for Results model emphasizes that there is not a one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to teaching and learning. Instead, Coach Mo always reminds her students to “Never question ability, always improve strategy.”

“With a lot of my courageous learners, the challenge has been for them to learn that there’s somebody who cares and somebody who’s willing to take the time to listen and work with them and be positive and optimistic,” Coach Mo said when sharing her story with the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “I think too many times our courageous learners are already getting the sense of defeat before they’ve ever started something. I always want my students to know that I’m one of their biggest fans.”

Helping Students Improve Their Performance

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

For many underperforming students, the biggest obstacle to success is their own preconceived notion that they don’t have the ability to excel academically. Jeremy Green, who has experience as a high school teacher and football coach, has seen firsthand the power of breaking down that misconception and giving students the confidence they need to move improve their performance and their lives.

“If we have students who don’t read as well as they need to, then we need to explain to them that ‘You’re not stupid, you’re not deficient. You can get better, and here’s what we can do to improve,’” Mr. Green explained in an interview for the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “Our role as teachers and coaches is to sell them on the idea that they can get better. If we improve, we win—period.”

Ed Week's Classroom Q&A Response Highlights Memory Scaping as a Learning Strategy

Marcus and I describe memory scaping as a means of helping students retain information about social studies in responding to Education Week as a part of the popular Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo.

The question for this blog post was: "Are there curricula or strategies I can use to make social studies exciting to my students?"

Memory scaping is one of more than than 100 strategies that we have developed for use in the classroom. Memory scaping uses the power of location and movement, as well as episodic and sensory learning systems, to increase student engagement, attention, and recall of content.

Practical Optimism Links Positive Expectations to Positive Outcomes

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

When teaching second-grade at Rockbridge Elementary School in Norcross, Ga., Mary Driskill discovered that a little bit of optimism can go a long way. While earning her Ed.S. degree with a major in Brain-Based Teaching, Ms. Driskill learned the concept of Practical Optimism that links positive expectations for learning with positive outcomes. She shared that concept with her students and was pleased to see the children employ more positive thinking to achieve better results.

“I found that it helps to teach those kinds of strategies about how we learn and how we think,” explained Ms. Driskill, whose story was featured in the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “You can teach children cognitive assets that help them come up with the right answers.”

Never Too Young to Learn About Metacognition

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators' stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

Students are never too young to learn the value of metacognition. For several years, Regina Cabadaidis has taught this concept to her pre-K/K students at S.D. Spady Elementary School, a Montessori Magnet School in Delray Beach, Florida.

“We talk about metacognition all the time,” Ms. Cabadaidis said in an interview for the BrainSMART publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “It was one of the first words I taught them.”

A Skill Strong Readers Share

Students in classrooms across the United States spend an estimated 85 percent of their school day on assignments that require reading texts. A key difference between students who can read well and those who cannot is the ability to use metacognition.

Metacognition can be regarded as a conversation readers have with themselves about what they are reading. Metacognitive readers enjoy reading because they can find meaning in texts and think deeply to comprehend what they’re reading.

Those who have not yet learned to be metacognitive often have trouble reading fluently and comprehending what they read.

A Powerful Way to End the School Year

One of our strategies that teachers enjoy using at the end of the school year is a practical, easy-to-use tool we call Celebrating Learning With Year Mapping. This activity gives your current students a chance to feel good about what they’ve learned and provides incoming students an opportunity to see real evidence that they can be successful learners in the coming school year. And it gives teachers a chance to enjoy seeing students share what they’ve learned and to internalize their successful teaching.

Several elements of this strategy make it a powerful way to end the school year with a positive experience, often much needed after testing is over and as a busy year comes to an end. With prompted recall, each student can remember learning events that mean the most to them. Year-end mapping utilizes the power of positive teacher-student relationships as well as personalized learning, summarizing, group learning, and organizing information graphically.

Guiding Students to Be Independent Learners

It’s estimated that students in the U.S. spend nearly 20,000 hours experiencing classroom education by the age of 18, and that much of what is taught is forgotten within a short time. And there’s little evidence that they know how to apply effective learning strategies when they arrive at college.

In essence, many students have not learned how to retain and apply knowledge. Fortunately, current research offers fascinating insights about the brain’s capacity to learn at higher levels when effective learning strategies are used.

Our Latest EdWeek Commentary Highlights an Underappreciated Strategy: Teaching Students About How Learning Changes the Brain

Marcus and I had an opportunity to stress the importance of teaching students about their brains and learning when responding to a question for Education Week as a part of the popular Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo.

The question for this blog post was: "What is an instructional strategy and/or teaching concept that you think is underused/underappreciated in the classroom and should be practiced more widely?"

In our response, we pointed out how teaching students about their brains can have a transformative impact in the classroom, but unfortunately the knowledge about how brains change during learning is traditionally not taught.

Celebrating BrainSMART’s 20-Year Anniversary: Teachers Speak

Therese Reder has changed the way she teaches courtesy of principles she has learned since completing the BrainSMART program.

Understanding the body-brain connection, she makes sure that students have the opportunity to move during the day to enhance their learning ability.

Celebrating BrainSMART’s 20-Year Anniversary: Teachers Speak

The BrainSMART program has been excellent for teachers as well as for school administrators who are looking for principles to enhance their staffs’ professional and personal development.

Retired principal Priscilla Bourgeois and teachers in her parish had a positive experience using the program to bring out the most in educators and students. Here is her description of her BrainSMART experience.

Marcus Describes Link Between Learning and Exercise in Motiv Running Article

Marcus was the expert voice in an article entitled "Learning on the Run," which appeared on Motiv Running, a website dedicated to helping runners of all levels run better, reduce injuries, and live an active, outdoor lifestyle.

The article described the University of Oregon's "Run with a Researcher" program, which highlights the connection between running and learning. Marcus confirmed the powerful connection between movement and learning, pointing out that the brain's central processor of learning and memory—the hippocampus—is larger among people who exercise regularly.

Celebrating BrainSMART’s 20-Year Anniversary: Teachers Speak

Florida Teacher leader Beth Brissette used BrainSMART strategies and principles in the classroom as a means of motivating students to learn new things and grow new connections in their brains. Here, she describes how she used pipe cleaners as a visual aid for representing these new connections.

Making a Model to Show How We
“Grow Our Brains”

In these demanding days of teaching in public education, what I learned from Marcus and Donna now 20 years ago has been my solace and inspiration.



I’d also like to share how much the BrainSMART strategies enriched my teaching life and the day-to-day lives of my past second-graders. I believe the most powerful lesson to begin each year with was that of teaching about dendrites.

Online Video Companion for “Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains” Will Be Available This Spring

This past autumn, I was delighted to lead the development of our upcoming online video program, Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains: Metacognitive Strategies, Activities, and Lesson Plans, with ASCD.

The video is based on research, development and practical strategies from the ASCD book of the same name, which I co-authored with Marcus Conyers. Both the book and the accompanying video highlight the principles of metacognition as a tool that helps students unlock their brain power and take control of their learning.