Ok I am going to jump right in and start this this year!! Any advice from you veterans!! I am a little nervous. My rules are posted and I watched the videos!!

Hey there, I was in your boat a little less than 1 year ago when I started Whole Brain Teaching in October of 2009. I basically got disgusted at the way the kids could not answer any questions I had after a direct instructin lesson. Since then I learned more about teaching and how the brain works in kids. For example, research shows that the child can pay attention for every minute of their age. So you got about 12 minutes of solid teaching in 5th grade before you start to lose them.

Hence why I started Whole Brain Teaching. I will give you the reality of this.

First, you can't just jump in and start saying, "Ok ready, TEACH!" They will look at you very strangely. What you do is warm them up to it by introducing things they already know and love to talk about. For example, what do you think will happen in your classroom the minute you say, "Wow guys, did you see that new movie called Toy Story 3 yet?" What do you think will happen? Suddenly the class will erupt into excitement and talking. So you steer all that engery into Whole brain Teaching. You now say, "Ok class, well, whoever you're sitting next to, talk about two things that you really loved about the movie. They will become your.. teaching partner, of sorts.. But don't start until I give a signal. Here's what we will try. Let's do this: when I clap a pattern and say 'TEACH!', you clap that same pattern back and say, 'OK!' and then start talking about the movie!"

Immediately they will jump right in and do it naturally.

From there, you say, "Ok class, let's try one more. Teach your partner what you will do this coming weekend.. talk about two things! [CLAP CLAP CLAP] "TEACH!"

Bam.. you have Whole Brain Teaching introduced. Then from there you can start into the other things like the scoreboard, etc etc.

Now, you can't use WBT every second of every day because then will become as routine as the lecture, where kids won't say "OK!!" anymore. they will start giving a half-ass low "okkkkk" from their voices, and then like 30% won't even do it. So, use WBT as another tool, your main tool from kids losing your attention.

Another thing you must realize. You must NOT direct teach longer than their attention spans. Use WBT to break up your lessons into chunks. The child's brain can only handle about 7 new pieces of information - after which they can't handle anymore. Of those 7 pieces of information, it is stored for about 30 seconds before it's dropped out of their short term memory. this is where WBT comes into play. WBT is used to keep them teaching the information so they will transfer the short term memory into the working memory - and then hopefully into the long term memory is where we want them to be. If you have anymore questions, you can e-mail me:
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I also have WBT videos of my own posted: my favorite one is here:
www.schooltube.com/video/073a0492b0c646d...ng-5th-Grade-Reading

Dale ... great advice and a wonderful suggestion about how to start the Teach-Okay ... however, it is possible to use the Teach-Okay consistently ... we've had instructors who have had the same group of kids for two years and it still works ... of course, you have to keep tweaking things, changing your tone of voice, using different gestures/handclaps etc ... and when the energy goes down, there are lots of Scoreboard techniques to pick things back up.

Hi and welcome!

I practiced a lot the summer before I implemented WBT. I practiced on anyone who would be willing ! My husband, at the time, would tease and mock me but it really helped! I started the first day with the Class Yes, then the Scoreboard, Five rules, and Teach Okay. I was amazed at how they responded and it fired me up for the rest of that first day. The children were so enthusiastic and it is contagious! Repeat the basics about three times a day at first. Feel free to come back here for help, we LOVE to share the magic! Have a great year! You'll never look back once you implement WBT into your teaching.

Dawn Nelson

I teach 2nd graders and I was amazed at how quickly they picked up on WBT. I taught them the 5 rules in one day. They absolutely love the gestures that go along with it. We did several skits of students breaking each one of the 5 rules. Then I would respond "class, what rule is "Johnny" breaking?" This was really great in helping them understand each rule. What I have noticed in my room is the more energized I am toward using class/yes, teach/okay, and so on, the more the students are. My best advice is to be consistent with everything. You will be pleasantly suprised with the results.