Overcoming Challenges

I’ve heard some teachers say that they have students who don’t want to be challenged. I disagree! One of the reasons that students can’t put down video games is because they look forward to moving to a more challenging level of the game. The difference between video games and classrooms is that when it comes to the game, students have the confidence to believe that they can succeed at a more difficult level. Continue Reading…

4 Tips For A Brain Calming Environment

According to brain research, there are simple things you can do to create a calming, stress-relieving environment for you, your family, and even students in a classroom.

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The Value of Building Relationships

Relationships are everything! Familial and friend relationships, workplace relationships, and spiritual relationships all make a tremendous difference in our lives.

When you look at the first chapter in my best-selling book on classroom management, Shouting Won’t Grow Dendrites: 20 Detours Around the Danger Zones, you will find that the first chapter is titled, “Develop a Relationship with Each Student.” Continue Reading…

The Importance of Purpose

When students cannot see the purpose in a teacher’s lesson, they will often ask the question, “Why do we have to learn this?” This question makes perfect sense, since the purpose of the brain was never to make straight As or score high on a standardized test. The purpose of the brain is survival in the real world. So the question becomes, “What does this lesson have to do with my survival?”

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The Power of Visualization

Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, stated the following: Everything happens twice – once in the mind and once in reality.  The once in the mind could be called visualizationVisualization has been defined as the use of mental images to influence bodily processes and is one of 20 brain-based strategies that enables human beings to remember what they are learning.

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