Becoming a Whiz at Brain-Based Teaching

I would like to start off by saying that you clearly had the toughest book to have to try and do an hour long presentation on. Science is one of those subjects that is really fun to learn about, but if you are not very science-oriented then you might have difficulty understanding the information. I really liked how you put up an agenda -- it was very "Dr. Grace like", and I also thought that the use of the back burner activity was definitely cool and I would try that in my own classroom. I thought that the handouts were informative and offered some great activities and ideas to implement these things in your classroom -- though I would say that it was a little overwhelming to receive a packet of information at the very beginning; at that moment I thought that we would be listening to a very lecture-based talk, but luckily I was wrong. I liked the use of the skit and I have always wanted to do them in my class, but I also thought that for some people, it is a little much and they do not really want to have to "act" in front of a room full of people, taking volunteers may have been a good idea. I also want to commend you on the use of the "jig-saw" like grouping, but my only problem with that is that if you have a great partner then you really get to cover the information without all the lecture, but there are cases when you do not have a good partner and the information is not as full as it should be (I am not saying that that is how I felt, but the possibility does exist when doing it). All in all, I learned a great deal and the presentation was very good.


P.S. Great use of Pinky and the Brain

Student Oriented Curriculum

I thought that this was a very interesting presentation. I really enjoyed the early part of the presentation because we got up and moved around; it was fun to have to choose a side of the room depending on the answer to the question. I also really enjoyed the ending assignment with us each getting to choose one of the statements that best suited us and then write about why we chose it and how we would use it. It is always good when a teacher allows you to give your opinions on a topic and they do not correct you just because they do not like your answer.

On another note, I thought that the decision to use the jig-saw groupings was a good idea but that it did not work as well as I thought it might. It did get us moving around and talking to other people in the classroom, but I personally felt like the information that I learned in the jig-saw, as good as it was, would have been better if it came from a person who actually read the book. I think it would have been fun if the presenters walked around the to the other groups and did a form of jig-saw instead of the students doing it.

My only questions that I have at the end of the presentation are: Would you try this "let the students lead the unit" concept in your classroom? and Do you think that it can work?

very good overall. I learned a great deal.