Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Instructional Strategies That Engage the Brain

by Marcia L. Tate (Editor)

Overview

Bring Novelty Into The Classroom To Get Knowledge Into Students’ Brains!

You can invest time and effort into perfecting your lesson plans, encouraging good student behavior, and ensuring your classroom accommodates every learning style. But if your students don’t remember what you teach them, what’s the point? 

Banish this concern forever when you use the strategies in this thoroughly updated third edition of Marcia Tate’s bestselling Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites, which details twenty definitive brain-compatible techniques to maximize retention and minimize forgetting in learners of all ages. 

Tate’s techniques are drawn from the latest neuroscientific research and learning style theory and are described step-by-step for immediate application in your classroom. Learn how to: 

• Incorporate interactive fun to your existing lessons, including field trips, games, humor, and even music and rap
• Use graphic organizers and word webs to solidify lessons visually
• Facilitate innovative methods of project-based learning

You’ll also benefit from new sample lesson plans, activities, and illustrations that reflect the latest research on how students’ brains develop and function. With this book, your students will retain the information from your classroom for years to come. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506338385
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	10/30/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	724,830
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Marcia L. Tate, EdD, is the former executive director of professional development for the DeKalb County School System in Decatur, Georgia. During her thirty-year career with the district, she has been a classroom teacher, reading specialist, language arts coordinator, and staff development executive director.

 

Marcia is currently an educational consultant and has taught over 500,000 administrators, teachers, parents, and business and community leaders throughout the world. She is the author of the eight books in the best-selling Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites series and four additional books: Formative Assessment in a Brain-Compatible Classroom: How Do We Really Know They’re Learning?, 100 Brain-Friendly Lessons for Unforgettable Teaching and Learning K–8, and 100 Brain-Friendly Lessons for Unforgettable Teaching and Learning 9–12, and her latest book, Healthy Teachers, Happy Classrooms that is designed to address both the personal and professional lives of all educators. Participants in her workshops refer to them as some of the best ones they have ever experienced since Marcia uses the twenty strategies outlined in her books to actively engage her audiences.

 

Marcia received her bachelor’s degree in psychology and elementary education from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She earned her master’s degree in remedial reading from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, her specialist degree in educational leadership from Georgia State University, and her doctorate in educational leadership from Clark Atlanta University.

 

Marcia is married to Tyrone Tate and is the proud mother of three children: Jennifer, Jessica, and Christopher, and nine grandchildren: Christian, Aidan, Maxwell, Aaron, Roman, Shiloh, Aya, Noah, and Alyssa.

 

Marcia and her husband own the company Developing Minds, Inc. and can be contacted by calling the company at [phone], emailing her at marciata@ bellsouth.net, or by visiting her website at www.developingmindsinc.com. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @DrMarciaTate.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
Strategy 1: Brainstorming and Discussion
Strategy 2: Drawing and Artwork
Strategy 3: Field Trips
Strategy 4: Games
Strategy 5: Graphic Organizers, Semantic Maps, and Word Webs
Strategy 6: Humor
Strategy 7: Manipulatives, Experiments, Labs, and Models
Strategy 8: Metaphors, Analogies, and Similes
Strategy 9: Mnemonic Devices
Strategy 10: Movement
Strategy 11: Music, Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rap
Strategy 12: Project-Based and Problem-Based Learning
Strategy 13: Reciprocal Teaching and Cooperative Learning
Strategy 14: Role Plays, Drama, Pantomimes, and Charades
Strategy 15: Storytelling
Strategy 16: Technology
Strategy 17: Visualization and Guided Imagery
Strategy 18: Visuals
Strategy 19: Work Study and Apprenticeships
Strategy 20: Writing and Journals
Resource A: Brain-Compatible Lesson Plan
Resource B: Graphic Organizers
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Turn the page and begin your journey down a path that may help revolutionize your instructional practices or that may support the effectiveness of the practices that you are currently using. At any rate, in many classrooms the fun has gone out of teaching and learning. Put it back while simultaneously growing dendrites! "

From the Introduction

"The book is highly readable with practical applications that will appeal to all educators, especially those interested in current brain research and differentiation. "

Marilee Sprenger

"The book's contribution to the field is not that the strategies presented are new, but that they are all found in one book and with ideas across grade levels. It is done concisely and with enough information to help even the novice. "

Donna Walker Tileston

"Tate has excellent ideas to get students motivated to learn—and they work! The tactics are fun, simple, and make teaching much easier. I'm anxious to use even more of these strategies with my freshmen and sophomores. "

Kayce Haenisch

"When teachers in all schools integrate Tate's 20 instructional strategies into classroom instruction, school will become a place where all children can experience success regardless of their learning style. "

Linda Aikens-Young