by Marilee Sprenger

This research based teaching book is full of tons of practical strategies. If you have been working on making your classroom a brain based classroom for a while there won’t be too much that is new. If you are new to brain based teaching this is ex excellent place to start.

Marilee breaks learning and remembering down into 7 steps:

  1. Reach and Teach
  2. Reflect
  3. Recode
  4. Reinforce
  5. Rehearse
  6. Review
  7. Retrieve

This breakdown follows the same mold as many lesson/unit planning outlines:

GANAG (Goal, Access Prior Knowledge, New Information, Application, Generalize)

Gradual Release of Responsibility (I do, We do, You do together, You do)

…and many, many others. What is central to all of these ‘systems’ is intentional planning with learning in mind – not test taking. Too many students and teachers are still focused on the ‘carrot’ at the end of the tunnel and not the journey itself. We are doing nothing if our students pass an assessment and then promptly forget everything they, temporarily, crammed into their short term memory in order to get 80+ on a test. This book, along with many other great texts on brain based teaching, provides practical strategies, based on neuroscience, that will help students be motivated to learn, retain and apply new knowledge as well as remember it for the test.

Here are a few golden nuggets that I took away from this book:

-use an agree/disagree chart to activate prior knowledge and also leverage an emotional response to improve motivation (most people really care about their opinions and we are much more likely to remember something we care about)

-wait time: remember to build in a 3 second wait time between asking a question and expecting an answer – count to yourself if you need to. Train your students to wait and give their classmates time to process information

-a good reminder that the maximum focus time of an average school aged child is 4-8 minutes (before you get your panties in a knot – it’s not much longer for adults) – variety and interaction on that time frame keeps learning happening

-a good reminder that learners need feedback on EVERYTHING they do – but that YOU don’t have to give that feedback. They can get it from themselves, a checklist, a peer, etc. A reminder to build time in for reflection, feedback and explicit instruction in metacognition – always.

I’ve attached an image of my own notes below – if you want the Coles Notes version. For me this book was a 3.5/5 – but I’ve already done a lot of reading about brain based instruction so I found that much of it was review. If you are new to this idea – this book is a very friendly and practical guide to help you get started.