3rd Staff Meeting

This was our third and final staff meeting for the '09 school year. We'll be starting back up in January. Today we finished up the cursory review of Brain Rule #1: Exercise Increased Brain Power.

Our next work is around Attention and I introduced a brief snippet from Dr. Median's tutorial from the book's web page (www.brainrules.net). One of the questions asked was "What do you think you know about attention?"

For the next two staff meetings, that's what we're going to discuss and jump into: Attention. The staff decided to meet 2x per month for staff meetings, rather than weekly on a count of 19 to 7. Fairly easy to assume that many people feel their time is precious!

During January, we're also starting up the full implementation cycle of the brain rules for those who have signed up for full implementation. This is both the planning and studying phase of the rules in anticipation for structural and classroom practice changes for the 2010-2011 year, not that some of the information will lead us to some change right away.

Currently, our official count of staff members that want to move forward with full implementation is: 18. That's a lot, especially with nearly half of those staff members wanting the full implementation with aerobic workout (see previous posts).

2nd Staff Meeting

Today was our second staff meeting. We reviewed some of the material that was presented last week and discussed further how we're going to implement the concepts/suggestions offered from the book, Brain Rules.

Still working on Brain Rule #1: Exercise Boosts Brain Power, we talked about some of the implementation strategies. Staff were presented with the following choices:

1. Choose to do nothing around this work. (Essentially, staff have the choice whether or not to participate in this work and to what degree do they want to).
2. Choose to wait. Some staff members aren't sure what this all implies and would rather wait and see.
3. Choose basic implementation. What basic implementation means is that staff will gain a cursory knowledge of the material but not attempt to fully implement it in the classroom.
4. Choose full implementation (without the aerobic exercise component). If teachers decide on full implementation teachers agree to the following:

• > know that the decisions will be made based upon scientific research whenever possible.
  
  > to commit fully to implementing all aspects of the plan.
  
  > to be willing to learn and synthesize the "Brain Rules" and be willing to read and study brain research. The initial work beginning in January 2010. The experiment is to begin September 1, 2010.
  
  > to be willing to throw away any preconceived notions regarding almost anything related to brain and educational research.
  
  > to be willing to attempt new strategies.
  
  > to keep exceptional data. Your data must be thorough, punctual, and objective.

5. Chose full implementation (with the aerobic component). Expectations are the same from the above list, except that teachers would agree to lead 3 20-minute workouts with their class per week.

At the end of the staff meeting, teachers were asked to fill out a survey and choose which option they preferred. It was optional if teachers turned in the survey or not.

Here are the preliminary results:
Option 1: Do nothing:::::::::::::::::::::: 0 responses.
Option 2: Wait and see::::::::::::::::::: 2 teachers.
Option 3: Basic Implementation::::::: 2 teachers.
Option 4: Full Implementation without workout::::::::: 6 teachers.
Option 5: Full Implementation with workout:::::::::::::: 7 teachers.

Next steps:
-We will have one more staff meeting before winter vacation, at which time all teachers will need to choose one option.;
-Purchase the book, Brain Rules (paperback) for all staff willing to do full implementation.
-Begin meeting in February around each Brain Rule and discussing implications and ideas for the following year in terms of implementation within the classroom.
-Continue the cursory study of the material

1st Staff Meeting

Today was our first staff meeting around Brain Rules this year. Last year, we did a brief overview of the Brain Rules from the DVD that comes with the book for an inservice. But this year it's a different story.

The theme of today's meeting was to talk about exercise and its importance around learning and what we could do to improve our program.

I presented the following question: Would you be willing to incorporate an aerobic workout for 20 minutes, three times a week with your students?

Now the details on how to make that happen . . . that will come later. But the seeds have been planted. Now for the water.

How This Came About . . .

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle the work we're doing around Dr. John Medina's book, Brain Rules. Where this journey takes us as a school, I'm not sure. I do know that there's some very compelling reasons why we need to take a closer look at the data, concepts and suggestions that are discussed in the book.

This work came about close to two years ago when I was visiting a superintendent friend and he gave me a copy of Brain Rules. He had Dr. Medina to his district for a half-day presentation/workshop and said that the work was groundbreaking. I finished the book in two days. Loved it but . . .

So many times in education we have the fly by professional development that's great at the time, but doesn't lead to lasting change of practice. When I called my superintendent friend just last week and asked him what he's done with the material in Brain Rules, he said the district hadn't done anything besides the initial workshop.

Hmm . . .

So that got me thinking, what if. You have to be careful with "what if . . ." because it's a powder keg in a lot of ways, one of which is changing a person's/system's paradigm.

For a year I did nothing around the work. I would occasionally reread a section or two, but not much else. That all changed this last summer when I decided that I would delve deeply not only in Dr. Medina's work, but in brain research and how it relates to education.

I asked the question of myself . . .

What if we used some of the concepts and suggestions from Brain Rules and actually attempted to implement some of the strategies?