Whole Brain Teaching: How Brainy Is It?

“Whole Brain Teaching” is a method of classroom management that engages more of the students’ brains—mostly through movement and sound—focuses their attention, and makes students actually enjoy following rules. But it’s really better to see it than read about it, so:

Falling squarely in the “so crazy it just might work” category, I tried some of the techniques in my classroom this week.

What I like:

1. “Class-yes” gets their attention. I’ve used a countdown (5-4-3-2-1) for years, and it works more often than not, but it’s always felt a little fake and condescending to me. “Class-yes” is so over-the-top fake and condescending that it becomes genuinely fun and equally silly for all of us. And, “class-yes” gets their attention at least as well as the countdown—probably better.

2. I tried a version of the scoreboard today without telling them what smiley face and frowny face meant, why I was giving points on both sides, or whether they’d get anything as a result of how the scoreboard ended up. And still, their behavior changed: when they got a smiley point they became more engaged, and when they got a frowny face point they stopped doing whatever they were doing. I also followed the suggestion of never letting the difference between smiley points and frowny points get greater than three, because I don’t want them to give up or grow overconfident.

3. I also tried micro-lecturing followed by having them explain what they learned using loud voices and vigorous gestures. Know what? They did it, they loved it, and they learned from it. Go figure.

4. I’ll try “hands and eyes” because it seems, like much of this, silly enough to work.

What I don’t like:

I don’t believe in extrinsic motivators and can’t bring myself to use them. Even if Alfie Kohn is wrong that extrinsic motivators decrease student interest and excellence, what would I use as the carrot? Should I let them out a few minutes early for good behavior? That sends the message that our minutes together are so unbearable that their removal is a wonderful thing, and that they’re so unimportant that I can give them up whenever I want. Should I give them a free pass on homework? If the homework weren’t valuable preparation or review, I wouldn’t assign it in the first place. Should I let them do a fun project instead of a boring one? I try to make all of my projects engaging, relevant, meaningful, and fun—but less fun projects like essays are important too and I can’t simply take them away. And again, I don’t want to send the message that certain kinds of work are torturous. Should I give them candy or pizza? That would mean expenditures of my free time and money, all to promote junk food consumption.

No extrinsic motivators. They’re just going to have to learn because they’re interested and behave because it’s the efficient, compassionate, and ultimately smart thing to do. And again, it was fascinating to see their behavior change simply because I made a tally mark under the smiley or frowny face. I wonder whether the tally marks themselves, signifying absolutely nothing tangible, work as extrinsic motivators that decrease their interest and performance, or whether they’re simply reminders of what kids should be doing without my having to scold.

What I’m unsure about:

“Teach-OK” seems perfect for classes where most of what the kids are doing involves absorbing information. A great way to learn is to read, see, or hear something and then explain it to someone else. Today, I had the students explain what they learned directly from me (the definition and features of a thesis statement, the parts of an essay) back to each other, using loud voices and vigorous gestures.

But, so much of what we do in my class is constructivist activity-based. They’re not absorbing meaning from me (or a book or video); they’re creating meaning together. So for example, they’re looking at great, decent, and terrible essay introductions and figuring out what makes a good introduction good. Or, they’re finding examples of a motif and figuring out what the motif means. If I gave the command to “teach” the symbolism in Cannery Row before they’ve analyzed how it works, they wouldn’t know what to do—though if I gave that command at the end of class, for review, they’d be fine.

I think I need a different command word that basically means, “Do whatever activity I just told you to do,” which can include explaining what they’ve just learned, and a response that means, “Sure, boss.” Maybe just “Go-OK.” Sounds like the name of a band, doesn’t it?