With heightened requirements being placed on the performance of schools, educators are under pressure to demonstrate continuous improvement in students. Obviously some students are more apt to learn and show improvement than others. But the challenge facing educators comes from teaching those that do not readily show improvement, and then identifying what is causing their problems. Research indicates that the developing brains of youngsters often learn in different ways û struggling students are not necessarily poor learners, just unable to process the information as it was presented. By understanding the different ways in which studentsÆ brains learn, and maintaining carefully recorded data of efforts, teachers can effectively teach students in the way most befitting their personal needs, which will result in demonstrated improvement and higher test scores.
Smart Teaching: Using Brain Research and Data to Continuously Improve Learning can help any educator grow and expand a system that will make teaching more effective and more fun. Of course, that system should be pursued on a school-wide and district-wide basis as well as in individual classrooms. That is the positive requirement that is the foundation of the national No Child Left Behind program. More important, every student and every family has a right to expect such pursuit of quality in every classroom.
The very simple system components of this book are derived from many resources - neuroscience, cognitive research projects, and observation of practice and results in K-12 and adult classrooms. This user-friendly guidebook contains many charts and diagrams to effectively convey the information in an easy-to-use format. The result is a tested and successful teaching system presented in a convenient yet powerful guide that will lead educators to bring about improvement.
