Whole Brain Teaching

October 1, 2009 by admin · 6 Comments 

Picture 1The following is a guest post written by Katie Jarvis. She has been teaching art for nine years and currently teaches at Cameron Elementary in Alexandria, Virginia.

At the beginning of every year, art teacher’s everywhere make up a “rules poster” to review with students on the first day of classes. Throughout the year I would find that the students would claim to forget or not know the rules. While researching art room rules last year I came across a teacher on Youtube, Chris Biffle, a college professor who taught what he called Whole Brain Teaching.

How does it work? At the beginning of every class the students and I recite the art room rules. The rules have hand motions and each week we change the style in which we say them- squeaky voice, deep voice, sad, happy, fast, cowboy, etc. The kids love it! In fact if I try to skip over doing the rules even my 6th graders complain.

I created a video to illustrate how I teach these rules on the first day of art.  Trouble viewing video below? Click here.

KatieJarvis screenshotThere is also a scoreboard to help with classroom management. I mark “smiley faces” and  ”sad faces” on the board as the class earns them (see monkeys in image on left). When the class earns a smile they get to cheer. When the class earns a sad face everyone groans.  The points are tallied at the end of each class and a gold paintbrush is awarded for more smiles than frowns, a silver paintbrush for an equal number of smiles and frowns, or no brush for more frowns than smiles. Four paintbrushes earn the class a free art day. Each silver brush is worth 1/2 a gold brush (2 silvers = 1 gold)

The most effective tool I’ve learned from Whole Brain Teaching is getting the students attention. When I say “Class” they say “Yes!” I vary the way I say class to keep them on their toes. For example if I say “Classsity, Class” they respond “Yessity, yes!”

Whole Brain Teaching involves lots of hand gestures and verbal responses from students to keep them engaged and entertained. Using WBT creates a “peaceful classroom full of orderly fun”. Students have more fun following my rules, since I switched to Whole Brain Teaching, rather than ignoring them.

Filed under: Challenging Students, Classroom Management, Clean-up and Transition, Educators in Art, Off-task Behavior, Positive Reinforcement
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Magic Pocket Name

February 28, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik · 11 Comments 

magicpocketThere are all kinds of behavior incentive systems. Not all are practical for the art room where you literally have hundreds of students passing through your room each week. With the high number of students and the limited amount of contact time, what can effectively track behavior, motivate a class and target a specific undesirable behavior? Well, you might want to try the “Magic Pocket Name,” a simple but effective incentive program that I picked up from my colleagues. It can work in concert with other behavior systems you might already have in place.

It works by focusing on a specific undesirable class behavior such as talking without raising their hand, putting their own supplies away without being prompted or keeping hands and feet to themselves in line. For my classes it was paying attention and not talking any time I gave directions. My goal was to get students to focus their attention faster so that the class could receive directions and start working as quickly as possible.

Here’s the rules as you can explain to the class:

  1. Tell the students that you’ve picked one student and written his/her name on a piece of paper or a customized ticket, which has become the “Magic Pocket Name”.
  2. Put that ticket in your pocket and explain to the class that every student will eventually be the Magic Pocket Name.
  3. At future classes, remind the students that you have a new Magic Pocket Name – perhaps let them see that you’ve written it and are putting it in your pocket.
  4. **IMPORTANT: Never announce the name. Since no one knows if they are the “Magic Pocket Name” they all stay super quiet.
  5. Throughout the class, secretly watch that specific student to determine whether they were paying attention, following directions, etc. (or whatever behavior you wish).
  6. If the Magic Pocket Name student demonstrated good behavior, announce their name in line at the end of class.  I’ve found that the rest of the class will show support and applaud the winning student.  It’s really cute.
  7. Tell the students that that student’s ticket will go into a weekly drawing to win a prize from the prize box, or something similar.  Each class should have their own prize drawing with multiple winners.
  8. If the Magic Pocket Name student was not cooperating or demonstrating the key behavior you desired, simply announce to the class that there is no Magic Pocket Name winner today.

**Now, this is important, you never say the name of a student who “lost” the Magic Pocket Name. First, it could potentially have negative consequences by embarassing the student. Second, by keeping the name unknown, they all reflect on their own behavior. It makes them think about their own actions during class. It also helps you rotate your attention through out the class for monitoring student behavior and gives you another piece of data for assesing student behavior. I simply make a note in my grade book to keep track of the Magic Pocket Names. On the other hand, when a student “wins” the Magic Pocket Name, it reinforces their positive actions and develops class comraderie through encouragement as they often remind one another to be on their best behavior.  It’s a simple system that you can use on a regular basis or selectivley with challenging classes.

Filed under: Challenging Students, Classroom Management, Off-task Behavior, Positive Reinforcement
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End the Tattletale Trauma

February 4, 2009 by Theresa McGee · 2 Comments 


We have all heard the phrase “don’t be a tattletale”.  It was likely muttered by an adult trying to gain some sort of control over continual interruptions in a classroom setting. Although well intended, the phrase sends a mixed message to children on how to deal with peer conflict.

I have significantly cut back on unnecessary “reporting” in my classroom using the “Need to Know” technique. While I secretly appreciate when inappropriate behavior is reported, many times the information is just not something I need to know.

The student reporting can be divided into two simple categories: “need to know” and “don’t need to know”.

Need to know:

  • If someone is hurt (sick, bleeding, crying, etc.)
  • If behavior of someone is dangerous (someone is standing on a chair, someone poked with a pencil, tripped, pinched, hit, etc.)
  • Have a problem that you have tried to solve, but cannot on own.

Don’t need to know:

  • If a another student is not following the exact directions. (These are actions I might be aware of, or will catch on to shortly.)
  • Feelings were hurt or student is accidentally touched/bumped. (Try to allow child to solve problem on their own for 1st offense.)

Once you have discussed your expectations and role play “need to know” scenarios, consistency in action will determine success.

Example scenarios:

  • Donna reports that Brad is holding a couple markers in his hand. While Brad isn’t supposed to have anything in his hand, it is not worth stopping instruction to address it. In this case I would ask Donna “Is this a need to know?” Upon reflection her answer would likely be “No” and we could continue instruction while reinforcing understanding of the technique.
  • Danell reports that Bill said something mean to him. Ask, “Is this a need to know?” Danell says yes, because he told Bill to stop and he did it again. At this point, since the child tried to handle it himself and it didn’t work, this has become a bully situation and it needs to be addressed by an adult.

While we want to help students solve their problems, often empowering them to solve it on their own is the best for the child, teacher, and classroom environment. Situations where I encourage students to solve their own problems and use their own words are: someone . . . colored on my paper, copied my idea, won’t share, is humming, made a face, didn’t clean up (see Clean-up map to address this problem).

Thank you to Gail Edgerton for inspiring “Need to Know”.

Filed under: Challenging Students, Classroom Management
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Managing Disruptive Student Behaviors

October 16, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment 

Elementary art rooms often have a whole different set of disruptive behaviors that need attention. With limited student contact time, you need art specific strategies that work. Check out our our easy to read “Disruptive Student Behavior/Dealing with Difficult Situations” tip sheet.  Learn how to diffuse and mediate arguments, stop running and pushing or handle a student who lies. These particular art teacher tested tips will help you gain control of your classes so you can concentrate on what is important, teaching art!

Print a copy to keep on hand and add to it as you discover solutions that work for your classroom. Or customize the tip sheet and put it into your substitute folder as a reference tool.

One tip is to have pre-printed “concern” slips ready (example). Students can write down concerns and turn slip into teacher to look at when time allows. If applicable to class, discuss during next class period. If the solution needs student “buy-in” then have the class decide on 3 possible solutions/consequences (acceptable to you and have the class vote on the solution/ consequence they would like to implement).

Filed under: Challenging Students, Classroom Management
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