This lively interactive workshop by Rick Smith provides K-12 teachers with practical strategies based on current research on the brain that help boost student involvement, motivation, and retention.  Teachers will walk away with strategies that help their students achieve the Iowa Core. 

Participants will explore how the brain learns, with focus on the MEANS for making a difference:

Memory - key ways to increase your students' retention
Emotion - its critical role in student learning
Attention - how to get it and maintain it
New Meaning - how to "wire it" into long-term memory
Strategies - Dozens that are brain-compatible

Participants will leave with:

• "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lecture" - how to break up a lecture and provide multiple opportunities for active student engagement
• Nine strategies for increasing student participation in class discussions
• Two dozen ways to increase student attention and retention, especially for your reluctant learners
• Classroom Management Strategies that are geared primarily for the struggling student
• Lesson Plan Ideas That Work

Rick Smith is an international education consultant and  presenter. He has shared practical teaching strategies to tens of thousands of teachers and teacher-trainers worldwide, including two years training American Peace Corps Volunteer Teachers in Ghana, West Africa. Rick will be heading to Singapore when he leaves us.  Rick was a classroom teacher for over fourteen years, focusing primarily on struggling students. He's been a mentor/support provider and mentor coordinator for many years, and has taught in both Elementary and Secondary Credential programs in northern California.

Rick has conducted hundreds of workshops and keynotes on classroom management and instructional strategies that  are consistently praised for both their motivational and practical value. His reviews at the ASCD conference last March topped the chart. 

Register now "on line" with a credit card or contact Bridget Arrasmith with your purchase order number and list of participants. 

Culturally Responsive Teaching is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students' cultural references in all aspects of learning (Ladson-Billings,1994).

The major characteristics of culturally responsive teaching are:

1. Positive perspectives on parents and families
2. Communication of high expectations
3. Learning within the context of culture
4. Student-centered instruction
5. Culturally mediated instruction
6. Reshaping the curriculum
7. Teacher as facilitator 

1. You require your students to use a variety of sources for their research projects...and they cite blogs, podcasts, and interviews they've conduct via Skype.  
2. Your students work on collaborative projects...with students in Australia.  
3. You give weekly class updates to parents...via your blog.
4. Your students participate in class...by tweeting their questions and comments.
5. You ask your students to study and create reports on a controversial topic...and you grade their video submissions.
6. You prepare substitutes with detailed directions...via Podcasts.
7. You ask your students to do a character/historical person study...and they create mock social media profiles of their character.  
8. Your students create a study guide...working together on a group wiki.
9. You share lesson plans with your teacher friends...from around the globe.
10. Your classroom budget is tight...but it doesn't matter because there are so many free resources on the web you can use.
11. You realize the importance of professional development...and you read blogs, join online communities, and tweet for self development
12. You take your students on a field trip to the Great Wall of China...and never leave your classroom.
13. Your students share stories of their summer vacation...through an online photo repository
14. You visit the Louvre with your students...and don't spend a dime.
15. You teach your students not to be bullies...or cyberbullies.
16. You make your students turn on their cell phones before class
    starts...because you plan on using them in class.
17. You require your students to summarize a recent chapter...and submit it to you via a text message.
18. You showcase your students' original work...to the world.
19. You have your morning coffee...while checking your RSS feed.
20. You are reading this.
21. You send your teacher friends the link to download this eBook!  

How did you do?  They also have the 21 signs of a principal of the 21st century. 

• ASCD released yesterday a FREE school improvement tool. This ASCD School Improvement Tool is a needs assessment survey based on a whole child approach to education. It includes indicators across the ASCD Whole Child Tenets (healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged); indicators of sustainability; and indicators of the school improvement components of school climate and culture, curriculum and instruction, leadership, family and community engagement, professional development and staff capacity, and assessment.   
• August is Connected Educator Month. The U.S. Department of Education's Connected Educators initiative is assuring coordinated opportunities to participate in events and activities in dozens of online locations to develop skills and enhance one's personal learning network.   Follow Iowa ASCD Twitter for reminders of activities.  
• Rick Wormeli has a great short video explaining formative and summative assessments.
• Michael Fullan has a new article, "Leading in a Culture of Change," available on our website - Must Reads.  This is great for your learning team. 
• Competency-Based Education:  Check out Iowa ASCD's resources, including proposed legislation draft.
• There is a great video - 20 minutes - on Designing Schools for the 21st Century.  A great "starter" for discussions on becoming the "new you" for learning - designing a school for 21st century learners!   
• A special edition of The Source, focused on English Language Learners, will be available to you on August 31. 
• Prediction promotes inquiry. 
  Check out this video from Success at the Core, where Al Gonzalez's eighth-grade science students make, test, and reflect on predictions in a physical science lab.   
• College students learning to become teachers may join Iowa ASCD for only $15 a year.  So can teachers in their first two years of teaching.  This is a great way for them to be "in the know and practice" regarding teaching in Iowa!  
• You can review all of ASCD's archived webinars at your convenience - everything from "Adolescent and the teen brain" to Zmuda's work on creating authentic assessments. And there are great technology workshops and support for the Common Core. 
• Iowa ASCD wishes you the best year ever and really appreciates your membership.  Let us know how we can best serve you!  

 Gary Rubinstein teaches math at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. He is the author of Beyond Survival (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

• Create Value: Creating value is why we exist. Leaders who create value continuously examine the needs of our organization and the people we serve. They are enterprising, persistent, and willing to be bold. They know that risk is often more important than routine. In all undertakings, they insist on relevance.  
• Make Meaning: Making meaning is how we connect to what matters. Leaders who make meaning understand that "why" is important. They engage in the vision, share the big picture, and find ways to make the vision meaningful for others. They are committed and inspiring. They connect everyday actions to broader ideals. 
• Cultivate Talent: Cultivating talent is how we succeed. Leaders who cultivate talent are passionately focused on the growth of others. They support, develop, and expect each person's best. They place the right people in the right roles and address what is not working. They recruit for the future, for the emerging needs of their program, and for the organization. 
• Apply Learning: Applying learning is how we improve. Leaders who apply learning are attentive and curious. They learn from experience, share that learning, and bring others with diverse experience on board. They read the terrain, see the oncoming challenge, and remove obstacles. They seek learning from many sources in service of a quicker, better decision. 
• Act Together: Acting together is how we meet challenges. Leaders who act together suspend self-interest, invite others' ideas, and balance process with the need to move forward. They cultivate relationships and build trust. They recognize the inventiveness in collaboration and choose optimum results over self-protection and isolation.  
• Execute Accountability: Executing accountably is how we see things through.  Leaders who execute accountably build from an idea to a concrete action to a desired outcome. They equip others with clear expectations and specific accountability. They see obstacles as a challenge rather than a roadblock.  
• Continuously Reinvent: Continuously reinventing is how we lead "a revolution." Leaders who continuously reinvent are always looking for a better way to get things done. They are not content with "good enough." They do not resist change. They engage in renewal, creativity, and innovation, supporting that work within the program and throughout the organization   
• Lead Myself and Others: Leading myself is where I begin.  Leaders who lead themselves take responsibility for how they show up as leaders.  They are open to feedback, mindful of personal strength and  weakness, and willing to change.  They are seekers who choose to build self-awareness, shrink blind spots, and strive for authenticity.