1. Instructional Strategies to Enhance
Engagement

2. Judy Willis, M.D. Engagement
Strategies (2006)
• Attention Is Not
Voluntary Choice
• Whatever is new or
different will get priority

3. #1 Reason Kids Drop Out is Boredom
(Bridgeland, Dilulio, & Morrison 2006)
• Judy Willis, M.D. Stated:
• Boredom is stressful.
– The lower reactive brain is in control.
• Behavior
– Fight (Disruptive) – Oppositional Defiant
– Flight (Withdrawal) – ADHD and ADD
– Freeze (Zone Out) social anxiety syndrome, seizures,
OCD
– Children are misdiagnosed when the brain is not the
problem. Kids are bored. Children want the dopamine
pleasure that games and technology brings.

4. Judy Willis, M.D. Engagement
Strategies (2006)
• The more ways
something is
learned, the more
memory pathways are
built
• Multiple stimulation
mean better memory
• Examples:
• Multiple forms of
review
• Visual imagery
• Personal relevance
• Role-play
• Produce product or
models

5. Engagement Strategies (Willis, 2006)
• Attention is not a voluntary choice – input
must be selected by sensory filter. If it does
not reach per-frontal cortex, it does not make
it to long term memory.
• Must be selected to make it to the Reticular
Activating System (RAS). Survival skills for
animals.

6. The RAS – Judy Willis (2006)
• Curiosity alerts the RAS
• Sound (voice volume, pitch, cadence)
• Color, placement of objects
• Your appearance (costumes, hats) do something
unusual
• Novelty and curiosity
• Predictions are great (which one do you want 1 penny
doubled for a year or $1,000,000?)
• Optical Illusions http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/
• Grumpy faces do not allow passage to pre-frontal
cortex

7. Emotions and Learning:
Brain-Targeted Teaching Strategies
Mariale M. Hardiman
• Predictability
• Personal connection between teacher and
students
• Trust and acceptance
• Safe environment
• Control and choice
• Humor
• Music, art, dance and theater
• Celebration

8. Connecting Emotions to Content
• It helps to make emotional connections to curriculum
in order to achieve long term retention.
• For example by considering the emotional toll of the
US Civil War may connect learning much more than
isolated battles, and persons involved.
By Mc Knoell - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en
The two structures in the
brain responsible for long-
term remembering are
located in the emotional area
of the brain.

9. “Visual Tools Help Students Reach
Higher Levels of Thinking”
• Arrangements of ideas
that can be linked to
previous learning
• Access both left and right
side of brain
• Appeal to all learns
starting at about age 5.
• Can have new info added
easily and quickly.
• Are helpful in all subjects
• Are fun and easy to create
- Sprenger (2010)

10. Graphic Organizers
Sequence Chart
First
Next
Next
Next
Last
Venn Diagram (comparison
Similarities
Differences
Differences
T- Charts (cause/effect) or
(problem/solution) or Y -
Charts
K
What do
we Know?
W
What do
we want to
find out?
H
How can
we find out
what we
want to
learn?
L
What did
we learn?

11. Mind Maps or Pictures
http://www.mindmapsearch.org
• “With mind maps we are creating pictures that
will enable student to remember 80 to 100
percent of what we have taught.” – Marilee
Sprenger
• Nonlinguistic representations are a way of
imaging information and are one way to
improve student achievement. – Marzano,
Pickering, and Pollack (2001)
• It does not have to be pictures, mind maps or
graphic organizers. It may be movement, sounds
and smells…

12. Engagement Strategies
Think-Pair Share
• Ask students to reflect on a
question or prompt. Give
them a brief amount of
time (perhaps 30 seconds)
to formulate a response.
• Ask students to pair up or to
turn to their assigned
partner.
• Ask them to discuss their
responses.
Quick-Writes
• Select a prompt that you
would like students to
address.
• Give students a specified
amount of time to collect
their thoughts and jot down a
response(~3-5min).
• Follow up with a Networking
Session.
Quick-Draw
• Reflect on meaning of “big
idea” and create a visual.
• Follow up with Chalkboard
Splash.
“Ideas taken from Total participation
Techniques” – Persida Himmele and
William Himmele

13. Engagement Strategies
Networking Session
• Prepare 1-4 prompts. Ask
students to reflect on or quick-
write responses to prompts.
• Ask students to find someone
(they have not spoken to) to
discuss topic.
• Signal when to switch to next
person with next prompt.
Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down
• Ask students a question for
which a yes/no or
agree/disagree response is
appropriate.
Chalkboard Splash
• Copy responses to Quick-
Write or Quick-Draw onto
random or selected places in
classroom. (butcher paper)
• Ask students to walk around,
analyze and jot down
similarities, differences, and
surprises.
• Ask students to get in small
groups and share before
sharing with larger group.
“Ideas taken from Total participation
Techniques” – Persida Himmele and William
Himmele

14. References
• Willis, J. (2006) Research based strategies to ignite student learning.
ASCD: Alexandria, VA.
• Willis, J. (2011) Sustaining students classroom attention in the
digital age [Presentation]. 2011 Learning and the Brain Conference.
San Francisco.
• Hardiman, M. (2004) Connecting Brain Research With Effective
Teaching: The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model. Lanham, Maryland:
R&L Education
• Sprenger, M. (2010), Brain-based teaching in the digital age.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
• Medina, J. (2008), Brain rules. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.
• Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D.J., & Pollack, J.E., (2001), Classroom
instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
• rsida, and William Himmele.Total participation
techniques making every student an active learner. Alexandria, Va.:
ASCD, 2011. Print.