All workshops are from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm

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You will examine how the brain learns and the practical strategies that correlate with this research to improve students' joyful and successful learning. Seminar leader Dr. Willis will guide you on an interactive exploration of what the most recent neuroscience and cognitive science research reveals about attention, emotion, memory, and executive functions. New research provides guidance on how the brain's attention filter determines what sensory data is admitted for further processing. You will learn how the brain's response to stressors, including boredom and frustration, can reduce memory and result in the involuntary reactive behaviors of "act out" and "zone out." Classroom strategies will be discussed that are linked with planning and teaching to increase students' ability to remain in control of their stress levels, build habits of perseverance and setback tolerance. Additional neuro-logical classroom strategies will be described and applied in this interactive workshop to reverse negativity, build growth mindsets and perserverance, promote accurate long-term memory and transfer learning to novel applications. You will come away with an enhanced understanding of how the principles of neuroscience relate to education as you acquire a rich toolkit of strategies readily applicable to your school, classroom or clinical practice.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At this seminar, you will learn information about:

• Employing brain-friendly strategies to advance student achievement and the skill sets for the 21^st Century
• Examining ways to maximize and maintain student attention and focus
• Improving student participation by reducing stress and promoting confidence and resilience
• Increasing construction of working and long-term memories through the use of patterning, mental manipulation and metacognition
• Using advances in neuroscience research to ignite student motivation and promote growth mindse
• Applying the compelling video game model of individual achievable challenge levels and the recognition
  of incremental progress to increase student effort and perseverance

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This seminar will be applicable for all professionals in education, including teachers Pre-K through graduate school, administrators, policy makers, curriculum designers, professional development coordinators, consultants for schools, teacher educators, psychologists, tutors and graduate students.

WORKSHOP LEADER

Judy Willis, MD, MEd, is on the adjunct faculty of the Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbaraand is an authority on brain research regarding learning and the brain. She practiced neurology for 15 years before returning to university to obtain her teaching credentials. Dr. Willis subsequently taught both in elementary and middle schools for 10 years. With the unique background as both a neurologist and classroom teacher, she publishes in several education journals and is the author of six books including Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning (2006) and How Your Child Learns Best (2008).