When a Neurologist becomes a classroom teacher, Brain Learning Research promotes teaching strategies.
This website features the insights, publications, and presentation schedules pertaining to parent and teacher strategies to ignite student learning.
Dr. Judy Willis, a board-certified neurologist in Santa Barbara, California, has combined her 15 years as a practicing adult and child neurologist with her teacher education training and years of classroom experience. After five years teaching at Santa Barbara Middle School, and ten years of classroom teaching all together, this year Dr. Willis reluctantly left teaching middle school students and dedicated herself full-time to teaching educators. With an adjunct faculty position at the University of California, Santa Barbara graduate school of education, Dr. Willis travels nationally and internationally giving presentations, workshops, and consulting while continuing to write books for parents and educators. She is an authority in the field of learning-centered brain research and classroom strategies derived from this research.
Her articles about the neurology of learning have been published in her six books and numerous educational journals. Dr. Willis is a speaker at national and international professional educator conferences.
please keep scrolling
downThis website is named for Dr. Willis' emphasis on teaching practices that engage the heart and mind to challenge all students to their highest potentials. The letters represent parts of the neural system particularly active in learning and memory:
Reach (Reticular Activating System,)
Attitude (Amygdala )
Develop (Dopamine)
There are links to many of my articles with direct links. Click on the Publications page on the right column either on the top or bottom of the page depending on your operating system.
Exciting New Information
Summer 2010
New
Book
Learning
to Love Math:
Teaching Strategies that Change Student Attitudes and Get
Results,
Insights from a Neurologist and Classroom Teacher
ASCD July, 2010.
This book uses math as an example because it is the subject
with the most negativity, but the book is about
neuro-logical strategies for changing student
negativity to motivation and promoting growth mindset in
any subject or school in general.
Free chapters and study guide download
at:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108073.aspx
Amazon.com
link here
ASCD
Institute Jay
McTighe and Judy Willis, M.D.
21st
Century Learning: Applying What We
Know
November
12–13, 2010 | San Diego, Calif.
http://www.ascd.org/professional-development/institutes/PD11GB006.aspx
Jay
McTigue, a
Founding Father of UbD (Understanding by Design) and
Dr Judy
Willis, neurologist
with ten years of classroom teaching experience
and have been collaborating for a year and are
now beginning a series of 2-day workshops they will
co-present beginning with an ASCD workshop this
December in San Diego and one through the Bucks
County Intermediate Unit 11/2010.
More are being
planned for the 2011. Their collaboration has brought UbD
and AMT together with RAD, has yielded very exciting
strategies that offer educators an understanding of the
science along with specific classroom strategies that take
the implications of the best research cognitive psychology
and neuroscience research about mind, brain, and education
and relate these to provide highly effective and motivating
student learning.
Their collaboration has brought UbD and
AMT together with RAD, yielding very exciting strategies
that offer educators the benefits of McTigue’s and Willis’
understanding of the science along with their classroom and
workshop experiences to offer educators a new perspective
and enriched strategies about how students brains learn
successfully and joyfully.
21st Century Learning: Applying What We
Know
The confluence of research on learning from cognitive
psychology, neuroscience, and studies of student
achievement provide educators with unprecedented knowledge.
In this session, we will examine this research and its
practical implications for curriculum, assessment,
instruction, and school structure.
Participants will be actively engaged in exploring the
following questions:
• What does current brain research tell us about the most
effective approaches for learning?
• How can we construct a more coherent and relevant
curriculum from the learners’ perspective?
• Why and how should we teach and assess for understanding
and transfer?
What motivates learners to try their best? What factors
negatively affect student motivation?
http://www.ascd.org/professional-development/institutes/PD11GB006.aspx
is link for the ASCD for their December conference
You can listen to their collaboration suggestions on the
web radio show when they were interviewed together by
Alison Zumida this summer. Click here to hear the
discussion: http://bit.ly/bEf81M
"Ask Dr. Judy"
Series
Free webinars through ASCD in a regularly scheduled, "Ask
Dr. Judy" Series. The webinars in the ongoing series are
interactive and sustained with an ongoing discussion group
at the free ASCD EDGE network discussion page
called, How the Brain
Learns http://edge.ascd.org/_How-the-Brain-Learns/group/110564/127586.html
This free ASCD “EDGE”
website discussion group is a place for you to ask
questions, make comments, share your knowledge, or post
lesson plans to share with colleagues and other
educators from around the world.
I'll look for questions or comments, especially those
tagged in the title with, "Ask Dr Judy Question" that I'll
often respond to on the website and/or in an upcoming
Webinar. Other educators will also respond to your
questions as we share ideas and resources.
Next Free ASCD WEBINAR
on Oct 14: ASK Dr.
Judy Webinar Series: Strategies for Maximizing Student
Memory
Link Here for information and
archives of prior webinars
2010
Invitations for Educators: Readers of my Books and
Attendees of my Presentations/Workshops
Here are the Internet Links to what I’ve
been calling my “Brain
Owner’s Manual” that has now been published in
Educational
Leadership and is
available on line as a two part article/pdf (you can also
link directly from the publications-articles portion of
this website)
Internet
Links to
Brain Owner’s Manual
Willis,
J.A. (Dec. 2009)
How to Teach Students About the Brain.
Educational Leadership.
67(4)
Online
Link Here
Willis,
J.A. (Dec. 2009)
What You Should Know About Your Brain.
Educational Leadership.
67(4)
Online as an
illustrated downloadable PDF to use in teaching students
about their brains at:
Link Here
Also link here for
Extensions
of Learning Opportunities for Educators
(independent or in your
professional learning communities) through sending your
lessons for my upcoming books.
Sign up
for RAD e-newsletter twice a
year, copy of How to Teach the Brain to Motivate Students
(Brain Owner’s Manual, Judy’s article from
Educational
Leadership, and
instructions/template for sending in your RAD lessons for
inclusion in next book. XXLink to Contact
FormXX
The amazing
educators at Pine Crest
School in Fort
Lauderdale have embraced RAD teaching with gusto and write
about their successes in the Pine Crest School
magazine http://bit.ly/5MxKj6
Recent Santa Barabara
News Press Feature
Deserving of a gold
star: Actress and local neurologist collaborate on
innovative project for children
MARILYN McMAHON, SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS
STAFF WRITER August 18, 2010 - Link
Here
American Academy of
Neurology -
Member Spotlight
AAN News - June 2010
link here to
read
Keep
Igniting,
Judy Willis
Link
to the New Author's Page at
ASCD
Goldie and Judy - March 15
Participating
in Change
On Tuesday, March
24, 2009, Tenafly High School in Tenafly, New Jersey hosted
a landmark evening of conversation
entitled:Dear
Mr. President: Illuminating the Current Landscape of
Education & Igniting its Future Trajectory
The conversation offered insights and
unique perspectives on the current landscape of education
and provided a vision for its future trajectory. The
insights and perspectives emerged from an esteemed panel of
some of the greatest thinkers in education, our leaders in
developing the minds and hearts of future generations and
providing hope for tomorrow. The conversation presented
President Barack Obama a framework of educational issues
and recommendations to consider in shaping the future of
education.The panel
was comprised of educators and authors who have made
significant contributions to the discussion about education
in the United States. Maurice Elias, Jenifer M. Fox, Andy
Hargreaves, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Robyn R. Jackson, Linda
Lantieri, Deborah Meier, Stephanie Pace Marshall, Carol Ann
Tomlinson, Grant Wiggins , Judy
Willis, and Patricia
Wolfe answered questions regarding teaching, technology,
trends, research, schools and communities, child
development and leadership as it pertains to the future of
education.In addition,
to these speakers, the evening’s conversation was moderated
by ABC news anchor, Lori Stokes.In these times of financial constraints
in public education and our economy at large, it was
necessary for the event to take place without any funding.
The panelists agreed to participate simply out of their
devotion to the field of education and the children in our
schools.This filmed
event played host to an intimate audience of approximately
200 by invitation only guests who could move the
conversation past the New York Metropolitan area and into
the ears of our President. The Strengths Movement in
Schools will no doubt continue to have a central role in
influencing the future of our classrooms.
Please link to highlights from
the Dear
Mr. President Conference
Link here to review 10 key
concepts presented by Dr.Willis
Link to Judy’s
Staff
Blogs (really
mini
articles about education,
neuroscience, and child development) for
Psychology Today
Link here
Video
Interview from ASCD with strategies from Learning to Love
Math: Teaching Strategies that Change Student Attitudes and
Get Results - Math Interview
Hot Topics
-
Link to
Psychology Today Blog Posts
What to do when Your Child Hates
School 7/18
Want Children to “Pay Attention”? Make Their
Brains Curious! 5/9
Why Healthy Teenagers Die
2/6
Book released - Aug 2008 - How Your
Child Learns Best - Sourcebooks
Book released - Aug 2008 - Teaching the
Brain to Read - ASCD
Book released - Mar 2009 - Inspiring
Middle School Minds: Gifted, Creative.
Challenging
Book
released - July 2010 - Learning to Love
Math
Winter/Spring
Musing
See Discussions for recent
interesting news
Watch Dr.
Willis Discuss Topics
Link to View
Parent and Child Magazine 2/2009
----
10 Great Tips for Parents
- --
link
A
comment: “I
continue to be stopped in the hallways of throughout our
school by thankful teachers – everyone is so very excited
to have had a view into the brain by which to better
understand learning and thereby, instruction. It is at the
heart of what we strive to do everyday! Thank you again for
impacting the educational vision of the country. (High
School Principal, Washington
State)”
Contact: Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed. at
jwillisneuro@aol.com