Marcia Tate

Featured Keynote Programs

If you wait until you have planned your lesson to decide how you will assess it, you have actually waited too late! Once you have decided what you want students to know and be able to do, the second question becomes, how will you know when they can do it. Whether they are called multiple intelligences or gifts, students come to class with many different ways of knowing. This highly-engaging workshop will deal with both traditional and more authentic forms for assessing those ways since both forms should be included in a student’s portfolio and enable students to succeed in both college and career. Leave this session with over 50 products and performances which enable us to know if students are learning and methods (i.e. checklists and rubrics) for assessing them. This workshop has been called practical, informative, and a great deal of fun!

Many teachers are simply and understandably burning out!  The fire and passion that once sparked for teaching are simply becoming extinguished.  In this highly-engaging workshop, based on the book by the same title, educators will not only learn how to restore their passion for teaching, but they will also explore additional brain-based principles for looking five to ten years younger, becoming and remaining healthier, and living a longer life!

Participants will continue to be actively engaged as they explore additional principles that contribute to teacher wellness.  These same principles will be applied to creating academic success for students in a classroom where teaching and learning are joyous experiences.  This session has been called both personally and professionally life-changing!

M-A-T-H is known to be the shortened form of the word Mathematics. However, did you know that it is also a mnemonic device that stands for Math Ain’t That Hard? This acrostic rings true when brain-compatible strategies are used to teach mathematics. Compare the Singapore model for math instruction to that of the U.S. Learn to separate your math content into chunks and experience how easy it can be to teach those chunks when your students are role-playing, drawing out or visualizing a word problem, dancing the number line by doing the Number Line Hustle, or creating an original mnemonic device or story to remember the steps in long division. Whether one is singing the multiplication facts or the quadratic equation, teaching math while using 20 brain-compatible strategies makes the content understandable, memorable, and so much fun!

Since the most rapid period of growth for brain cells is zero to four years of age, that would make a parent a child’s first and best teacher! Yet, there are few manuals which are given to parents to show them exactly how to perform this all important job successfully. Participants in this workshop will learn techniques which can help them get their children off to a healthy start, build relationships with them throughout their lives, equip them with the necessary structure for healthy brain development, and assist them in increasing their academic achievement. Instructional strategies which parents can use to address the visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic modalities of their children will be modeled throughout. Many parents have stated that this workshop and the accompanying book should be a required experience for everyone who calls themselves a parent.

According to experts in the field, reading and language arts skills and abilities are best acquired when students are actively engaged in their own learning. This practical, highly-engaging workshop will show you how to do just that – actively engage students in learning to read at the lower grades and reading to learn at the upper grades. The content is structured around the standards for teach reading and language arts. The methodology for teaching those standards comes from the 20 strategies which take advantage of the way that all brains learn best. By the time the workshop is over, you will have experienced learning vocabulary by drawing it, role playing it, and singing it and comprehension skills through the use of graphic organizers, visualization, and storytelling. This is not one to miss!

If there were ever content that should be taught using hands-on, relevant activities, it is in the area of science. This workshop is taught by one of the best science teachers in the world, Warren Phillips. Warren was named the 2004 Disney Teacher of the Year and one of the 2007 USA Today Top Teachers and has turned countless students on to science in Plymouth Massachusetts during an illustrious teaching career. He is also the author of SingAlong Science, a three CD set of original songs designed to teach science concepts to a variety of familiar tunes and the co-author of Science Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites. During this workshop, you will learn to teach selected content standards through the use of 20 brain-compatible instructional strategies. You will sing the States of Matter, hear the story of the Amber Rock to help students understand the discovery of electricity, and witness countless experiments that can be replicated in the classroom. This workshop always leaves participants wanting more!

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey has been on the New York Times best-seller list since the 1980s because the content contained in this book is just as valuable today as it ever was! This workshop is based on that book and acquaints participants with seven principles which effective people attempt to practice daily in both their personal and professional lives. While actively engaged in the workshop the entire time, you will learn to be proactive, not reactive; to identify and prioritize your life with the things that really make the most difference; to improve your ability to understand where others are coming from so that you might help them to achieve goals which are mutually beneficial to you both, and to work for mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, and social balance in your life. You will walk out of this workshop a person changed for the better!

Have you ever noticed that the louder some teachers get when reprimanding students, the louder those students also become? Learn techniques for managing an active, brain-compatible classroom without ever raising your voice. Experience five techniques that proactive classroom managers use to avoid problems in the first place. Learn to 1) develop a relationship with each student; 2) Create a physical classroom environment that is conducive to optimal learning; 3) Deliver engaging lessons with the use of brain-compatible strategies; 4) Develop a proactive management plan; and 5) tackle the most challenging 10% of students by using techniques which appear to work with such chronic behavior disorders as attention-deficit, conduct, or oppositional disorder. You will also experience the bonus of learning to create a home environment which minimizes stress and maximizes calm!

Have you ever crammed for a social studies exam? If you have, then you know that as soon as the test is over, so is the information remembered for the purpose of passing the test. My social studies classes consisted of round-robin orally reading the chapters and answering the questions at the end of them! What if your teacher had told you unforgettable stories about historical people and places? What if you had formed a living timeline to help you remember events in chronological order? What if you had created a song or completed a project which helped you compare and contrast land forms or types of government? In this highly-interactive workshop you will experience just that - 20 brain-compatible strategies for teaching the social studies standards in ways that are truly unforgettable! Participants refer to this workshop as informative, engaging, and so much fun!

Over 50 years of research have taught us that you get what you expect. If you don’t expect much from your students, you won’t get much from them. In fact, students tend to live up or down to the expectations afford them by the important people in their lives! During this highly-engaging workshop, experience 15 interactions which teachers should use to convey their high expectations to all students. These interactions include calling on all students, taking a personal interest in their lives, standing in close proximity to them, praising their academic work and complimenting their personal characteristics, as well as remaining cool and calm when correcting misbehavior. When these interactions are used, academic achievement and attendance increase and behavior problems are reduced.

Have you ever questioned why some people in your workplace are more difficult to get along with than others? Have you ever wondered why your spouse or significant other is different from you in ways that sometimes drive you crazy? Have you considered whether your children are really yours or whether they were switched at birth? Regardless of race, religion or national origin, people come in four personality types. Hippocrates called them Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholic, and Sanguine. Don Lowry called them Gold, Blue, Green, and Orange. The more you comprehend the differences in human temperament, the easier it becomes to understand and get along with the important people in your world. The workshop is great for building an effective team in the workplace. Find out your personal preferences and the preferences of others as well!

Have you ever wondered why some students cannot understand or recall important content after a 24-hour period? If your students are not learning the way you are teaching them, then you must teach them the way they learn! Experience 20 instructional strategies (based on brain research) that maximize memory and minimize forgetting. Increase learning for all students when strategies like drawing, metaphor, movement, music, and storytelling are used to teach curriculum objectives and meet international standards. Explore research that shows why these strategies are preferable to others. Ensure that brains retain key concepts, not only for tests but for life! This workshop has been called both professionally and personally life-changing and lots of fun!

How would you like to ensure that teachers from four major content areas are equipped to teach curriculum in the most engaging ways possible? How would you like to increase student academic achievement for every student? The company, Developing Minds Inc., can assist you in doing just that!

Marcia L. Tate, renowned international consultant and best-selling author, along with four content-area experts can be scheduled to provide specialized professional development for all of your teachers. Based on the best-seller Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites: 20 Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain (3rd ed.), Marcia and four master presenters will conduct separate content-area workshops for teachers of English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. Participants will experience content-specific ways to engage students’ brains while those students master rigorous curricular standards.