PD Alliance Workshop


Neuroscience and the Classroom  
Strategies for Maximizing Students' Engagement, Memory & Potentials

An Interactive 2-day workshop 
with Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed
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Target Audience: Teachers 
Course Leader: Dr. Judy Willis
Date: Canceled due to protests in Bangkok
Time: 8.30 - 15.30
Venue: Aetas Lumpini, Bangkok, Thailand


 
Course Leader
Dr. Judy Willis is an authority on brain research regarding learning and the brain and classroom strategies derived from this research. With the unique background as both a neurologist and classroom teacher, she has written six books for parents and educators and currently travels nationally and internationally giving presentations, workshops, and consulting.

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 subsequent teacher education training and experience. After ten years teaching elementary and middle school, and writing six books for educators, Dr. Willis left the classroom and dedicated herself full-time to teaching educators. 
Neuroscience and the Classroom:  Why?
Neuroscience research about the learning brain is advancing at increasing speed. When educators learn about this nexus of mind, brain and education science, they acquire a rich toolkit of strategies readily applicable to school, classroom or clinical practice.

Neuroscience research has given us the understanding of what sensory input has the greatest likelihood of passing through the brain’s attention and emotional filters to reach the highest emotional and intellectual control centers in the prefrontal cortex. 

We know more and more about how to use  achievable challenge and feedback to ignite student motivation, promote growth mindsets, and increase student effort and perseverance. 
Application of Neuroscience in the Classroom:  How?
Recognition of the brain response to how information is best retained, guides the use of powerful strategies of patterning, mental manipulation, and metacognition for the efficient construction and durable retention of long-term, conceptual memory.

It has long been the goal of education to provide students with skills and knowledge to serve them beyond the classroom and the habits of mind that sustain lifelong learning. The strategy correlations from neuroscience and cognitive science give us tools to promote learning consistent with the brain’s most effective and powerful processing now and in the future.  

Application of these strategies will serve students in joyful and successful learning far beyond graduation with the knowledge and skill sets they need for 21st century success.
Learning Objectives
At this workshop, you will learn about:
  • Employing brain-friendly strategies to advance student achievement and development of the executive functions that are the skill sets for 21st century success
  • 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 longterm memories through the use of patterning, mental manipulation and metacognition
  • Using advances in neuroscience research to ignite student motivation and promote growth mindsets
  • Applying the compelling video game model of individual achievable challenge levels and the recognition of incremental progress to increase student effort and perseverance
During the workshop...
  • Strategies will be correlated with the neuroscience research about how the brain learns 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. 
  • You will learn classroom ready strategies that correlate with this research to promote the successful transformation of sensory input into understanding and knowledge for all students.
  • Neuro-imaging reveals “prime directives” followed by the brain’s attention filter that determine what sensory data is admitted for further processing. You will understand how strategies of curiosity and prediction ensure that your information “makes the cut”. 
  • You will learn how the brain’s response to stressors, including boredom and frustration, reduce memory and result in the involuntary reactive behaviors of “act out” and “zone out.” 
  • Neuro-logical classroom strategies will be described and applied in this interactive workshop to reverse negativity, build growth mindsets and perseverance, promote accurate longterm memory, and transfer of learning to novel applications. 
  • You will come away with enhanced understanding how the principles of neuroscience relate to education as you acquire a rich toolkit of strategies readily applicable to your  classroom.
Workshop Fee 
Regular (per participant): Baht 23,500 Course Fee + Baht 2,400 Meeting Package
*PD Alliance Rate (per two participants): Baht 23,500 Course Fee + Baht 4,800 Meeting Package.  
The meeting package fee covers course materials, lunch and coffee breaks.
  
* (The PD Alliance offers a cost sharing scheme where the regular course fee for one participant can be shared between two participants registering together from the same school/organization. Please note that two participants are required to register together to access the PD Alliance rate. PD Alliance information and member form can be accessed at The PD Alliance)

School-Group Participation
If you wish to enroll a group of 10 or more teachers from your school, contact Mr. Navin Pawa with your request as per the contact information below.

To Register
Step 1:  Fill out the Workshop Reservation Form (Below)
Step 2:  Our office will send you/your coordinating staff the invoice  upon receipt of the form.
Step 3:  You/your coordinating staff will submit the Payment Completion Form

Contact Information
Workshop Coordinator: Mr. Navin Pawa
Phone (Thailand): 081 701 6843; 081 846 5770 (replace '0' with '66' for international calls)



Workshop Reservation Form