Wow! : Adding Pizzazz to Teaching and Learning - Softcover

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Steve Barkley is a consultant and educator who serves as Executive Vice President of Performance Learning System, Inc. Steve has 27 years’ experience teaching educators and administrators, working with school districts and state departments of education, as well as providing training in the private sector. He is a riveting and motivational keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant to educators and businesspeople alike.

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Education WOW \'wau\ n: a striking success: hit; Interj: used to express strong feeling (as pleasure or surprise) Learn how to make school experiences so outstanding that students, parents, and colleagues say WOW!

Discover the exciting concept of using WOWs in schools.

Learn from real-life WOW stories.

Get tips for WOWs that greatly improve lesson plans.

Understand how WOWs mirror brain-based research on learning.

Unleash creativity add WOWs to your teaching and learning.

Involve parents in WOW experiences.

WOW your faculty and staff. I will never cover rules the first day of school again! Catching students with a WOW the first day was amazing and powerful. Ruth Angert, high school teacher, FL We quickly hooked all teachers by asking them to create ways to hook students on the first day with a WOW they could share with their parents. We will absolutely bring in WOWs for other things throughout the year. Peggy Hollis, elementary principal, GA [Experiencing a WOW] was a morale booster for the entire staff. We began validating each others attempt to do something in the classroom that was different. It was fun. We kept saying WOW! to one another. Cheryl Wood, Administrator of Instruction, FL [Creating a WOW] was the nicest thing Ive done in 30 years. Every kid was involved even some of the academically challenged kids. All learning styles were engaged. Joe Sullivan, high school teacher, NJ

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I began to look for WOWs I happened upon. Entering a chain restaurant one evening, I was greeted by two people assigned to open the door and, as I approached, they smiled and said, Welcome! From this experience, I envisioned greeters at a middle school as students approached the door. When I checked into my hotel very late one night, I was handed two hot chocolate chip cookies. WOW! I wondered if kids ever feel as good as I did just then while they're at school. Alas, it occurred to me as I flew around the country to various school sites that there was a growing dearth of WOW experiences in schools. And by WOW, Peters and I both mean many things, chief among them quality where is there a quality experience, a quality product in schools? What do educators do to elicit a WOW from students? How could we put more of a WOW in their learning? Where were the WOW schools?

As an educator, I know students learn when there is something relevant and meaningful to them something that hooks them and sparks their interest to pay attention to whats next. I began looking for first-day-of-school experiences as an opportunity to pique students interest so they would be eager to come back and spend the year there.

What I found disappointed. Most first-day-of-school events consist of someone reading the rules. Someone outlines what students may and may not do. Or they may express the hope that students would have a good year. I was invited to a high school on its opening day. The students came directly from the buses into a large auditorium. There the principal welcomed them and announced there were seven new regulations he intended to go over. He asked that they bear with him, as he wanted to cover each and every one. Trust me, there wasnt a wow uttered in that auditorium that first day of school.

I began weaving the concept of WOW into presentations I gave related to quality or to coaching programs or to learning styles wherever I thought it would fit, but mostly in terms of quality in education. I challenged teachers to come up with First-Day WOWs and let me know how they went.

Wow. The unleashed creativity of teachers and principals resulted in first-day-of-school experiences that were lively, fun, meaningful, and designed to completely WOW the students coming into school. They worked. Students were wowed. Parents heard about them from students returning home. Not just kindergarten students mentioned the wows they are easy to WOW but elementary, middle school, and high school students did as well.