Level 4: WBT Advanced Intermediate

I reached my summer goal a week early!  I made it to Level 4:WBT Advanced Intermediate level!  I also completed the Quia quiz a few weeks ago so I currently have enough points for Level 7.  I am awaiting an email from Nancy to get her approval to begin my video as soon as I feel comfortable when school starts in a week and a half.  A colleague and I are presenting WBT to the staff on Monday.  We are just introducing them to the book and website in hopes that they find it as important as we do!

Moving on up ~ Level 3: WBT Intermediate

Just made it to Level 3: WBT Intermediate, 335 points earned.
I learned a lot in these last few chapters.  It seems I need to go back and re-read Chapters 17 & 18 to understand them better.  Can't believe I didn't earn any points for my book entry:(
I also chose not to complete the book talk questions for Chapters 15 & 16 for now.  I will have a difficult time implementing these in a Music Class and thought I would need to be more thoughtful about how I may try.  Still working on a way to work through this.  I not only have a disadvantage because I only see the students once a week, but I am also on a cart this year so I don't even have a place to put the reward system.  On to Chapter 21 and 22.

Level 2: WBT Advanced Novice

Just made it to 265 points and Level 2: WBT Advanced Novice :-)

I know that I will need to make a few "Cheat sheets" to get me started at the beginning of the year.  I used 5 of the 7 processes in the past so I will have to plan out my lessons accordingly and make sure I continually use hand motions and teach/OK.  I also liked that I had to come up with a classroom rule to teach because one of the hardest things for my students to do in the music room is line up.  The entire lesson can be on target and then lining up falls apart and someone ends up being disciplined.  I also love all of the various scoreboard ideas so the students and teacher don't get bored using the same one over and over again. 
I am trying to read and answer 2 chapters a night so I better get to reading again:-)

WBT Novice

I have worked hard in the past few days reading and learning more about WBT.  I now have 145 points and have made WBT Novice status.  I learned that even though there are a lot of ideas out there for "Class ~ Yes" that the WBT teaching team really only wants you to use variations on that theme of class yes.  In my classroom the past few years I have been using other variations such as "Peanut Butter ~ Jelly" or "Chicka Chicka ~ Boom Boom".  Unfortunately I did not know that the team did not like this approach so I only earned 15 points... We live and learn:) 

When I start at the beginning of the year I am also going to have to make a "cheat sheet" so I remember to use all of these great ideas meshed within my lessons.  There will be a learning curve to it all and will take some retraining on my part but I can see that it will be well worth it!

Off to read some more!

In the Beginning.....

I have dabbled with WBT for the past 2 years.  I read a little online and then went with it!  I decided that I would buy the book "Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids" this summer and start reading.  Once I got the book I realized that I needed something more so I looked to the WBT website for some answers and found a book talk.  The book talk has really slowed me down and forced me to put a lot of thought into each chapter.  I am at the beginning of this new journey.  I have completed Chapters 1-4 which describe the skeleton of the program.  They describe the "why" as well as the "how" to keep track of it all.  Time to read chapter 5! ~ good night all!