6 Things I Learned from Teaching Kids

Ever go to a meeting and sat through a presentation from a knowledgeable speaker but they failed to make the information accessible to their audience?  That was me yesterday.  Boy I have been spoiled!  I had an opportunity to attend a conference on the current research on the brain-based learning.  I learned so many tricks to help children learn but they also apply to adults.  Perhaps it's time to make this kind of information so adults can enjoy their meetings too.  These are the 5 things that I learned that really made a difference for my students:

1. Engage your audience.  It doesn't matter if they are small or tall, everyone needs a time to reflect and process the information that is being presented.  So give them a chance to  apply what you have given them.  Make it hands-on or get the audience involved by asking for a response, assistance.  All these activities create a dialogue with the audience and gives them a short break.
2. Keep it Short - children can only sit and listen for short periods of time to be able to give their attention so I tried to make lessons short or include them in an activity.  Although adults do have longer attention spans, it is hard for anyone to last longer than 20 - 30 minutes without changing gears to allow them to pause and reflect on the information given.  The next step has suggestions of ways to pause.
3. Get feedback - Watch your audience, are you loosing them?  Do you have their eyes and ears? Especially with cellphones.  If your audience needs a little break, take one.  At school we called them Brain Breaks.  When the students were getting wiggly or I could tell they needed a break, we would do any of a number of things - stand up and wiggle.  Dance around the room.  Do some Brain Gym activities or jumping jacks.  All of these things are simple and take less than 3 minutes and the class is ready and eager to go again.
4. Don't pass out papers until the class needs them.  If you are handing out additional papers for the participates information, let them pick them up at the end. Otherwise they will be reading them during your presentation or shuffling papers and distracting others.  Trust me, it's much easier for everyone to wait until they need the papers.
5. Provide whatever tools your students will need for the activity.  If I wanted the students to write, I would have them sit at tables.  If we were painting, I would have the tables covered and paint shirts available. So to go to a presentation that provided the screen shots of the Power Point (thank you) but nothing to write on made it awkward.
6. Make the room inviting and intriguing (or inspiring or whatever you are hoping for) using music.  My students loved coming in the room to jazz, the Beach Boys or even classical music.   Try it the next time you having a meeting, people will enter the room and be pleasantly surprised!

Let me know what you think!  If all meetings were more brain-friendly, perhaps people wouldn't dread them so. 
For more brain-friendly activities, go to my website: Parent Child Education.