My Class Goes CRAZY for The Crazy Professor

Thanks to Pinterest, I have been absent from the blogging world and instead busy making craft after craft for my daughter’s party on Saturday.  What on earth did I do before Pinterest?  I just wanted to write an updated post about how I’ve been using The Crazy Professor in my room, and explain its role in my Reading block.  If you want an introduction on the basics of implementing The Crazy Professor, check out an older post HERE.

My students LOVE The Crazy Professor!  Of course there are the handful of painfully shy students who would prefer to bury their head in the book and hide, but the thing I love about Whole Brain Teaching is that it makes ALL students participate as active learners in order to  improve their listening AND verbal skills.  Even though they might not want to admit it, these students love the opportunity to step out of their comfort zones and pretend they are outgoing and silly, all while learning.

 I honestly can’t say I have kids that are “too cool” to participate, because those students are the ones that get the most into it (since they actually have an excuse to move around and be full of “drama”). I do have students who can get pretty lazy with their gestures and reading, so I usually loudly exclaim “CLASS!” to get everyone’s attention,  inform them that I don’t see everyone using GIGANTIC gestures, and give myself a point on the Scoreboard! This usually gets them motivated, and they begin to try and outdo each other with really big motions and high energy!    I then linger around those who may still be lacking in vigor, and they tend to improve.  At even the SMALLEST glimpse of improvement, I take the opportunity to stop the class to give a Ten Finger WOO to those students and enthusiastically award a Super Improver star.  If you use your Super Improvers Team wisely, this should ALWAYS work.

Most of the stories in our Trophies textbook are pretty long, so I do Crazy Professor in 2 Parts. Mondays we use context clues to figure out the meaning of our vocabulary words, do a Read Aloud on a similar subject, and introduce the week’s focus skills and writing. Tuesdays, students read the first half of the story using Crazy Professor.  I call out “Step One!” and students immediately do a 3 peat (“Step One, Step One, Step One!”) and begin reading dramatically while their partner gestures or acts it out. When I say “Switch!”, the other student picks up reading dramatically right where the other student left off.  I take turns calling out steps 1-3, allowing for students to read a section, paraphrase it, ask each other questions, and then continue reading.  I don’t do the actual “Crazy Professor” step until Day 2, when they have read the entire story.  At the end of The Crazy Professor Part 1, we meet as a class for a discussion on what was read, and share the questions they asked in their pairs.

Crazy Professor Part 2, on day two, is where the REAL fun begins! We read the second half of the story using the same process as above, however we break out our PROPS for the final step!  The props have become so popular, that I now have to pull weekly job sticks for our Prop Committee.  These students stay in for recess and make the props that go with the story.  We ONLY use props for the final “Crazy Professor” step, so it builds the anticipation to read on the second day.  I also use my  VOLUME-O-METER very carefully on day two, so that it doesn’t become too crazy too fast.  If it gets too loud or I want more intensity, I shout “”VOLUME-O-METER” and move my hand up or down on my meter.  (I will add a picture of mine tomorrow!)  Their voices quickly adjust, without interrupting them from their reading.  After day two comes to an end, we again hold a student led discussion about the story.  We use past Power Pix to lead our shared reading (for example: main idea, author’s purpose, summarize, paraphrase, point of view). As I introduce a new Power Pix, we add it to our meetings.

Some may be skeptical about the benefits of using The Crazy Professor, but I have seen great improvements in comprehension.  It also helps with training students to gesture while reading in ANY subject.  I see the effectiveness of gesturing close and personal during Guided Reading.  Also, when reading those long, drawn out state test samples I sometimes use, I have students gesture and read dramatically.  Acting out the reading helps students so much  more than just visualizing the events while they read.  It makes it more enjoyable to get through,too.  In November, I will be the 5^th grade afterschool reading teacher, so I am going to use this as a technique with students I get from the other classes.  I’ll report on how well it is received, but I am sure that the other 5^th graders will also go CRAZY for The Crazy Professor!

The CRAZY Professor Game

I'm SICK of doing partner reading where one student blandly reads, while the other barely tries to not fall asleep.  I'm SICK  of having students read the SAME story a thousand times without being able to recall a single event.  If your also SICK of a lack of reading comprehension in your students, I've got the medicine to make it ALL BETTER..

Today I introduced The Crazy Professor Reading Game to my class.  The buy- in was this easy... "Do you want to learn how to partner read the WBT way?"  By now my students recognize that ANYTHING the WBT way, is better than any way they've experienced before. I had them BEGGING  me to learn it.

You begin by having students paired out in 1's and 2's. As Coach B. suggested in the webcasts on WholeBrainTeaching.com ,  I paired "high" achieving students with "middle" achieving students, and "low" students with "middle" students.  This REALLY alleviates the problem of  lower students feeling too intimidated by working with really high level students, and high students feeling frustrated and bored with students who are too far from their working level.  I find it best to watch this AMAZING video by Chris Rekstad demonstrating with his 4th grade class, before I describe how it worked successfully in my 5th grade class.  It's worth watching the entire 10 minutes, believe me!

When I stumbled upon this video over our 4 day weekend , I KNEW I had to try it ASAP. Let me tell you, I literally was walking around the classroom unable to hide my joy as I caught a glimpse of Teacher Heaven.  I downloaded the FREE e-book from the Whole Brain Teaching website and used the one page guidline included, as I explained the steps in different parts.  Like the video, I used parts 1-3 and of course #8!  I, Ms. Dramatic, modeled each step with an enthusiastic student, before I had them do it in pairs.  Have them switch every 30 seconds to a minute.  If you don't, you will find that the energy begins to get stale and the enthusiasm level goes down.

PART 1: Dramatic Reading

Partner 1 reads slowly and VERY dramatically, while Partner 2 comes up with gestures that go along with the story.  I told my #2's to pretend they were acting out what was happening in the story.  For some reason that seemed to click more.  As always, some students were super energetic, while some were visibly pained.  As I began to walk around and praise students extra loudly, I instantly had students competing to get my attention with BIG gestures and overly expressive reading.  I made it my goal to at some point compliment something each group was doing.  This did wonders! 

PART 2: Paraphrasing

Partner 1 tells the story in their own words, while gesturing.  I told them they couldn't read any words from the book but could use the pictures as a guideline if they got stuck.  Partner 2 mirrors the gestures of the other partner, while  LISTENING silently.  This was a jaw dropping experience for me.  The students who typically have the WORST comprehension, were the ones recalling the most information. The BEST group was one of my LOWEST partner combinations.  I praised them till their gestures (and heads) couldn't get any bigger!

PART 3: Q and A

This part was the most difficult for my students.  Partner A comes up with questions about the story, and asks them dramatically using gestures, while Partner 2 answers them equally dramatic and with animated gestures. At the end a student told me, "Now we know how hard it is for you to ask us questions!"  Gotta love teacher appreciation!

PART 8: THE CRAZY PROFESSOR

This is the most HIGH ENERGY part of the game. Partner 1 is the CRAZY professor and Partner 2 is the student.  Using gestures and any available props, the "professor" summarizes the story while asking their partner to mirror them, give a ten finger woo, etc. just like we WBT teachers do.  When they switch, Partner 2 becomes the eager student, saying things such as "tell me more, tell me more!"(just like you see in the video).  This part was SO AMUSING.  While watching, I seemed to hear alot of impressions of my own sayings and facial expressions!

Part 4, "Making Connections", I ommitted because it is a more difficult skill and this is something I would want to practice modeling as a part of our regular class discussion.  Again with gestures and a dramatic voice, students have to connect events in the story with things from their own life.  As you progress through the year, they will connect to other material learned during the year. Parts 5-7 deal with silent reading as opposed to shared reading.

 If you are skeptical of the benefits of The Crazy Professor, here are the reasons why it WILL improve comprehension, even after doing it the first time:

• Using gestures and reading words expressively activates the WHOLE brain, not just isolated parts. This means memory is stored in different areas of the brain which equals MORE COMPREHENSION AND RECOLLECTION!
• Gestures bring in a kinesthetic connection!  Remember not all learners learn the same way!
• This game brings the words to life and makes it FUN, so that they are remembered!
• Learning happens when we connect old information to new information!

Good luck, and please share how you use The Crazy Professor Game in your own room!  If you are new to WBT, I suggest having the Core Four:  Class-Yes, Mirrors, Teach-Okay and Scoreboard, down packed before approaching something like this.  I will be posting on this topic very soon!  In the meantime, follow me by email and check out the WBT In Action gadget on the right of the page!  It takes you to the Whole Brain Teaching channel on YouTube!  You'll thank me later!

Ms. Cruz