This is Cheri Dotterer,
your classroom coach.
You are here at The Writing Glitch.
We've recorded this.
The night before it went live.
In January of 2025.
It's a live recording.
Speaker 2: Hello, everybody.
Welcome to Impact Wednesday.
We will do some introductions
here in a moment.
Let's give everyone a chance to jump on
and then we'll share our topic for tonight
and give you a preview of what the next
couple of Impact Wednesdays are going
to look like and sound like as well.
I am one of your hosts for this
evening, Cheri Zupancic, Jay Z, in
the house today for Impact Wednesday.
is impact school success.
So how do we create experiences,
environments, climates, and cultures
in our classroom so that all students
have access and all students All of
these have the same ability to achieve.
That is what Cheri and I call
IMPACT and I'll turn this over to
Cheri Dotterer in just a moment.
Tonight we are going to connect
to what we do in Saturday Math.
Saturday Math is a once
a month math training.
It is also free.
And IMPACT Wednesday is A connection
to Saturday math, but also an
extension of adaptations for math,
writing, and reading classrooms.
Primarily mathematics, because
that is what our course focuses on.
And to start us off today, this
is not our topic for today, but
it'll be our topic next month.
There is a math book called
Building Thinking Classrooms.
It has made a huge wave in the states.
It is quite an extensive movement.
And Cheri's going to give us more
insight into the adaptations and the non
academic Accessibilities for students
through this book next month, but the
reason I mention it today is in Building
Thinking Classrooms, Peter talks
about in Chapter 9, this idea of flow,
flow comes out of building thinking.
A true focus engagement, and oftentimes
in math classrooms, we never pursue
long enough on one topic, one task, one
example, one situation, to not only get
the depth of the mathematics, but we
also don't pursue long enough and leave
things open ended enough to get kids
into what we call a flow state community.
What science calls a flow state,
getting them in the zone so
that deep thinking can happen.
The reason I mention that is
Cheri is going to talk to us
tonight about the anatomy of the
brain leading into flow state.
But I don't want that to sound
disconnected from what we've
been doing mathematically.
It's actually a huge connection and
the anatomy of the brain and how the
brain responds to our instructional
facilitation has everything to
do with success in mathematics.
And the bottom line is getting kids from
focus to engaged to into flow state.
So again, I'm your math specialist,
Cheri Zupancic, and I will let Cheri,
Dotterer, occupational therapist take
off with the anatomy of the brain
and how to get kids into flow state.
Speaker 3: Well, hello everybody.
It is great to be here tonight.
This episode will be sent out
to The Writing Glitch podcast.
We have two podcasts.
One of them is Tier 1 Interventions.
If you listened to the episode that
was released yesterday, Tuesday, that
was from Last Saturday, and we did
something we don't normally do with that.
We, we released the entire
hour and a half episode.
And, I also have a second podcast, and
we're choosing This week to release this
one right away, right behind it, so that
you can pull from both podcasts and we're
going to link to the opposite podcast
so that you can hear the other part.
But Cheri has done something even even
cooler is she has recorded a separate
episode, which will be aired next Tuesday.
So we're doing a lot of preparation
here as we move forward to later
on in the year, because Cheri has
an event coming up and all this
is in preparation for that event.
So Cheri take a moment and share the
June event before we get started tonight.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
On Saturday, we talked about The
Science of Math is Coming, and on
Tuesday's podcast, that intro dropped.
There's large controversy, well,
there shouldn't be controversy, but
there's large controversy on how we're
responding to the science of reading,
and We at Minds on Math have been
studying the science of math for a while.
It is coming.
I don't know if it'll be here in six
months or six years, but it is coming.
That is guaranteed.
And we are ahead of the curve with
the collection of resources and data
and research that comes with that.
So, we are We have our 10th
Annual June Math Event this
June 2025 on Thursday, June 5th.
It is an in person only event right
outside of Columbus, Ohio in the States.
And the title of the June event
is The Cognitive Science of Math.
And it is a collection of evidence,
research, and brain based strategies
to begin to teach techniques in
your classroom that increase memory.
That increase retention of
content and increase scalable
achievement for mathematics.
Speaker 3: So, thank you so
much for sharing that tonight.
I am going to share my screen and we
will get started with explaining how to
engage our students in the classroom.
Cheri, you are in charge of the
chat, so if anybody If anyone has
anything that they are interested
in relaying my way, let me know.
I will keep glancing to those participants
and making sure that I don't miss anybody
who's waiting in the wings to come in.
So, how to transform student engagement
and success with your classroom.
Or therapy sessions.
Can everybody put in the chat, right
now, before we even get started
and move on from there, who in this
room is a teacher, who is a, an
occupational or speech therapist, and
share what classroom that you are in.
So, please do that in the chat
for me, so I have an idea.
What kind of audience
we're talking to tonight?
For those of you who don't know me, I
am an occupational therapist by trade.
I have now retired from direct services.
My shoulders couldn't take it anymore.
But I am now hosting the two
podcasts that we mentioned earlier.
I wrote Handwriting Brain Body Disconnect.
In 2019, just as I was ready to launch a
course that went with it, what happens?
But COVID.
So kind of threw me for a little bit
of a loop, so I got a slow start.
So during COVID, I got to
participate in the writing of two
chapters in two additional books.
The first one's Becoming
You, and it's an anthology.
It tells a little bit
of a back story behind.
different folks that contributed
to that particular book.
I also had the absolute privilege
to have a chapter in a textbook.
John Lee and I are currently writing
a book and I know we have a friend
named Kirk who reminds us every time
he sees us, when is this coming out?
Stay tuned, stay with us.
You will hear more as the year goes on.
So on Saturday, John Lee talked about
Interleaving, spaced repetition, retrieval
practice, and metacognitive feedback.
So if you want to hear more about what
they are, you've got to go to Tier 1
Interventions from the Tuesday episode.
What to expect tonight?
We're going to, we're going
to go through anatomy, okay?
We're going to go do some anatomy of
learning, the anatomy of the frontal lobe.
We're going to stop at the frontal lobe.
We're not going to go through
the entire brain tonight.
I am not going to go through the
frontal lobe in great detail.
I want to give you an overview of
the frontal lobe and how it impacts
you as a teacher or a therapist
in the classroom or clinic.
And then we're going to really zero
in on flow from Mihaly Ciencik Mihaly.
Did I say it well there, Ms.
Jonnelly?
So why does this all matter?
Because athletes get into the zone, and
that is when they win their gold medal.
Those that don't get in the zone are the
ones that either don't place, or when
they get to the bottom of the slalom,
they're going, I was just thinking about.
And it wasn't what they were doing.
I was thinking about
some extraneous thing.
Tonight, when we talk a little bit about
flow, we have to have total concentration,
total absorption into the task at hand.
Does that happen at school?
Let's see if we can figure out
ways to help that happen at school.
And it also improves Our self
awareness and gives us some brain
based strategies to help engagement.
At the end, I'm going to talk
to you a little bit about the
counting and writing skills.
BuilderPack.
With that pack you can get certified
as a dysgraphia specialist.
Back in 2016, when I first decided,
okay, I'm going to write this book, one
of the reasons I chose to start writing
the book was I'm sitting at home with
my Dotterer and my Dotterer comes in the
room about fifth grade and says, I can't.
Spell, Mom!
And I'm looking at this evaluation
that I had this learning disabilities
kid from school that day with the
same issues and I'm going, wait
a minute, where's the connection?
Is there a connection with a gifted
student and a learning support student
both having trouble with spelling?
And what I discovered was, yes there is.
So, you have some homework
throughout the night tonight.
I want you to take notes for yourself.
What is a new experience?
And what is knowledge
that you already have?
So, take just a separate piece of paper.
I want you to do some homework and we're
going to talk more about that homework
as we progress through this evening.
So for now, all I want to share with you
is Experiences, and already understanding
and have a good knowledge base of that.
Well, look at that.
There is Denise Sherman.
How are you, girl?
It's good to see you.
So, let's look at the anatomy of learning.
In this book,
Rain Based Learning, by
Eric Jensen and Liesl.
I hope I said their names right.
They give a definition of learning.
Learning is the acquisition of
knowledge, behaviors, skills,
values, and preferences.
And it's all built on one another.
We have previous knowledge and we have new
learning and they have to come together at
some point and that is what flow will do
is it will bring the old knowledge and the
new knowledge together and synchronize it.
The components of learning.
Every the typical, a typical way of
designing, whether it's a lesson plan
for math class, a lesson plan for
literacy, a lesson plan for social
studies, and even an occupational
therapy session, is you have some
section where it's direct instruction.
And then you have this indirect
section where they kind of can
work on what they've been taught.
So those individual sessions.
What I suggest is that we take a look
at these components and find out for
ourselves if that is effectively bringing
us into a flow state with our students.
When we get to flow, we'll learn a little
bit more whether direct instruction
or indirect instruction is better.
And I have little notes on here.
We have a vision, 50 percent of
what kids are learning is visual.
It could even be as high as 80%.
10 percent is auditory.
Now that could flip if you've
got an auditory learner or you
have somebody with a disability.
So think about that as well.
But typical kids, most kids, but 40
percent is learned with movement.
Cheri mentioned building
thinking classrooms.
We're going to talk about that
next month in Impact Wednesday.
Cheri, what's the date on that?
Can you look it up a while?
So, next month at Impact Wednesday,
it's free, it's in the evening,
you can come live, or we will be
putting it on one of the podcasts.
But,
in Building Thinking Classrooms, one
of the things he talks about in Chapter
3, I believe it is, is standing up.
And I thought, well, why does
that have to be something that
we have an entire chapter on?
We do that all the time in OT sessions.
In OT sessions, we're utilizing
a lot of movement throughout
our educational process.
We're already engaging in those
movement activities, and we're
teaching the teachers the benefits.
So, a lot of you might see sensory
pathways or sensory walkways in
your hallway to get kids moving,
especially in the elementary level.
You might see a sensory room in
one part of the building and it
might have, Slow lights, it might
have a pit pit to kind of jump in.
Different things to create movement.
And if 40 percent of how kids
are learning involves movement,
what about sitting in a desk?
Does that create movement?
Just asking these questions.
So one of the things that Cheri does in
all of her instruction is she flips it.
She does indirect instruction first.
And one of the ways.
that she does in direct instruction is
this technique called tell me about.
Tell me about that.
She could be putting up a picture
of a slant, a diagonal line.
Tell me about that.
It could be as detailed as a
picture of a scene out in the woods
where there people are camping.
Tell me about that.
It's amazing what kids
make connections to.
I love putting the diagonal line
up, for a couple different reasons.
I like the diagonal line because it forces
kids to think about crossing midline.
When they're looking at it,
they've got to shift their eyes
up and down and cross midline.
They have to think about it.
Is it a positive or is it a negative?
What other things could
a diagonal line be?
It could be headed up
toward the mountaintop.
So, Tell Me About brings
out all kinds of interesting
thoughts with kids conversation.
One of these areas about learning
that we don't always talk about
is epigenetics.
Epigenetics really is like this alongside
the genet, genet, why can't I say genetics
at the moment, genetics of our system.
It is how we feed our diet, how we
exercise, how we, what kind of disease
processes are around our family.
What kind of social contacts do we have?
What is our microbiome?
So looking at all of these
other areas, non academic,
really do impact how kids learn.
I have two children, my own biological
children, who have very rare disorder
called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.
Probably I have it as
well, we're doing workups.
But they're, they just found, after 30
years of research, is the chromosomes
in the RNA that helps Identify it.
Took a little bit of time.
I haven't had the testing
at this point in time.
We're working on getting
me to that testing to find
out where I fall into that.
But one of the things about Erlo
Stanlow Syndrome or EDS, especially
the hypermobility type, is your
joints bend in very unusual ways.
For example, my Dotterer was a
gymnast, yet she could dislocate
her elbow and lick, dislocate
her shoulder and lick her elbow.
I know, it's gross, but she
could do it, put her shoulder
back in joint without any pain.
You try that.
I try that.
That's why I had to retire.
I tried to dislocate it the hard way.
Before I move off this page, I
also remember, I see lighting.
Lighting!
can make or break kids.
If you have the fluorescent lights
on six hours out of their day, the
sound, the electromagnetic radiation
coming off of the fluorescent lights
will impact their epigenetics.
I suggest, and I talk about this
all the time, Have some floor
lamps in your room and use them
throughout the day at some point.
Turn off those fluorescent lights.
The other thing about learning, as we look
at the anatomy of learning, is the biggest
factor that's going to make or break a
kid engaging in learning is motivation.
Is it relevant?
Does it create curiosity?
Is there some autonomy and belonging
involved in the way you're presenting?
The lesson, how are you empowering them?
We're going to talk a little bit later
on the challenge, stretch and non snap.
So, I'm going to come back to that one.
Validation, worthiness,
meaning, purpose, and goals.
So,
Speaker 2: actually, before we do the what
do you see, what do you notice, just to
preview this next part that Cheri is going
to talk about, but reflect on the strategy
that we've, that she's just talked about.
The greatest instructional tool,
To motivate students, meaning
they have choice, they feel like
they belong, they feel like I care
about them, is that strategy that
Cheri mentioned, tell me about.
So, if I am doing a therapy session,
or a reading session, or a math
session, when, when Cheri said I
do the indirect instruction first,
that is to engage and stimulate the
student's brain to trigger focus.
So, tell me about.
Allows the student to then engage, make
choices about what they're going to
tell me, make their own connections,
relate to their past experiences in
schema, and internally, they're saying to
themselves, She cares about what I think.
So the reason we're going on this deep
dive of the brain over the next couple
of months on Impact Wednesdays, and
much of what we're teaching you may not
necessarily be a grab and go strategy.
The Tell Me About Is, you can use it
with anything, and Cheri's going to
show us some examples in a moment of
what do you see, what do you notice.
So, these are very simple examples that
get a great amount of depth in the brain,
deep thinking, deep reasoning, and then
ultimately that leads to deep learning.
So, we want you to push yourselves
to start to understand a little
bit more about how the brain works,
because that is going to drive all of
these outcomes that we're looking at.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
And all I was going to say about what
do you see, what do you notice, is it's
another way of saying tell me about.
So I just gave you two different
IRA is two different takeaways.
Tell me about and what do
you see, what do you notice?
For those of you who haven't
heard us talk about that before,
that's what that is all about.
It creates a discussion with
the students so that we can
embrace belonging and autonomy.
So, that is what I wanted to touch
on, this little tidbit, little
tidbit of the anatomy of learning.
I'm going to give you a moment here to
think about what's the new experience
that you had in that last section
and what was new knowledge.
Somehow or another you can
distinguish those and you may not
be able to do it now as we're going
through the webinar here live.
But take some time.
And, or if you're watching the
replay, you can pause it and you
can reflect on what you've learned.
The anatomy of the frontal lobe.
I had so much fun finding the
anatomy of the frontal lobe, the
pictures that I wanted to use today.
So.
One of the things that I have seen for the
first time in Canva, yes, I'm using Canva,
but I found the anatomy of a kid's brain.
I want you to take a notice
of that frontal lobe.
Look how it's shaped.
Look how their brain is shaped.
Look at that cerebellum.
Look how big it is.
The cerebellum is controlling movement.
It's controlling learning.
It's controlling all of the refinement
of activities that we're doing.
The reason a cerebellum is so big in young
kids is they are, you know, toddlers.
They're on the go.
They don't stop.
The frontal lobe is.
develops around, starts to
really develop around puberty.
It doesn't finish developing
until you're about 35 years old.
That's all the way through
college for most of us.
So.
The adult brain.
I just highlighted the different lobes.
We are, we are still sharing that.
Right.
Okay.
It, I'm getting cut off here.
I don't see, I can't see everybody
around my, the, the screen, the, you
know, you can only have so many places.
Right.
Anyway, I digress.
The purple area is the area
we're gonna talk about tonight.
The parietal lobe interprets.
What we see, the occipital lobe
makes it like a digital file.
The cerebellum I just talked
about and the temporal lobe
is for hearing and for memory.
1800s, this gentleman died in, in 1918.
His last name was Broadman.
He, I made this roadmap of the brain
that we call the Broadman's Areas.
And as I was trying to find some
distinguishing areas to explain what
gets highlighted and what gets shut
off during a flow state, this was the
best way that I found to explain it.
The yellow area is the frontal lobe.
There's two parts.
to the frontal lobe that are in orange,
and that one part that goes like
underneath the temporal lobe, it connects
the frontal lobe and the temporal lobe.
The pink areas are the motor
cortex and the sensory cortex and
the the eyelid, the eye cortex.
So if you notice the section
eight there, that whole area
controls how your eyes move.
It's a huge area when you think about it.
It's huge.
So I've labeled all of the areas.
Just taking some time.
You don't have to remember these.
And I'm not going to go haywire into them.
But I just want you to see that they've
done enough experimentation to find
out different sections of the brain and
what they actually do in that section.
So I took them, I kept the, all the.
The labeling, those diamonds,
are what stays working.
The stuff that processes
Consciousness are the
ones that have negatives.
So that stuff on that very outside of
the bottom of the frontal lobe and the
stuff, the primary cortex, what happens in
flow is The brain likes to be automatic,
so it wants to do things in repetition.
That's why spaced repetition is so
essential, because it wants to know it so
well it doesn't have to think about it.
So the center section of the
frontal lobe allows us to do
things without thinking about them.
We lose our sense of self.
So although we talk about autonomy
and we talk about belonging, that
center section of the frontal lobe
Speaker: And Cheri, if I could
Speaker 2: just make a connection on that.
We think about students that
have Issues with impulsivity.
Oftentimes boys will have much
more trouble sitting still
than girls in the classrooms.
We talk about kids that have ADHD or
kids that blurt out or kids, again,
that kind of lack control and self
regulation because they're so impulsive.
And what education does, what our
classrooms do, typical traditional
classrooms is We work against those
behaviors and not with those behaviors.
So, we actually want to take
advantage of kids impulsivity.
We want to take advantage
of, you know, ADHD kiddos.
Some of their strengths are
creativity and hyper focus.
Not a lack of focus, but hyper focus.
We actually want to harness.
The components that these, what we think
are struggling students, but they are
primed for flow state and the way that
we're teaching them and the way that
we're facilitating our instruction and
setting up environments and experiences
for learning are working against those
behaviors that our kids are displaying.
Speaker 3: Thank you for adding
that because those areas that
are the diamonds get shut off.
in a traditional direct
instruction environment.
They get turned on in the
indirect instruction environment.
The yellow section is where
executive function comes from.
So, see what's required for learning?
All of those stars.
And what did we just say?
Executive function comes out of the
yellow and the executive function
stuff is quiet, but it's that
hyper focus of executive function.
Planning.
Organizing, and those higher level, they
have to be more of an automatic phase.
If you have to think about them,
they don't work as well in FLOW.
Welcome Trish.
Trish, you got here just in
time for all the anatomy.
Hooray!
So, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,
the function in FLOW is focus, working
memory, and task directed action.
And that was that, that yellow section.
The ventral lateral prefrontal cortex
is impulse control and decision making.
One of the things that they have
discovered when somebody is in a hyper
flow state, They can make decisions
a thousand times faster than they
can when they're not in a flow state.
The pre motor cortex does
planning and executive movements.
If we have to be planning and thinking
and processing, that's a little
different than decision making.
That's the section that gets, it's
active, but it has to be repetitive.
So sometimes the premotor cortex
can turn on and off in flow
depending on what you are doing.
The anterior cingulate cortex.
This guy here isn't on that picture.
This one is underneath what you were able
to see as part of the brain and it is
like the big guy as far as flow states go.
Attention, allocation,
and emotional engagement.
It is the one that
it says emotional engagement, but
what happens Is your emotions get
so hyper focused, your jaw actually
changes shape during a flow state.
It becomes more of a square and you
frown because you're concentrating.
You lose all that joy and sweetness.
So when I have to laugh every time
the music teacher says, Smile!
Because I'm trying to concentrate
so hard on getting the music
correct that I am more frowning.
And now that I'm older, of course, then
we have that added feature of all the
collagen just draining out of my face,
so I don't get to smile like I used to.
But, think about that, when you're
looking at your students, the kids that
have the frown are concentrating more.
It may not seem that way.
They may seem mad, but
they're concentrating more.
And I just want to say Then the
deactivated portion, the prefrontal
cortex, the medial area, that part
underneath that was orange, and then a
section called the default mode network.
This is that allows your brain to
wander and daydream, and that is
all part of the frontal lobe, but
that gets deactivated and shut down.
The part of the brain that Kind
of identifies Cheri as Cheri or
Terry as Terry or Cheri as Cheri.
That kind of goes into an inhibited state.
You can't, you don't really
know that you are there.
So that may have been more like the flow
part, but it's still, it's the anatomy of
what happens in flow in the frontal lobe.
So, take a moment, reflect.
What was new?
What was old?
What was a refresher or in between?
Before we move on to section 3,
Cheri, do you have anything that
you wanted to add before we go
on to the anatomy of FLOW itself?
Speaker 2: So, the concentration
and the frowning muscles, if and
when we work with teenagers, we
oftentimes will misinterpret.
Teenagers are really deep thinkers.
And so, what often happens
is, what Cheri just described,
we see a look on their face.
As they're trying to process and
internalize and really engage, and
we perceive that look on their face
as inattentive or anger or upset, and
many times as adults, whether it's in
a parenting situation or in a therapy
session or in, well, probably not
a therapy session, because OTs, you
probably know more about responding
to this than educators do, or if
it's in a classroom with students,
Oftentimes, the adult will misinterpret
and infer and then react in a way that
is the opposite of what the child's
brain is actually doing at the time.
So just an awareness of this,
I think, is very important.
Speaker 3: So, off to the anatomy of flow.
Oh this is so much fun.
I love flow.
It is, what I found out about flow, my,
my whole sessions changed with kids.
As I mentioned earlier, motivation is the
key factor to get kids into a flow state.
I, I Just repeated the slide
that was on here earlier.
So how do we get, how, how
do, how does flow work?
Well, it is neuroplastic.
So neuroplasticity was discovered back
in the 1930s ish, 50s maybe and it, it
was the discovery that our nervous system
continues to grow till the day we die.
It continues to change.
Even people who have had a
neurological Condition like a stroke.
Their neurological
system continues to grow.
It just grows around the part
that died during the stroke.
So neuroplasticity is the brain's
ability to organize itself by forming new
neurons and connections throughout life.
The dynamic process.
Enables the brain to adapt to
the changes in the environment,
learning new skills, recover from
injuries, and store new information.
It's very essential with neuroplasticity
to be prevalent in the areas
of the brain that store memory.
Because if we don't, aren't able to store
new memories, we aren't able to grow new
neurons, we're not going to remember.
When The older person starts to
forget that short term memory.
Those nerves are starting to die
and they have to create new ones.
And sometimes it doesn't work
that fast when they get older.
So there is the anatomy
of, of neuroplasticity.
What, what is happening with
neuroplasticity is we're strengthening
the synaptic connections, those,
the dendrites and the axons.
We're strengthening those.
The ones that are getting strengthened
the most during a flow state is
that center of the prefrontal
cortex, the dorsolateral area.
There are also two others, we talked
about the cerebellum as well, that
part in the back of the brain that
helps with movement and learning.
Create this really strong bond, but
then there's a section of the brain
that's in the middle of the brain in the
limbic system called the basal ganglia.
The basal ganglia are like the
last straw in refining movement.
One of the conditions when people
are getting older that you can see
issues with the basal ganglia is the
Parkinson's shuffle.
So they kind of like, they can't get it
going and then all of a sudden they start
walking and then all of a sudden they
get stuck and then they go walking again.
Those, the basal ganglia
aren't working effectively.
People that have conditions like that have
a difficult time entering the flow state.
Or when they do finally get into the flow
state, they can only be in it for short
periods of time because There's like this
hiccup, especially in the basal ganglia.
The Hebbian Plasticity Theory is that
neurons that fire together, wire together.
I've heard that term for many years.
I never knew until today that it
was called the Hebbian Theory.
Intrinsic, the inside, the reward system.
This is where dopamine gets fired.
And we're going to talk a little bit
more about dopamine here in a minute.
This is where that dopamine
reward center comes in.
And then that suppression of the
default mode network that has
to do with, I shouldn't be doing
this tonight, kind of thing.
And that whole aspect, that gets
subdued when you are in a flow state.
So, what does neuroplasticity do?
It encourages, it inspires,
it helps that buy in.
One of the things that it does, and
what Jonna Lee has proven again and
again, is it elevates that bell curve.
It integrates learning.
It builds on schema.
What a word I have there.
Sorry.
It's very deliberate, and
it consolidates memory.
So when somebody's not having a memory
issue Like they might have after a
neurological event, then, and these kids
with ADHD, they have strong memories.
That flow state is building on that
preferred task, and it's perfecting it
to the point that we get to that, and
that analogy of doing something 10,
000 times and you finally get it right.
Who was that, Cheri, do you
remember who created that?
And I have a note here that
it is indirect learning.
And here is the neurochemical cocktail.
If you do not have all five of these
neurochemicals flowing through your system
during, you will not enter a flow state.
So you need dopamine.
You need norepinephrine, you need
endorphins, you need serotonin,
and you need the anatomide.
And I'm going to share with you
what they do in just One more slide.
So, what does dopamine do?
Dopamine is that reward center.
So, that's why video games on
your phone are so addicting.
They are sending off
dopamine into your brain.
They're, they're doing, the
little Snippets of flow.
Unfortunately, we get interrupted much
too often, and to be in an effective
flow state over a longer period of
time, it takes 20 minutes to get
back when, when you're interrupted.
So, for example, you're in a flow
state, You are working really well,
you're creating, you're doing whatever
it is, even if you're sitting at
your desk and you're working there.
You get a phone call.
Totally derails your concentration,
you take the phone call, and then
when you go to get back to work, you
have no idea what you were doing.
Theresa's shaking her head yes.
It also is the foundation of where
motivation, how, the feeling of
motivation inside our system.
Neuroepinephrine helps us
with focus and attention.
So those kids with the ADHD, they
have a lot of neuroepinephrine.
Endorphins create
euphoria and they also
are there for pain relief.
So an EpiPen is filled with endorphins.
When you inject that EpiPen,
you are killing the pain relief.
You are putting somebody into a
euphoric state temporarily so that
they can overcome whatever it was
that was creating the inhibition.
Anatomy creates creativity and inhibition.
I don't have time to share it
today, but I'd like to challenge
you to go look for On YouTube.
Oh, shucks.
What was the name of it?
There was a I think it was a Newsweek
or 20, 60 Minutes episode where they
They used this idea of getting a
group into a flow state, and how do
we make the grocery store better?
And they just problem
solved for three days.
They went out to the grocery stores
and talked to people, and they created
What we have today in some locations,
especially at places like Whole
Foods, cause this was done out in
California and kind of migrated East.
Grocery carts that aren't the
same as they are here in the East.
So they have different features
on them that like you can take
bins out of them and put bins in
and, and hooks and things on them.
And it was all created when this group was
trying to make, grocery shopping better.
And I believe it was a 60 minutes segment.
Serotonin is gonna help with calm,
so that's why a lot of these kids
who are anxiety driven have, are
on serotonin uptake inhibitors.
They are trying to regulate the The
anxiety and the calm with the serotonin.
Individual flow triggers.
So, how do we get these kids into flow?
We have to find their
passion, their purpose.
We need to create a little
bit of risk in the classroom.
Novelty is a great way of doing that.
Creating a little bit of complexity.
Unpredictability.
I know Janet Lane is on the call tonight.
Janet Lane has taken a couple
classes with Cheri and I, and one
of the activities that I share with
her and shared with the group was
a thing called the handstand flip.
The handstand flip basically
is the handstand upside down,
so you're standing on your feet
with your arms over your head.
And the purpose of the handstand flip is
to facilitate full extension of the body.
Full extension of the body is truly
concentrating on pulling the abdomen and
the glutes together to try and create
some core strength in our students.
There's some other areas to it,
but she does that and she also does
interlaced bilateral integration with
a technique that I shared with her to
help embrace both sides of the brain at
the same time while kids are standing.
She says the kids laugh, they carry on.
They have a great time in her class
because she's unpredictable and novel.
Flow triggers create pattern
recognition and creativity.
Art.
The arts are another area.
Athletics is an area we talked about,
but there's been many research studies
of jazz singers and jazz musicians that
the creativity that happens during some
jazz sessions, they create the music
on the spot just because they know
There's also group flow triggers and
trying to get the group to work together.
One thing about group triggers
is you need to have small groups.
Groups of three is ideal
to get a really good flow.
Group Flow State to happen.
Now, I told you, I promised you I was
going to share Challenge Skill Ratio.
Cheri always starts her lessons when
she works with kids for the first time
somehow or another with the number eight.
It adds a challenge, but it doesn't
stretch them so hard that they become
so frustrated that they just shut down.
So, challenge, The idea of the
challenge skill ratio is to stretch
their understanding so that they
get more out of it, more novelty.
But, not so far as to make
it so frustrating for them
that they just disengage.
So that's the idea of the
challenge skill ratio.
And this is another little technique.
This comes right out
of improv, but yes and.
Whatever the student said,
it could be, tell me about.
Your response is yes and.
Tell me about.
Yes and.
It's a way of continuing the conversation.
So, in improv, one person will say
that as they're ending, the next
person says yes and and moves on and
says their thing and then that, it
goes, keeps going around the room.
The word but shuts things down and
I'm not talking about this back end,
I am talking about the one with one T.
But closes a conversation, yes and
opens it up for further conversation.
So.
Is anybody willing to share some new
experiences that they've had this evening
versus old knowledge that they've had?
Think about that as I move on.
Remember I told you at the very beginning
I was going to share the Counting,
Writing, and Skills Builder Pack?
The reason I suggested that at the
beginning is When we are, when we
are in one of the sessions, I'm going
to be going even deeper into flow.
We can only do so much in an hour's time.
What do you get with this?
You get four digital courses.
They are not the same as the ones
for the Mastering Math Method.
For those of you who are taking that,
they are, there are some differences here.
You will come out of that understanding
a lot more about literacy.
And what are some of the signs to look for
for kids who are struggling with writing?
Because writing affects math,
and literacy, and social
studies, and music, and art.
You will get a bunch of worksheets.
You will get handouts.
We are giving some of them away.
So, the locker problem helps
with learning automaticity and
learning pattern recognition.
Parts of flow.
Visual motor control, spaced
repetition, and that repetition
engages kids in flow.
And then we have Fraction Sense,
Time, Money, and Distance with
the paper folding, which will
help with fine motor skills.
If you go to Eventbrite, you can, I
have a little thing on how OTs can work
with kids using these three categories.
So, I have a little, I have
another PowerPoint that I share
more about those three activities.
And then we have the Dotterer Dysgraphia
Method where we're really going to look
at the anatomy of reading and writing
and we'll look at the neurobiology.
And we do have a certified
dysgraphia specialist in our
mix wave to the crowd, Ms.
Teresa.
You can share your experience with that.
There is a practicum that goes
with it, and that is monthly.
You need to email me at
Cheri at CheriDotterer.
com so that I can get you
in the system correctly.
If you want this system, if you are
interested in learning more about
flow, learning more about how it
works with writing and mathematics,
that's what the Counting and Writing
Skills Builder Pack is all about.
Go to Cheri at CheriDotterer.
com.
My name is in the corner there.
It's C H E R I D O T T E R E R.
And I can get you hooked
up correctly in the system.
What did you experience?
The idea here, and we're going to
talk a lot more about experience and
knowledge here over the next couple
months in Impact Wednesdays, but I
wanted to give you a taste tonight.
We're going to delve deeper into
that over the next couple months.
Did I give you enough value tonight
that you is anybody considering You
can just put a note in the chat,
you don't have to raise your hand.
The Counting and Writing
Skills Builder Pack.
In addition to what other things that you
might be taking with John and Leigh and I.
And for those of you who are part of
Tier 1 Interventions Workshops, we
have something on Saturday, and then
next month we will have Saturday Math.
Jonily will be sharing
something fantastic, I am sure.
And then we will do next month,
Building Thinking Classrooms and Flow.
So we're really going to be concentrating
on that chapter in the book next month,
and how flow interacts with math.
with kids in a building
thinking classroom situation.
So if anybody has, wants to read the
book and be prepped, there we go.
I hope you enjoyed this raw webinar.
On The Writing Glitch today.
Go be awesome.
Gobi.
Brilliant.
You were put here for such a time as this
is Cheri Dotterer, your classroom coach.
Have a great week.
Talk to you next week.
