After graduating Phi Beta Kappa as the first woman graduate from Williams College, Judy Willis attended UCLA School of Medicine where she was awarded her medical degree. She remained at UCLA and completed a medical residency and neurology residency, including chief residency. She practiced neurology for fifteen years before returning to university to obtain her Teaching Credential and Masters of Education from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She taught in elementary and middle school for the past ten years.
Dr. Willis is an authority in brain research regarding learning and the brain and is a presenter at educational conferences and professional development workshops nationally and internationally about classroom strategies derived from this research. She has been a Distinguished Lecturer at ASCD national conferences, writes extensively for professional educational journals, and was honored as a 2007 Finalist for Distinguished Achievement Award for her educational writing by the Association for Educational Publishers.
Connect with book chapters through her website and with her ASCD ASK DR JUDY ASCD discussion group "How the Brain Learns" http://bit.ly/dmGyv5
Her books include:
Willis, J., (2006). Research Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from a Neurologist and Classroom Teacher. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Willis, J., (2007). Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. (differentiated instruction grades K-8)
Willis, J., (2009). Inspiring Middle School Minds: Gifted, Creative, & Challenging. Arizona: Great Potentials Press. (differentiated instruction middle school)
Willis, J., (2009). Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies for Improving Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Willis, J., (2009). How Your Child Learns Best: Brain-Friendly Strategies You Can Use to Ignite Your Child's Learning and Increase School Success. Nappersville, Il. Sourcebooks, Inc.
Willis, J., (2010). Learning to Love Math: Teaching Strategies that Change Student Attitudes and Get Results 2010 ASCD.
Dr. Willis is a research consultant and member of the board of directors for the Hawn Foundation, an international foundation developed and directed by Goldie Hawn. She co-wrote the Foundation’s MindUp curriculum of activities for teachers to do with children to increase their emotional control, stress management, and attentive focus.
When not consulting, writing books, or making presentations, Dr. Willis is a home winemaker and writes a monthly wine column.
Website: RADTeach.com E-mail at jwillisneuro@aol.com
ASK Dr Judy (Free ASCD Discussion Group) also with my webinars: http://edge.ascd.org/_How-the-Brain-Learns/group/110564/127586.html
Blog Posts
Access to successful learning for all students is a powerful equalizer that drives superior educational outcomes. The importance of equal access is credited with much of the academic progress in Finland, a country without private schools or standardized tests. "Since the 1980s, the...
Read More.My August blog -- which included responses from experienced teachers about what they wish they’d known as beginners -- focused on students' emotions and classroom community. Now that we are several months into...
Read More.This year I had the opportunity to work with many educators in national and global workshops. On two of these occasions, I asked the teachers to share their wisdom by answering the question, "What I know now that I wish I had known as a first year teacher is . . . "
Read More.My Prediction: Within five to ten years in some countries, open Internet access for information acquisition will be available on standardized tests. This access will significantly reduce the quantity of data designated for rote memorization.
Read More.For many of you in the northern hemisphere, the school year is coming to a close, and with it comes a likely drop in the stressors that build up and promote teacher (and administrator) burnout. It therefore may not seem timely to suggest interventions to prevent or reduce burnout. However, it...
Read More.A selective attentive focus and the ability to block out distraction are seminal executive functions that are minimally developed in youngsters. These functions gradually become stronger throughout the years of prefrontal cortex maturation, which last into the twenties. It is with regard to...
Read More.This post is part of a series on executive function. Here I will cover the arts and the neuroscience of joyful learning.
Promising Starts
Children's brains need to acquire memory associations that link pleasure with learning. The creative arts can provide this link through...
Read More.Before information can be processed through executive functions, it must reach the prefrontal cortex (PFC), where higher order thinking occurs. The pathway to the PFC has potential roadblocks in the form of an information intake filter and an emotional switching station that determines if input...
Read More.For young brains to retain information, they need to apply it. Information learned by rote memorization will not enter the sturdy long-term neural networks in the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) unless students have the opportunity to actively recognize relationships to their prior knowledge and/or...
Read More.
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