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Marcia Tate          

Former Executive Director of Professional Development for the DeKalb County School System

Marcia L. Tate, EdD, is the former Executive Director of Professional Development for the DeKalb County School System, Decatur, Georgia. During the course of her 30-year career with the district, she has also been a classroom teacher, reading specialist, language arts coordinator, and staff development executive director. In 2001, she received Georgia’s Distinguished Staff Developer Award, and her department won the Exemplary Program Award for the state.

Currently, through her company Developing Minds, Inc., Tate serves as an educational consultant and has taught over 450,000 administrators, teachers, and parents, as well as community and business leaders, all over the world. Participants in her workshops often refer to them as the best they have ever experienced.

In addition to these widely-regarded in-person and online workshops, Marcia shares her expertise through her acclaimed catalogue of bestselling books: "Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites", "Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites", and "Preparing Children for Success in School and Life".

Speech Topics

7 Habits

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey has been on the New York Times best-seller list since the 1980s because the content contained in this book is just as valuable today as it ever was! This workshop is based on that book and acquaints participants with seven principles which effective people attempt to practice daily in both their personal and professional lives. While actively engaged in the workshop the entire time, you will learn to be proactive, not reactive; to identify and prioritize your life with the things that really make the most difference; to improve your ability to understand where others are coming from so that you might help them to achieve goals which are mutually beneficial to you both, and to work for mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, and social balance in your life. You will walk out of this workshop a person changed for the better!

True Colors

Have you ever questioned why some people in your workplace are more difficult to get along with than others? Have you ever wondered why your spouse or significant other is different from you in ways that sometimes drive you crazy? Have you considered whether your children are really yours or whether they were switched at birth? Regardless of race, religion or national origin, people come in four personality types. Hippocrates called them Phlegmatic, Choleric, Sanguine, and Melancholic. Don Lowry called them Gold, Blue ,Green, and Orange. The more you understand the differences in human temperament, the easier it becomes to understand and get along with the important people in your professional or personal lives. The workshop is great for building an effective team in the workplace. Find out your personal preferences and the preferences of others as well!

"Sit & Get" Won’t Grow Dendrites

Visualize the worst presentation that you have ever been a part of as an adult learner. Now, visualize the best one. No doubt, there is a considerable difference between the two professional development opportunities. This workshop is designed for business and community leaders, college and university professors, administrators, staff developers, and anyone else who teaches the adult brain. In fact, many presenters to adult audiences do not realize that having participants sit and get information is not the most effective way to ensure that the information sticks to their brains. Adults don’t retain information simply by sitting and viewing multiple PowerPoint slides and being read to what is contained on them. Participants in this workshop are engaged the entire time while they learn the answers to the following three basic questions: (1) What are 20 strategies that I can use to make my professional development experience unforgettable? (2) What are techniques that appear to result in sustained adult behavior change? and, as a bonus, (3) What are 10 things that keep adults living well beyond the age of 80?

Preparing Your Child for Success in School and in Life:

Since the most rapid period of growth for brain cells is zero to four years of age, that would make a parent a child’s first and best teacher! Yet, there are few manuals which are given to parents to show them exactly how to perform this all important job successfully. Participants in this workshop will learn techniques which can help them get their children off to a healthy start, build relationships with them throughout their lives, equip them with the necessary structure for healthy brain development, and assist them in increasing their academic achievement. Instructional strategies which parents can use to address the visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic modalities of their children will be modeled throughout. Many parents have stated that this workshop and the accompanying book should be a required experience for every one who calls themselves a parent!

The Power of Positive Thinking

People don’t realize how they severely limit their brain’s potential with negative thinking. It is amazing how confidence in one’s ability to accomplish a task positively impacts one’s success at actually achieving it. When people approach situations with a confident attitude and a positive belief system, life-changing things can occur! Based on a combination of brain research and the book, The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, this workshop, explores the detrimental effects of stress on your life and how it is the number one cause of aging and a major contributor to illness. You will learn how to lengthen your life by determining your purpose, reducing damaging stress, and creating an optimistic daily outlook. You will also learn the importance of laughter. After all, consider how long most of your major comedians lived such as George Burns, Bob Hope, or Phyllis Diller or the age that many of the living ones have attained such as Betty White or Carol Burnett.

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