Brian “Wojo” Womack
Wojo Womack is a Columbia University Certified Master Teaching Artist with over 20 years of experience designing and implementing curricula he’s personally implemented in over 40 schools with each program spanning a school year.
Through these experiences, he has created the Dot Product Approach which he has disseminated in a series of workshops at Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and countless NYC schools and CBO’s.
His discipline of Film and Media Production has allowed him to connect participants to top executives and producers at the entertainment industry's most powerful companies such as HBO, AMC, Viacom, and Time Warner.
His personal mission is to equip youth with the tools to create their own identity and become self-actualized.
Rapport building, culturally responsive pedagogy, student-centered learning, social emotional learning, collaborative learning, differentiated teaching, and cultivating an innovative mindset are the bedrock for an effective education process, and every effort he makes is in the service of this foundation.
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CAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT BADGES EARNED
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This signature program was created by Wojo using his 35 years of experience in organized sports, over 20 years in education and youth enrichment, and his extensive work in behavior management with a wide range of students. This program meets students where they “really” are and introduces them to a unique environment that develops rote memory, abstract problem solving, and social emotional skills while showing all youth that a physically active lifestyle is for everyone, not just the fastest, strongest, or even most coordinated. It’s not biased towards the most “athletic” youth. That’s the efficacy of the program. It is a confluence of all learning styles, skillsets, and motivations. The program requires a myriad of skills all while being physically active.
AIM is student centered, culturally responsive, and uses multiple approaches to get reluctant students past themselves. One strategy is low investment, low risk starter activities that get students moving and engaged. A number of different activities (minimum of 3 and as many as 7) are offered per session. So if a student is not enthusiastic about one activity there is no need to disrupt, it will be changing shortly. As the sessions progress the activities become more involved to pose more of a challenge.
After multiple sessions students will start to prefer specific activities which is great because each activity is expandable and adaptable to increase the mental rigor involved or scale up the physicality. If students are less compelled by some activities there is no problem because they are modular. They can be joined with other activities or modified to create a seemingly different experience while utilizing many of the same basic rules, equipment, strategy, and familiarity from the previous iteration.
Best of all, every session supports common core standards and is customizable to the content being taught in other classes. Cross-Curriculum support is a central component of AIM. If teachers let the AIM instructor know what topics, subjects, ideas, themes, or vocabulary words they are working on in class that students need the most support with the AIM instructor will integrate that content into the lesson for the day. (For best results a co-teacher must help facilitate)
The AIM norms and protocols are designed to establish self awareness, empathy, and self discipline in participants. When attempting to address inappropriate behavior consistency, transparency, expectations, fairness and “buy in” are paramount. This is all done with a foundational knowledge of social norms, motivations, and student intent. These may differ from student to student, class to class, community to community, so that’s why AIM Instructors use the Dot Product Approach to gain this understanding and build rapport. AIM Instructors can then identify, assess, and support behaviors that allow individuals and participants as a whole to feel safe, seen, and heard with opportunity to express themselves, compete with themselves and others, and most importantly walk away with a sense of achievement, growth, and productivity.
AIM can be integrated into PE classes, Recess, or After School.
Program Artist(s)
Brian Womack