Biography - Joanne Billingsley, M.Ed
Joanne Billingsley is an educational consultant, author, keynote speaker and lecturer. She has over twenty years of classroom experience, teaching elementary, middle and high school students. Joanne is a faculty member at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, where she teaches a class on “Building and Maintaining a Healthy Brain”. She also serves as a consultant with the Texas Educational Service Center Region 20.
Joanne is the recipient of numerous honors and teaching awards, including Texas Teacher of the Year 2007 (ESC-20), San Antonio’s KENS-5 Excellence in Teaching Award, and North East Independent Teacher of the Year 2006. Recent international travel with the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologist) to Russia, India and China, allows her to bring a truly global perspective to education.
A gifted, articulate speaker, she is renowned for delivering workshops that guide teachers in creating student-centered, brain-friendly classrooms. Her Learning Center instructional model has produced remarkable results. Her philosophy; “When you provide students with a rich variety of novel, multi-sensory experiences, students will engage and learning will accelerate at light speed!”
As an active member of the Learning & the Brain Society, she knows that neuroscience is creating powerful new tools that can greatly improve education. In her workshops, teachers learn these new tools as they discover how to: build social-emotional skills, implement brain-based instruction and use music, movement, and technology to improve cognition, behavior and achievement.
In her new book "Aim to Grow Your Brain", she delivers a powerful message of hope; “If you embrace new challenges, give your best effort, and practice, you will grow in intelligence. We all have the potential to grow better brains.” The message “smart is something you get, not something you are,” is a powerful one. It offers life-changing hope for growing a better brain through personal effort.
Joanne received her Bachelor of Science degree in Educational Instruction & Curriculum, and her Master’s degree in School & Public Health Education from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. She is married to Lee Billingsley and resides in San Antonio, Texas. She is the proud mother of three children: Anne, Michael, and Matthew, as well as three beautiful grandchildren, Julia, Ben and Eleanor.