When planning my classes I´ve always tried to keep in mind that students have to go through certain steps: new content introduction (what may be done in different ways), practice (pairwork, groupwork and\or individual) and assessment + consolidation (done at home). These were like some of my "raw"\basic steps for creating my lesson plans. I`d break those into sub-steps depending on the needs of each group.
After reading Zull´s chapters about the learning cycle, his experiences with students and the relation between learning and the brain, it´s IMPOSSIBLE not to think and consider all this when jumping into a classroom, planning the classes, creating new activities or simply dealing with the various kinds of students we have in class.

I´d like to share one very special experience I had this week from which I could notice how these lessons have been changing not only my points of view, my future goals, but also my daily practice in class:

1) I´m a stand-by teacher and I´ve been substituting a colleague on a Teens 3 group. I´ve already taught this level more than twice and I had never planned and\or experience a lesson so brain-consciously as I did this week. Some students came to me saying that they couldn´t understand some words like "straight", "freckles" and also said that they couldn´t understand "look like" questions.
Just to make it clear, my colleague has been absent for a week, so I´ve had this unique chance to be with this group twice. They gave me this feedback on a previous class, so I could make a "special class plan" dedicated to solve the issues they had pointed out. It´s OBVIOUS that Zull´s lessons instanteneously came to my mind!
First things first: I remembered the learning cycle: Concrete (sensory cortex) => I must present this content again to these KIDS in a way that is ATTRACTIVE to them (considering also the chapter about memory).  I´m so lucky that within the group I have students that have freckles, that have straight hair, braces, glasses, etc, etc...  so considering that, and also that they are very outgoing and extroverted, I decided to associate the words with them. Helping the students who were having problems to understand\memorize the vocabulary, to associate the words. (Sensory Cortex => Back Integrative => Frontal Integrative).

After that, to learn\review the correct adjective order that they have to use to answer the question "What do\does   he\she\you look like?", I used some body language and sounds so that they understood that first they talk about the hair length\type\color. They walked around trying to describe each other replicating the body language and sounds. => Phase 3 of the learning cycle (Frontal Integrative Cortex). Then I used the PPT (I got some pictures, planning to ask them, on a later stage, to describe those famous actors and people. I even found a PPT on our CTJNET for this).  and asked them to work in pairs and describe the people in the pictures using all the vocabulary they had learned.
To finish the class I decided to play a game ,which can be considered an extrinsic motivation but as they didn´t know about it before, I used it as a way to assess them in a more uncontrolled activity.
We played "Moving Chairs". When the music stopped the student who couldn´t get a chair to sit was asked to describe one of his classmates. It was amazing! The ones who had complained about the vocabulary, not only could answer the questions perfectly, but also spelled the words!
Before leaving the classroom they came to me, gave me a hug and said: "Now I know it teacher! Thanks".

(in progress)