Meet Me in the Middle: Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Assessments in the classroom should promote learning rather than using assessments as a way of measuring learning. I agree with this statement. I think that it is important to check for student understanding but to do it in a variety of ways. Effective assessments should be motivating and have clear goals. By giving students the test to a unit or lesson before you even start is one way to help students know exactly what they need and are expected to know. The chapter also mentions that it is important to not only assess students via testing. I completely agree with this. I think that you can and should assess students through group activities, individual activities, projects, etc. I hope to incorporate these ideas into my classroom.

Meet Me in the Middle: Chapter 7

Chapter 7: This chapter focuses on differentiated instruction and how it is useful in the classroom. Differentiated instruction can be viewed differently depending on the educator. I think that it is important to use differentiated instruction as best as you can to fit your lesson or unit. There is also a list of characteristices of successful teachers who use differentiated instruction. I am glad that I can use this list of characteristices on myself in my own classroom. I also think that this would be a good place to start if I need to review my teaching strategy and I can use this as a checklist to hold myself accountable.

Meet Me in the Middle: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: This chapter focuses on three major parts; holding students accounatble, holding ourselves responsible and responding to the standards. There are many suggestions in the book of ways to have students be accountable for their work. One way to help students take pride and interest in their work is to display it in the school. Holding our selves accountable is probably the harder of the two. Usually when things go wrong teachers blame everything else when in reality we need to take a step back and examine our lessons, units, skills, activities, etc. It is also important that, even if you personally do not agree with the standards, we as teachers try our best to work positively with them. This will help us reach common goals nation wide and eventually world wide.

A Whole New Mind

I think that all of these senses are really impotrant to be aware of and to incorporate into your classroom. I really think that as a science teacher it is important to tink about the design of the room. Usually the word science prompts crisp, clean and white but I want my classroom to feel homey and relaxed. I think that it is important for students to feel safe in their learning environment. As a teacher I also think that it is important to develop a sense of empathy. It is important so that we can recognize students reactions. This will help indicate to us when to challenge students and when to support them. I really liked the book talk and the book sounds interesting. If i ever get the chance I would love to read it.

Meet Me in the Middle: Chapter 13

Chapter 13: This chapter mainly focuses on the importance of outdoor adventures with a class. In the book, a camping trip is the main activity. There are tree major things that people learn baout themsleves when on a camping trip; physical, emotional and intellectual selves, gender equity and personal anatomy. All of these are important. Another thing that the book mentioned was that boys tend to become more nuturing when on camping trips. There are many ways to incorporate outdoor activities into a lesson in all subject areas. I plan to take my kids outside as much as possible as I believe that this is a good way to bring what we are learning to the real world.

Meet Me in the Middle: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: I really liked this chapter on active learning. It is important for the brain and learning to be moving while learning. By getting students up and moving during a lesson, you are keeping them active, engaged and focused. I think that not only is it important to keep students engaged and interested, but by having students up and moving you are reaching out to students with different intelligences, those who may not be as successful in a traditional classroom. I want to have a lot of activities in my classroom and the list at the end of the chapter will be really helpful for ideas.

Waiting For Superman

I found this documentary very interesting. The film exposes the flaws and wrongs in the public school system, and there is more than a few. The film is biased against a couple of main things; unions, tenure and tracking. Unions in the schools is what allows for teachers to have tenure and in many cases this is not a good thing. When an ineffective teacher have tenure it is extremely hard to get them out of the school system. The other thing that really stood out was tracking in middle schools. The more and more we use tracking we realize that is is ineffective and not creating the results that were hoped for. Students should all be held to the same expectations no matter what level of learning they are at. I really liked the film and it touched me how many of the students wanted a better education for themselves. I only hope that students across the country share this passion for learning and want to succeed.