Blog #5

Blog #5-
Amy's Blog- 
     Every lesson should be motivational.  We need to try to motivate our students to want to learn and grow educationally.  For this to happen we need to understand how are students learn and what makes them want to learn.  Students need to realize that much can be accomplished with hard work.  I want my students to understand this concept and reap the rewards from doing so. 
     Amy quoted from the text "each student also needs to know that they can accomplish significant things".  I like this quote because it is true.  Yet, sometimes students don't feel like they can.  At this young age students can struggle with their self-esteem.  Teachers need to give students the confidence to complete difficult tasks, and give them the support to do so.

Taylor's Blog-
     "differentiation is the ability to plan for the unpredictable."  When planning our lesson's this needs to be considered.  You can never plan for everything that will be said or asked in your classroom.  However, we need to know our students and plan for what we think they might need based of what we know about our students. 
     "Your class is not a cotton stretch glove.  One size does not fit all.  Each student is an individual and each child deserves to be treated as such."  We can not teach each student the same way.  Teachers need to acknowledge that each student is different and treat/teach them accordingly. 

Blog #4

Blog #4-

A.  Determining what is important in curriculum is the teacher's role: 
     I was worried about what I would be teaching as an intern this coming year.  Thankfully, my grade level team members have recently given me a curriculum map which is detailed down to what I will be teaching by week.  This takes some of the stress off of me figuring out what is the important curriculum that I would want to cover.  Hopefully after this year, once I've had the opportunity become more familiar with the curriculum I'll feel more comfortable in doing this on my own. 
     From the text I learned that students don't do well with memorization, their minds want to make sense of it, no memorize it.   I need to teach in a way that supports this.  I found it interesting that if you teach less yet, better students score higher.  I think this might be because the information is less convoluted and concise. Teachers need to help students master essential information and link it to essential concepts that may appear in their lives. 

B.  Fox-Taming: 
"For students who struggle, he will plan multiple ways to teach and revisit the essentials.  He will check each activity and product assignment against his list of nonnegotiable to guarantee a match between what he asks students to do and where students need to arrive by the end of their exploration of the topic.  pg. 71
     -Teachers need to always have have different strategies or activities to help students.  These need to be planned ahead when making the lesson plan. 

"Mr. Johnson also wants to enlist the curiosity of his students as the unit begins. If he can make a link between science and their own lives, he believes, the students will be more invested in the unit."  pg. 71
      -Good teachers try to relate their teaching to their students to keep them intersted. 

"It seems unlikely to him that any single activity he develops would be appropriatley challenging for all students.  He wants all of his learners to do work that is focused on the essential underpinnings of the unit and that is intriguing to them, but e decides the specifics of the tasks would need to vary in order to make sure the work is a  little to hard for each learner."  pg. 74
     -When selecting assignments for students teachers need to be aware of every student in their class.  Not all students are on the same level and these assignments need to be selected appropriately. 


"The expectation in Mr. Johnson's class is that all students will work hard and continually look for ways to grow." pg. 75
     -I think it is important for teachers to create expectations in their classroom that students can become excited about.  If as a teacher you have high expectations for your students, then they will want to meet those expectations.

Post #3

Post #3- Quotes from Chapters 1, 2 &3

"A distinctive responsibility of schools is to help young people develop the knowledge, skills, and understandings to contribute to society."  -pg. 12
     -I like this statement because it reminds me the overall goal we are trying to do as teachers.  We are preparing our students to contribute to society.  This is something we need to keep in mind throughout our teaching. 

"An effectively differentiated classroom is not simply one that seeks to balance the elements of student need, teacher response, and the role of curriculum and instruction.  Rather, it is a classroom in which it is clear that unless the three elements remain carefully calibrated to work in concert, each element will inevitably be reduced to less that it ought to be."  -pg. 12
     -Teachers need to remember that students needs, teacher response and curriculum all work together.  I can not just focus on one of these elements.  I must continually work to balance all of them in unison. 

"(teaching) It asks us to establish ties with each child-not to establish ties with all the children as though they were one student.  They are not."  -pg. 22
     -I need to remember that not all my students are the same and that I need to have an individual relationship with each and everyone of them. 

"The way we 'do school' often makes it easy to forget why teaching once seemed the best job in the world and makes it easy to lose sight of what we once hoped for."  -pg. 26
     -As a novice teacher I am really excited about becoming a teacher this fall.  However, I fear that I will be too worried about how I "do school" that I will lose my passion for the the career that I fell in love with. I hope that even when it gets tough I'll remember the reasons why I want to be a teacher.

"She (Meir) explains that her school's staff is not remarkable because they are more gifted than other teachers or because they have taught longer or because they went to more exclusive colleges.  They are remarkable because they live what they believe."  -pg. 26
     -I like this statement because it reminds me that I don't always have to be the best at something to make an impact or be good at something.  I just need to believe in something and let me actions go from there. 

Post #2

Post #2
Differentiation 6 Statements-
1.  Differentiated teaching and responsive teaching is understanding how teaching and learning occurs in the response to varied learners needs.  
2.  Teachers need to recognize that they are teaching in a mixed classroom with different levels of of learning, interest, culture, gender etc.
3.  Teachers need to find ways to motivate and engage students in learning.
4.  Teachers need to understand the curriculum they are teaching and its scope/sequence. 
5.  Teachers need to know their students well and what strategies work best for their students.
6.  Teachers need to understand that students early experiences in their schooling have a great impact on how their future education as well as their view on school. 

Post #1

Morning Meetings-
     I think teachers do morning meetings even though there is a time constraint in the classroom because it builds a community in the classroom.  Students start the day off on a positive note and helps them be ready to learn.  Teachers benefit from morning meetings because it gives them the opportunity to understand their students and their feelings.  If they are a ware that they are having a rough day then they can teach and help them out easier.  Other benefits include, creating a classroom community, enhance communication skills, builds student responsibility, impacts reading, creates better attitudes about school and helps shy students become more assertive.  For students it is also a benefit because they are always wanting to share, this gives them the opportunity to do so in a safe environment.  I believe that we would start learning about morning meetings in this class because it is a easy way to reach all the students in your classroom.  During morning meetings students all get the opportunity to be involved in many different ways. 
    I coach competitive gymnastics and all my gymnasts perform and practice much better when we start the day off on a positive note.  They share with me how their day at school was and we discuss what their goal for the day is as well as what they did good on during the previous practice.   I have seen how this has been a benefit for them and can see that something similar could be very affective like morning meetings in my own classroom. 


Ideas for during morning meetings:  Greetings, sharing, group activity, news/announcements, goals for day,  using words from word wall, etc.