Jason a. comic life

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Jason a. comic life

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Boys and Girls Learn Differently

It appears that boys and girls do learn differently. I liked the fact that your presentation was pretty interesting and the activities were fun; I personally question the accuracy of the sex i.d. test only because if you change a couple answer all the sudden you go from female to male. I thought that your website was really good, especially since it was not a wiki, and it has some great information on it. It was a good idea to work in new groups and to talk about issues that do affect the school atmosphere and situation -- it is important to talk about bullying, and positive memories, along with how to deal with different issues that may arise; my group had the advantage with having Dr. Grace in it.

The one major sticking point for me was that I really felt like you didn't talk much about the book itself. You talked about how the brains are different and that there is a continuum but you really didn't talk about why that is or what the author had to say about it. I really liked the activities but I was left wondering how they all connected or why they were used. Were things like bullying, positive school "mentors", and discipline talked about in the book? Or did you just use them because the concept of "right of passage" was the main thing talked about. I liked when we had to try and link the characteristic with the sex, but we only talked about the whole thing for about 2 minutes and then moved onto something else. I was hoping that maybe we could have talked about the characteristics or at least the authors input on how and why these are traits of each sex. Granted, for all I know, the author might not talk about it (and if that is the case then I apologize because its not your fault), but I figure that had to be some research and justification talked about.

All in all, I thought it was a good presentation that had us moving around, talking, and trying to incorporate these different concepts in our teaching and daily lives. I liked the fact that we were able to have a lot of "me" time with the whole group discussions. But, I would have really liked to know more about the book, why the brain is "different" for each sex, and how we are suppose to deal with that instead of just getting a handout.

Becoming a Whiz at Brain-Based Teaching

I would like to start off by saying that you clearly had the toughest book to have to try and do an hour long presentation on. Science is one of those subjects that is really fun to learn about, but if you are not very science-oriented then you might have difficulty understanding the information. I really liked how you put up an agenda -- it was very "Dr. Grace like", and I also thought that the use of the back burner activity was definitely cool and I would try that in my own classroom. I thought that the handouts were informative and offered some great activities and ideas to implement these things in your classroom -- though I would say that it was a little overwhelming to receive a packet of information at the very beginning; at that moment I thought that we would be listening to a very lecture-based talk, but luckily I was wrong. I liked the use of the skit and I have always wanted to do them in my class, but I also thought that for some people, it is a little much and they do not really want to have to "act" in front of a room full of people, taking volunteers may have been a good idea. I also want to commend you on the use of the "jig-saw" like grouping, but my only problem with that is that if you have a great partner then you really get to cover the information without all the lecture, but there are cases when you do not have a good partner and the information is not as full as it should be (I am not saying that that is how I felt, but the possibility does exist when doing it). All in all, I learned a great deal and the presentation was very good.


P.S. Great use of Pinky and the Brain

Student Oriented Curriculum

I thought that this was a very interesting presentation. I really enjoyed the early part of the presentation because we got up and moved around; it was fun to have to choose a side of the room depending on the answer to the question. I also really enjoyed the ending assignment with us each getting to choose one of the statements that best suited us and then write about why we chose it and how we would use it. It is always good when a teacher allows you to give your opinions on a topic and they do not correct you just because they do not like your answer.

On another note, I thought that the decision to use the jig-saw groupings was a good idea but that it did not work as well as I thought it might. It did get us moving around and talking to other people in the classroom, but I personally felt like the information that I learned in the jig-saw, as good as it was, would have been better if it came from a person who actually read the book. I think it would have been fun if the presenters walked around the to the other groups and did a form of jig-saw instead of the students doing it.

My only questions that I have at the end of the presentation are: Would you try this "let the students lead the unit" concept in your classroom? and Do you think that it can work?

very good overall. I learned a great deal.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 15: Parents as Partners

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 15: Parents as Partners
This chapter was all about getting parents involved in the classroom. Wormeli talks about using both technology and the old face-to-face meetings as a way to get students involved. The chapter talks about finding a website, like blackboard, and getting your school to use it so that parents and students can see what work needs to get done. According to Wormeli, this will help make parents and teachers a team instead of having them argue with one another; he also added that with this system, he gets nearly 100% completion on all of his homework assignments because the students can no long say “I didn’t know about the homework”. The chapter also talks about how to get parents, who lack the internet, involved. He suggests sending out notes, post cards, calling, or going to their homes in order to make contact with them. He also suggests that teachers allow parents to come in and watch a lesson so that they know what is going on and can be a bigger part of their child’s life and education.
I liked this chapter a lot because I thought that it gave much more insight into how to get parents involved along with giving neat ways to make sure that they are involved. I thought it was great that he spoke about the fact that not every parent will have the ability to use the internet; he also spoke about how it is difficult for some parents to make it into their child’s classroom – I think that is very important because it is much more realistic than our other books. Not all parents can or will want to come in or communicate with the teacher and if we understand that we can find different ways to help our students to be successful.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 13: Outdoor Adventures

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 13: Outdoor Adventures
This chapter was quite interesting because it talked about the importance of having an outdoor activity is to the health of your class. Wormeli talks about different camping trips that he took students on and the benefits that they shared. In general, he said that there are two major events that take place as a result of his camping trips. The first is that students come back and are much more proud of and thankful for the things that they have at home such as food, heat, and electricity. He said that the second big change is that students are much more apt to do things for themselves and be autonomous – this is something that is very important as you grow up; you should be able to do more and more things on your own as you get older. One final thing that was important from the chapter is that Wormeli talks about how the camping trips end up making students more comfortable with each other and with the teachers; he feels like the students are more likely to open up to the teachers and to each other after spending time in the wilderness and needing to rely on one another.
I am not so sure how I feel about going on a camping trip with a bunch of middle school students. To me I feel that this is an incident waiting to happen; with things such as injury, arguments, or some kind of misconduct taking place. We live in such a politically correct world, and we are so afraid that something terrible is going to happen that we try to shy away from it. For instance, teachers have to be very careful around their students for fear of anything being taken out of context. I personally cannot see many schools approving this, but maybe I am wrong. On a positive note, I did like his ideas for the Civil War re-enactment and the slave journey idea – I think that those would be fun activities that would also teach students history at the same time.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 8: effective assessment

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 8: effective assessment
This chapter was all about designing effective assessment and how to go about doing that. Wormeli gives some ideas of how to make sure that you have designed good assessments for your students. When the assessment is good, it should clearly outline goals; it should prove to be challenging enough to make them work hard but not too hard so that you avoid making the student upset; you should give options for assessments so that students have a say in what they want to do; you should be able to link other content areas in so that the student can see how one interacts with the others; and you should may different formats when creating assessment instead of always asking students to write an essay. The other part of the chapter that many teachers are probably happy about was that Wormeli says to make sure that your assessments are easy to grade. If they are too time consuming or too difficult to grade then you assessment has missed the mark – always remember to use a rubric, it makes your life easier and it makes the student’s life easier.
I liked this chapter because it gave some great ideas for different assessments such as to use menus, journals, debates, games, or time lines to see if your students have learned the materials. I really like the notion of doing different types of assessments and within those assessments using different topics. The easiest way to describe it would be if you gave an essay to the students to make sure that there are different essay topics. I know that from personal experience, I really like when a teacher gives some choice especially in a history class – it is easier to write a history essay when you are actually interested in the topic. I can also attest that clear instructions and directions are vital to the success of the students; if you do not make things clear or the directions are hard to follow, many students will either refuse to do the assignment, do it poorly, or the wrong way. To be a good assessment, it must be hard enough so that it takes time to accomplish but not so difficult that you get frustrated with the whole concept. I also think assessment should be fun because it makes the students happy along with making it easier on you to grade them; it beats grading eighty essays on the plague.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 7: Differentiated Instruction

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 7: Differentiated Instruction
Chapter 7, as the name implies, was all about differentiated instruction and how to work it into your classroom. This is probably the most difficult aspect of teaching because you will have students with disabilities, students who are general education students, and those who are considered to be gifted and talented. What makes it that much more difficult is that these students will all be in the same classroom trying to learn. Obviously, a teacher is not going to give the same amount of work to a student that has severe mental retardation and to a student listed as gifted and talented – the objective is not to give the same amount of work, but to make sure that you get these students to the same level so that they all can understand the major concepts of the unit. Wormeli gives a list of characteristics that a teacher using differentiation should possess. These include being a risk taker, being empathetic, being organized, flexible, resourceful, and having a good sense of humor. Those are all characteristics of good teachers regardless, so that means that you are more than halfway there if you want to be able to differentiate your classroom.
I have said this many times before, but I believe that differentiation is the hardest thing to do as a teacher. I think what makes it so difficult is that there really is no answer to how to do it; there are so many different types of students, and they all learn in different ways so there is no one method or plan that you could follow in order to differentiate. I do think there are things that you must avoid in order to be successful and that is to make sure that you do not give the gifted and talented students, a term I really dislike, more work for the sake of doing more; you also need to make sure that you do not give less work to the students with learning disabilities. I think that it should be about the type of learning and not about the amount of learning. I almost feel like differentiated instruction is a very abstract term because you would have to know each one of your students to be able to tailor lessons, but while in a college education class you do not have that ability so you end up learning about something that you do not fully understand – that is what makes differentiation so difficult to understand and succeed at.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 6: Accountability for High Standards

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 6: Accountability for High Standards
This chapter was all about making sure that both students and teachers are held accountable for high standards. The first few pages talk about how to make sure that the students are held accountable. Some of the suggestions were: when assigning a project, give examples of good work so students know what is expected; avoid giving extra credit, but instead allow students to go back and make corrections on their work; to use a rubric that outlines everything that the student needs to do to get a good grade; and another good idea is to display their work public because they will be more apt to work harder. Not only do students need to be accountable, the teachers need to be also. Some suggestions for doing so were: make sure that you help your students be life long learners, do not simply teach for the test; make sure that everything you teach is relevant; if you cannot tell a student or parent why you are covering a particular topic, then you should remove the topic all together. To be better teachers we must give formative assessments to students to track progress, place the student first, and think outside the box.
I liked this chapter because it talks about holding everyone accountable and not just the teachers. Obviously, the teacher should be held responsible if he or she is doing a terrible job, but if the students are not doing the work then they need to be held responsible also. I whole-heartedly agree that we must put the students first and make sure that we are not teaching them so that they can pass a test but instead teach them so that they can learn and function normally in society. The last big step to an effective teaching environment is to make sure that you collaborate with your teaching collogues and make sure that each one of you works together to help the students learn.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 4: Active Learning

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 4: Active Learning
This chapter can be summed up using one term, bodily-kinesthetic. The entire chapter is about helping students participate in active learning. As the name implies, active learning deals with movement and activity; which for middle school students is a needed thing. At this age, the middle school body is changing quite rapidly and causing difficulties with some motor functions and sitting for long periods of time. Wormeli suggests that you get students moving about every 10 to 15 minutes so that oxygen can get into the brains, to stimulate learning, and to relieve pressure on the students’ aching joints. The other important thing to remember about middle school students is that they are very concrete thinkers who have a very difficult time thinking abstractly. The chapter gives an example of a student who learned best when he did hands on work; so the teacher decided to take the class outside to measure and work with trees, the topic of the class; this little exercise greatly helped the student learn the material.
I thought that the chapter was interesting and gave some great ideas to get kids moving. Some of the things that stood out to me was to have the students stand up while talking about the materials just covered in class; I also liked the idea of having students get up to bring their papers to the teacher or making them put it in a basket on the other side of the room. I would be more than willing to try these approaches along with mixing in other ideas such as having students perform skits or re-enactments. On the other hand, I do think that you cannot really do this with every class because there are some classes were movement like this might distract them and prevent them from working; I might just be thinking like one of those old school teachers, but I would be afraid that all this movement would prompt kids to have off topic discussions and cause them to lose their focus. At the end of the day it is worth a shot, and I am willing to try anything that might help my students do better in school.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 3: Brain Research Applied to Middle School

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 3: Brain Research Applied to Middle School
This was a very interesting chapter on how to take what we know about brain research and turn it into learning for the children. There were a couple very fascinating parts of the chapter; one of which was the discussion on how to keep students engaged. Wormeli has the suggestion, which he follows in his own classroom, to ask a question and give time to answer – once the student answers, you then ask another student whether he or she agrees. Once that student has answered, you call on a third student to give an opinion; this is aimed at making sure that all of the students are learning and not just zoning out after the teacher calls on someone to answer the question. The chapter also talks about the importance of drinking water during the day to make the brain a stronger “creature” – if you are well hydrated, then the neurons in your brain flow faster, and you get better results and quicker response time. The last part of the chapter that was interesting was the list of activities that a teacher can do so that students can practice how to reason; one of the big problems now is that students have a hard time being able to reason anything out for themselves because they are asked just to spit out answers. We should teach them meaningful information but at the same time teach them how to reason and be able to do things on their own.
I liked how the chapter was set up because it looked at learning from a scientific background which is huge considering many teachers, except those in science, know little about the human brain. This is a very important time for a young adult because he or she is starting to find out who they are and what they want to do with their lives – it is also a time with a lot of experimentation, not all of it good, which can cause a lot of problems for your students. I thought it was interesting to find out, and slightly sad, that students now do not see how giving a person an answer to a test or coping down homework is considered to be cheating. It appears that we have a moral black hole in our society, and more and more people are unaware of how their actions are morally wrong or detrimental to themselves or others. I am not saying that we should preach to students, but I do think that we need to set good examples and try and show students what the types of behaviors are that show good morals.

Turning Point Chapter 9: Involving Parents and Communities

Turning Point Chapter 9: Involving Parents and Communities
This chapter dealt with how to get parents and the local community more involved in the students and the school. The research shows that students who have high expectations from their parents and receive involvement from their parents have higher grades and test scores, better school attendance, and higher graduation rates; whereas teachers experience improved morale, more support from families, higher student achievement, and better reputations in their communities when parents are involved. A teacher cannot disagree with the fact that his or her students will do better when the parents are involved, and they will try hard to make sure the students include their parents. The chapter also talks about getting the community involved by running community out-reach programs where students go out in the area and volunteer at a hospital or a soup kitchen. That is a great thing to do, and many students will learn from that experience – plus, it is something that the school can do with or without parent involvement.
I want all of my parents involved in what my students are doing, but there comes a time when you must realize that you are not always going to get a lot of involvement. Many households need to have two incomes so both parents work, parents need to take care of at home things, and in some cases, the parents just do not care about what their child is doing in school. It might be depressing, but it is the truth. Depending on where you teach, you might get a lot of involvement or none at all – you can try all you want to get them involved but many of them will just refuse no matter how many times you try. You also have to take into account cultural differences and immigrant families who might not feel comfortable being involved or are not use to doing that in their native country. On top of that, the chapter also talks about how parents are more hands off in middle school and high school. I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing; I think that students need to know how to do the work by themselves and not have their hand held. Though, this seems to be changing now with parents calling their kids college professors to complain about grades. I do not know if there is a solution to make all parents happy and get many of them involved – I think that you need to work with what you have and try your best to get people involved; if they really want to be there then they will, if they do not then you cannot force them to care.

Turning Points Chapter 8: A Safe and Healthy School Environment

Turning Points Chapter 8: A Safe and Healthy School Environment
This chapter talks about one of the most important issues in schools today, how to form a healthy environment for learning. The chapter outlines how many teachers believe that student discipline is the biggest problem that they face. One way to help prevent bad behavior is to make sure that all students understand the rules and know why they are important; another big step is to communicate the consequences of bad behavior along with making sure that teachers and administrators know who is in charge of dealing with discipline issues. Another big part of the chapter is dedicated to race and ethnicity. The book points out how preschool children understand race, and middle school students are at the age when they begin to develop thoughts about people – it is important to make sure that these thoughts are not racist or bigoted ones. The other big health problem that students run into is that this is the age when they begin to experiment with drugs, sex, smoking, alcohol, along with bringing guns to school, and eating poorly. It is important that your school deals with these issues and helps students avoid bad behavior that can harm their school work along with harm their lives.
I had to agree with most of the things in this chapter. I know that if you do not feel comfortable in school then you will not want to go or participate; in turn, failure to go will not only harm your grades but will also harm the social skills needed to survive in life, which you develop during this time period. I think that schools need to develop good health classes, ones that students do not think are jokes, so that we can help prevent under aged sex and drug use. I remember when I went to middle school, my school had a real bad problem with discipline and it not only hurt learning but it made many people not want to go to school. I will not allow that to happen in my classroom and I hope to be an advocate in my school to make sure that students do feel comfortable in school and will not avoid going because of something that is going on.

Turning Points Chapter 4: Designing Instruction to Improve Teaching and Learning

Turning Points Chapter 4: Designing Instruction to Improve Teaching and Learning
This chapter dealt with how to design instruction so that the students will be able to learn the information that they need to be effective students. One of the big topics in the chapter was a set of criteria for teachers in order to get their students prepared. These criteria were: students should be able to produce knowledge instead of repeat information back; students need to be involved in work that makes them think; students’ achievements should show that they have gained a life skill instead of being nothing more than a measure of their competence. The chapter also talks of the importance of using differentiated instruction to help all students be able to learn the information – a big issue with this is to make sure that you do not give some students work that is too easy and you should also avoid giving more work to students who are above average. The chapter also talks of the importance of technology – they warn teachers to make sure that computer use if for higher-order thinking and not just to play games on. When technology is used correctly, then students exhibit higher grades and more involvement, which is exactly what a teacher wants to see.
Once again, this was not totally new to me, but I did find two sections of the chapter very fascinating. They once again talked about the notion of tracking which is definitely a hot-button issue. In a perfect world, tracking should be used to make sure that students with the same abilities are in the same room in order to maximize learning – but in actuality, tracking prevents students from working hard and there is also evidence that minority groups are overrepresented in lower tracks in school; this is what makes tracking such a terrible thing to follow. When it came to technology, there was one thing that stood out to me; it talks about how most black students are asked to do much more lower-order thinking, such as playing games, than their white counterparts are. That very fact is quite sad and needs to be corrected, but I am curious why that is the case. I assume it happens because many more black students are in lower tracks, and the teachers must just assume that they cannot do any work by themselves or at least any work that requires real thinking. And some people think that America’s racial problems are over!

Turning Points Chapter 3 curriculum and assessment to improve teaching and learning

Turning Points Chapter 3 curriculum and assessment to improve teaching and learning

This chapter dealt with how to create a solid curriculum and different forms of assessment that can help students learn and still meet the standards set by the state. When it comes to planning lessons, it is important that you do it using backwards design – in other words, you plan your lessons starting with the things that your students need to learn; once you have done that, you can then think of activities that will help you get there. It is also important to remember when designing lessons to make sure that the information covered is relevant to the students. Teachers need to get away from covering every topic in a given area, such as history, and focus on the depth of information. The rest of the chapter deals with how to create good assessments. Assessments are key because they can let a teacher know which students understand the materials, which ones do not, and what materials need to be covered more in depth. It is important to use a mixture of assessments and end the unit with a large “project” that connects the information learned to a real-world application.

This chapter was really nothing more than a refresher of practicum. I have been taught how to design lessons using backwards design, and I also know the importance of both formative and summative assessments. I think that the biggest problem with trying to do backwards design is that the standards are not always very interesting or well worded, and it makes life more difficult. The one thing that I did not like about the chapter was the talk of linking the standards to things that are on the state standardized tests. I think that there is enough emphasis on trying to take “teaching” out of the classroom and replace it with “studying or teaching for the test” – in the end, the kids might be able to get a hundred on a standardized test, but the real world is not one giant standardized test – we need to make sure that our students are getting the information, learning it, and are capable of using that information in real-world situations; if not, then we have failed them.

This We Believe

This We Believe
Pg. 1-7
This chapter details the importance of middle grades education while at the same time informing people and teachers about the difficulties of being an adolescent in today’s world. The opening pages talk about the importance of making sure that middle grades are supported by their school and the teachers; the chapter hints at the need for schools to make sure every thing is in line so that the students are most successful – this includes good teachers, good curriculum, and collaboration. The rest of the pages talk in detail about life as an adolescent. They mention about how the body of an adolescent changes so much during this time and, unlike during infancy, a middle school child is well aware of those changes. Not only are their bodies and minds changing, but the students are also being exposed to drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and sex; these are a lot of things for a young person to deal with never mind trying to deal with it while all these changes are taking place. The last part of the chapter talks about how its hard enough being a teen, but it is made harder by things such as race, socio-economic status, gender, and an ever-changing world.
I liked this chapter because, like all the other books we have been reading, it really hammers home information about how much adolescent kids change and the things that they go through on a daily basis. It is hard enough having to deal with new emotions and being uncomfortable in your own skin but then add on top of that relationships, friends, having money or the lack of money, and you have yourself one big mess. If you are not prepared to deal with situations like these or deal with young adults who are very emotional then middle school may not be the place for you – though I think you can change those beliefs if you read this book and try to understand where a young person is coming from.

This We Believe 9-19
In these pages, the book talks about the keys to having a successful middle school; a school that helps to teach students and teachers alike. One of the major pieces needed for a good school is good teachers – middle school teachers must be highly qualified, know their content area, and most importantly, they should want to be with middle school students and strive to understand them. This successful middle school should also focus on collaboration amongst the teachers and the administration, along with trying to provide a safe and caring environment for all involved. If the teachers and administration all get along then they are more capable of working together to help teach the students; if that happens, then the school will be able to create and foster a safe environment where students can learn and grow without feeling anxious or worried that someone might say something to them. The book also talks about the need for high standards and life-long learning. As a teacher, you should believe that your students can do anything that they set their minds to, and once you believe that then you will make sure that you do everything you can to ensure they work hard. Teachers should also recognize the fact that learning does not stop when students and teachers are out of school; the learning continues throughout life and to be a good educator you must teach your students the skills that will allow them to continuously learn.
If I had the opportunity, I would travel to local middle schools and share the things that I have learned with them. I think most middle schools still fail to provide at least one of these essential things on a daily basis – as the book talks about, if you do not change the system all around but only change one or two pieces then nothing will get done and things will not improve. I have said this many times already, but I think that the most important parts to forming a good school is to make sure that you have the best teachers that you can find; teachers who enjoy their jobs and want to teach at that grade level, and you must also make sure that you create a good environment for students to learn in – if the students do not feel comfortable, then their work will suffer. It will take time, but I do not see a reason why every school cannot adopt these policies to make their students’ experiences so much better.

This We Believe 19-34
This set of pages deals with the age old question of how to create a complete curriculum that meets the needs of today’s students. According to the book, the best curriculum should be “relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory” (pg. 19). When it comes to relevant, students should find that what their learning helps them to understand the world around them and help to answer questions that they might have. It is important for the students to be challenged, which means that the work they do should be meaningful and engaging, but at the same time, it should not be too hard which could cause students to get frustrated and stop working. When the book talks about integrative, it is making a reference to making sure that the middle school team works hard to make sure that the things being talked about in English appear in social studies also. If that happens, then the students will understand how knowledge works and be able to make connections with other things in their lives. The last piece is the concept of exploratory – in this case, students should be asked to go deep into materials and concepts and research information on topics in order to gain a greater sense of the big picture ideas talked about in class.
I think that the toughest part of being a teacher is making sure that you design proper curriculum. It is a tough job because things that you think they might enjoy might actually make them want to take a nap. I also think that it has gotten even harder now because general education teachers are going to work with students from all racial, ethnic, socio-economic backgrounds along with dealing with some students who have special needs. A good teacher can manage to make accommodations to his or her lessons so that every student can learn something from the class. I think that at the end of the day, the biggest need for teachers today is enough time so that they can plan out their lessons and units complete with accommodations – given the time, a person can do great work, but it is finding that time which poses the biggest problem.

This We Believe 34-51
This was an interesting set of pages because it detailed steps of how to integrate and transform your own school for teachers, principals, parents, superintendents, states, and teacher preparation professors. The reason why I thought this was so interesting was because I did not really think about all the people that would need to be involved in order to adopt these policies – I kind of wish that the students would be involved and be on this list because I think they should have some say as to what takes place in their education; if the students have ideas that would help improve the school, then I think they should be listened to. The last set of pages was about the different changes that middle school students go through as they mature. The list includes physical, cogitative, moral, psychological, and social-emotional. The list alone should make the reader think that there are a lot of changes that a typical student will go through. I did find it interesting to hear about how girls mature between one and two years earlier than boys and African Americans mature at a faster pace than most other groups. We need to be well aware of the changes that students go through before we take the job or else we will be unaware of the major things that take place with our students that may prevent them from doing work to the highest possible level.

Chapter 9: Planning for Block Scheduling

Chapter 9: Planning for Block Scheduling
This chapter dealt with trying to help teachers effectively plan out an eighty minute class which is common when in a block schedule. The chapter outlines important parts of forming a good lesson plan for you class. It starts off by making sure that you focus on your objectives, namely the things that you want your students to be able to do once the class is finished. For instance, if you are teaching a class on fractions, an objective could be for students to understand the two parts of a fraction. The chapter also talks about the importance of both formative assessment, assessment on progress, and summative assessment, can the students do the work, and do they understand the materials. A more interesting topic that is brought up at the very end is how to deal with student absences. It is difficult for a student to make up work when he or she misses a class in a block schedule because the class meets every other day. The chapter offers a couple suggestions to this problem; one is to start off each class with a review of the previous class information; another idea is to have teachers stay after school two or three times a week; or another one is to have one day a week where there is no block schedule, and every class meets that day.
Most of the information covered in this chapter I already had covered in practicum. Things such as the importance of backwards planning, or planning that starts with what you want your students to learn, the need to do both formative and summative assessment, and making sure that your lessons connect with students through their interests and their learning styles. Backwards planning is great because it helps the teacher realize what the big picture ideas and concepts are and then it is easier to plan instruction in order to reach those goals. The one thing that I did not completely agree with was how the argument was for block scheduling and against “all classes every day”. My high school did not use a block schedule, so I had six classes every day and was responsible for six classes worth of homework on a given night. It was a lot of work and it was hard at times to deal with, but I felt it prepared me for college more than a block schedule would. Obviously, the block will prepare you for how college is set up from a schedule standpoint, but I don’t think that it really helps to prepare you for the work load. Once I have the chance to teach in a block schedule, I might have changed my mind on what schedule is more effective.

Chapter 12: Teacher Advisories - A Proposal for Change

Chapter 12: Teacher Advisories – A Proposal for Change
This chapter was about creating a successful advisory committee. According to National Middle School Association’s Research Summary #9, an advisory program “is when one adult interacts with a small group of students on a regular basis to provide a caring environment for academic guidance and support” (pg. 146). Most people would assume that an advisory committee would be something similar to a guidance councilor, and in a way it is, but the example in the book is of the teacher taking his advisees out on a nature hike. It is a good way to get to know students, what they want to do in life, and find out ways that you could maybe help them reach those goals. It also serves as a chance to improve the community because you could take your students out into the area and maybe work at a food pantry or help out at a local daycare. It also talks about how these trips can help students who might not be the greatest academic students shine in other ways.
I was glad to read about this sort of thing and actually see it work out correctly. When I was in practicum, I was sent to Mount Blue High School, and they did use the advisory committee concept. Unfortunately, the mentor that I had did not take it very serious – in fact, a couple times a week the students would come in and all he would do would be to read their grades, out loud, and then tell the students who were doing poorly to get their act together. Once that was done, he would ask if anyone wants “any kind of advice” and when no one said anything he told them they could leave. The sad thing was that these kids really needed help and could have really used someone who would sit there and listen to them, but it was just not happening. I understand that it took place at the high school level, but I don’t think it should be any different. Students should still get the opportunity to get advice. If the administration knew that few teachers really did anything with it, I think they would have just scrapped it and used the time for something else.

Chapter 11: Teaming

Chapter 11: Teaming
This chapter talked about how to effectively team teach at the middle school level. It starts out with a story about a girl named Umber, who is now living in the United States after moving from Pakistan. Umber has some difficulty with English and history because it is heavy in English, and she has not fully grasped the language. The story shows how the entire middle school team met with Umber’s mother to talk about ways to help her succeed in school; most importantly, the teachers talked amongst themselves about ways to shorten assignments or spread out deadlines so that she could get her work accomplished. The chapter also talks about the importance of making the information being covered in school relevant to the students. One of the ways that the book suggests to do so is by collaborating with the rest of the team to try and cover similar topics at the same time – this way, students can see how a given topic, like genetics, can be linked to subjects other than science. Lastly, the chapter speaks about the importance of having team planning times to work on the collaborative units, and the importance of communication. Without good communication, the teachers will not be able to work together to form lessons and the work will then suffer.
I liked the story at the beginning because I felt that it served two purposes; on one hand it shows different ways to differentiate instruction to help your students get the work done, but on the other hand it also showed how collaboration and team work takes place amongst middle school team members. I am a firm believer of the importance of making the information relevant to the students, so I think that when ever you can make real-world applications out of topics then your students will understand more and do better in school. I think that there would be little chance that the teachers could have helped Umber if it were not for the fact that the school must have been smaller and not one of the massive 2,000-plus student schools; this also shows how important it is for smaller class sizes and more individualized attention. I am looking forward to working with my classmates on our unit because I think it will be fun to put something together and get to listen to people from different backgrounds and subjects.

Chapter 6: Organizing Relationships for Learning

Chapter 6: Organizing Relationships for Learning
In this chapter, the focus is placed on how to build an effective middle school. The chapter looked at things from a strictly structural view, from a student’s view, and from a teacher’s view. When it comes to the actual physical structure of the school, the chapter suggests small schools that have no more than 600 students should be the norm; those students should be teamed with roughly five teachers so that the overall numbers are about 125 students and five teachers. The chapter does suggest that for larger schools it might be wise to break the school into houses or communities in order to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio for better learning. From a student’s view, the chapter discusses how it is vital for students to be able to develop close, meaningful relationships with their peers and their teachers – according to their findings, it shows that students who have those solid relationships do much better in school. The other suggestion, which deals with the relationships, is to have both the same teachers and students stick together for many years in order to build a good, working relationship. The chapter also had suggestions for teachers. They mentioned the importance of matching teachers based on their learning styles and personalities when forming teaching teams; this is meant to make sure that the team can agree and work together.

After reading this chapter, I had to agree with the suggestions made by the Turning Points group. I totally agree that the schools should be kept small in order to reduce class sizes and help students get the attention that they need. By shrinking class size, teachers will have a better chance of getting to know all of their students and be able to tailor their lessons to suit each student. This method will also help students and teachers have better relationships, which is vital to the success of the whole middle school. From a teaching standpoint, I know that I would much rather be teamed with other teachers who I can get along with and want to collaborate with. If the teachers like each other than I think more work will get done; if more work gets done then there is a much greater likelihood that the students will succeed.

Turning Points 2000: Chapter 1 synthesis

Chapter 1: Turning Points: A Decade Later

Abstract:
The opening chapter discusses in detail what the Turning Points document/model is and the reasons why it needs to be implemented in schools. The list consisted of eight points: create smaller communities, core of common knowledge, organized to ensure success, that teachers and principals need to have a major responsibility and power, staff your school with expert teachers, promote good health, structural change, and it is crucial to get together and synthesize the lessons learned with most current research. This list was formed in the early 1990s and was then implemented in schools across the country; looking at the research and data, the schools who made changes to the system had markedly increased scores in reading, writing, and math. The chapter also talks in great details about the problems that middle school students are going through these days such as: teen pregnancy, teen STDs, and drugs. These are all major problems that teachers need to deal with on a daily basis. The chapter also does a great job of point out how middle school students are going through a period of great change whether it is biological, psychological, or social. The chapter leaves the reader with a sense that middle schools and middle school students have been neglected and much more focus must be placed on their growth and achievements.

Reflection:
One of the overwhelming themes of people’s reflections was that they learned quite a bit about middle schools in general. I got the sense that more than a couple people would be more interested in teaching middle school after reading this chapter. Many people acknowledged that the middle school years are one of, if not the most important, time in a kids life; at this stage, they are rapidly changing physically and emotionally yet they are completely capable of learning a great deal of information while dealing with all these “issues”. The vast majority of people commented that the Turning Points ideas were great and should be implemented in all schools because they are “cheap” changes, which benefit poorer schools, and because Turning Points has a track record of success. There were a couple people who agreed with the Points but wanted to also mention that there needs to be a fundamental shift across all schools – they mentioned that just making these changes are not enough; the teachers and administrators have to change their held beliefs on certain issues, namely whether or not EVERY student can learn, in order for the program to work. I also thought it was very interesting that many people brought up the idea of breaking the schools into communities either because they have heard how great that works or because they had those communities when they went to middle school. I think that is something we should definitely look at as a class when we are designing our middle school.

Chapter 17: The Truth about Middle School Students

Chapter 17: The Truth about Middle School Students
This chapter was very much about Rick sharing the positive aspects of middle school students; his goal was to dispel any “false” statements that some people may make about adolescent children. He also talks in great detail about how, in most cases, only the negatives are talked about. Rick talks about how people focus on “teen sex, or STDs”; they seem to always talk about all of the negative aspects. He takes painstaking steps to help drive out those notions and to make sure that people focus on thing such as “this student sang at the Kennedy Center” or “this student raised $22,000 for the diabetes foundation”. He does a good job of this by sharing quotes from his “graffiti wall” that he had built in his classroom. The “wall” was a section of the room with blank sheets of paper on it; the students were told they could write anything up on the wall as long as it was ok for your “mother, grandmother, or fellow students could take and would not offend anyone”.

Before reading this chapter, I often thought of many middle school students as immature and excessively talkative – this comes from some bad experiences dealing with middle school students. After reading this chapter, I have a very different opinion of middle school students; I thought that all of the quotes his students wrote about were brilliant, witty, or just flat out funny. I had to agree with him when he said that he often hires middle school students to babysit for his kids because they always want to make people happy and are in constant need for reassurance. I remember being in middle school and it was very important to make sure that you did the things so you could fit in. I think it has to do with paranoia of the age – middle school kids think everyone is watching them at all times; sometimes that makes teaching easier because they think you’ll see everything they are doing at a given time. I feel like many people out there should read this book because they would develop a different opinion of both middle school students and teachers.

Chapter 2: Motivating Young Adolescents

Chapter 2: Motivating Young Adolescents
Motivation is key to any person, situation, and it is necessary to be successful; motivation for middle school students is no exception. In this chapter, Rick talks a lot about the ways a teacher can motivate students such as proving that you love the subject you are teaching; making things fun for students; and being able to relate the information to their everyday lives. I think that any teacher will admit that if their students are not interested in the materials then they will not bother to even try and learn. Another very important part of the chapter is his discussion about how a safe environment is indeed necessary for students so that they can produce the best work and feel comfortable enough to talk out in class. If the students do not feel safe or comfortable enough to speak then they will be hesitant to do the work, and you may have a very quite classroom. It is important to remember not to make comments about students because sometimes what you view as a joke ends up being misconstrued, and the student takes it as an insult.

This chapter stood out to me because I am very interested in coaching and a major aspect of being a good coach is to manage to get your athletes motivated; I feel that teaching is no different. I also agreed with Rick on the notion of a safe environment for the students. I can speak from personal experience, if I do not feel comfortable in a classroom then I will most likely not speak at all; mind you, I am twenty-one years old, and if I won’t speak in a college class because of that then I cannot imagine a middle school student wanting to speak in a class that makes him or her feel uncomfortable. I was also happy that he spoke about some many of the concepts and ideas that we used in practicum, such as differentiated instruction, multiple intelligences, and reading strategies. When you finally realize as a teacher that school isn’t about you but about the students then I think you will be the most successful. If you can put our ego aside and focus on making sure that the student are learning then you will be a good teacher.

Chapter 1: Stroking the Fires Within

Chapter 1: Stroking the Fires Within
This chapter was quite interesting because Rick Wormeli talked about the joys of teaching middle school, how to teach middle school, and most importantly to be very proud of your job. Rick talked a lot about how great it is to teach middle school because the students really want to learn, and you can have such a great time working with them. He talks about how students will joke with him or give him a slap on the back when things go well or even rest their heads on his shoulder when he reviews their work. I thought a great part of the chapter was when he talked about how it is vitally important to just listen to your students; too many teachers want to just do their job and leave instead of sitting there and listening to their students when they need things or just need a person to listen to them. Rick also spoke a lot about how important teaching is as a profession, and how we should all remember that we have a worthy profession. He talks a lot about how some people think teachers are only the “rejects” that couldn’t get a better job – sadly, for their sake, I hope their kids get good teachers in life.

In the end, I thought the beginning was the best because he spoke about how important it is to teach students – too many people think that teaching is an easy job that takes little effort, but that really is not true. It is also important for teachers to not be afraid to admit what their occupation is. After reading the first chapter, I got more interested in teaching middle school because he makes it sound like such a great job. When he describes his students, you can truly realize that they actually want to be there in school, and actually enjoy him as a teacher and as a person – I think that in high school you can run into students who don’t really want to be there or who really do not like you; that can be quite depressing and frustrating. I’m looking forward to the other chapters; maybe he will completely win me over for the middle school job.

Chapter 2

Turning Points 2000 Chapter Two
The big over-arching theme of chapter two is the notion that schools should work to create safe learning environments and help to create “well-rounded” students who are life-long learners. What is vitally important to take away from the Turning Points idea and platform is the notion that this structure is meant to help change the lives of ALL students, not just most of them; schools should not try to help the wealthy over the poor or try to help the white over the black students – schooling is meant for every student no matter what they look like or where they come from. The sooner we realize that the better everyone will be. Two other points in the chapter that stood out to me were the notions of a healthy environment and of doing the job correctly. It is vital to have a safe and healthy environment for students or else they will dislike going to school, will not open up to their peers or teachers, and will be miserable; the obvious result is that they will just not show up to school. It has to be a safe and fun place and, when that happens, students will greatly enjoy going to school. The other important thing is that if you are going to make changes then you better do them in full instead of “half-assed” so that the things do change and make school a better place for kids.

I agreed with everything that the chapter spoke about, but I especially agreed with the line “staff middle grades schools with teachers who are expert at teaching young adolescents”; I think that a major problem with our schools today is that the people being hired to teacher either are just not good at it, don’t want to really do it, or were trained so poorly that they couldn’t be a good teacher if they tried. I am of the mindset that too many teacher education programs continually pass students through the system so that they can keep up a reputation or because they so desperately need the tuition money – this does nothing except ruin the lives of the students that these teachers will eventually go teach. I really think that the programs need to be more strict on who they allow in and spend time throughout the year checking up on students to make sure they are not drinking excessively or using drugs. Teachers have to want to teach or else they will not make their students want to learn because, like wolves, students “smell” fear and can sense when a teacher does not want to be there. I am all in favor for more accountability for teachers so that we can hopefully adopt these items from Turning Points and refurbish our education system here in the United States.

Chapter 1

Turning Points 2000 Chapter One

I thought that chapter one laid down the groundwork for not only the importance of middle grades education but also showed not only the ways to change the schools but also how to interpret and understand the changes. As the chapter points out, the United States Educational system is in a bit of disrepair given the problems with tests scores in reading, writing, and most glaringly math. I also felt that the book talked about the need for adequate funding but it also hinted at the notion that some things cannot be solved by money but instead fixed by broad changes. The chapter also does a good job of also explaining and pointing out the fact that these problems affect all students but especially those students who are from lower SES levels or are minorities – I feel like that is one topic that gets overshadowed here because of the lack of diversity at the college and in the surrounding areas.

After reading the chapter, I really began to think about how the middle school years are usually the ones where students are most interested in learning and want to come to school – then you reach the high school level, and students try to do everything that they can to avoid school and work. I also felt that one area of concern that many students and educators either do not know about or flat-out ignore is that being an adolescent is a tough “job”. As the book points out, an adolescent’s body changes more than any other time, other than infancy, and students are faced with new emotions (such as love and lust) along with seeming incredibly uncomfortable in their own skin. I think in order for teachers to effectively teach their middle grades students they need to know about these things and make sure that they can make adjustments to emotions and other things in their classrooms. If a student freaks out and starts to cry or gets really angry, the teacher should be able to handle the situation and just talk to the student. Overall, the only way for the system to get better is for more money, that is directed to the right places, and for teachers, students, and parents to want more out of their kids and to want to strive to be the best; unless there is a shift in society’s view on school then it will take a while to adjust or make any changes to a broken system.