Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Sept. 3rd, 2009

Differentiation in Practice Part 1: 
There were a lot of choices in this reading that appealed to me. (I am going to list them in bullet form) 
* Teach in ways that will help each learner bridge gaps comprehension and skills to help them grow at a successful speed. I feel this is important because there are so many students that go through school without understand what they are doing and it doesn't help them for their future. Ever child understand differently so it is important as a teacher to make sure you are teaching to each level of comprehension and taking extra time with those who need the help. 
* Backtracking I feel is a must because how is a student expected to learn if they don't have all the back ground information or got lost somewhere down that road. 
* Find space/time in your curriculum in areas where your students show great amounts of interest. If a student is interested they are learning more then what the teacher is even teaching. They are able to discover and learn with excitement which makes learn fun and memorable for each student. 
*Assessing really appeals to me because I want to become better at it. It is so important to assess because it shows the students growths and struggles. With assessment you as a teacher can find the time to help them were they are struggling so by the time the student is assessed again they will be caught up.  It also helps with the lesson plan that you are teaching, if no one is understanding it then it is time for the teacher to come up with a different approach to teaching it that will better suit the students. 
* "These are strategies that guide the teacher in looking at students in small groups or individually rather than only as a whole class." (p. 11) I never thought of it this way but it is such a great way of looking at it. What i took from this is that you can teach the same way to each student because of their differences so teach differently to each student. I really like this way of thinking and teaching. 

Morning Meeting Packet on Blackboard:
Some of the steps that helped me to understand morning meetings a little more were;
1- Greeting- a variety of greeting activities to help each student gain a sense of belonging
                    - Provides opportunities for students to verbally and non-verbally communication skills and to build relationships

2- Sharing- "Face-to-Face" conversation. The ability to have each student share news about themselves.

3- Group Activity- "Game" Helps students to work on there general skills


Morning meeting should be around 15 minute long. And another thing that I thought was interesting was the research they did on how much parents, teachers, and students enjoy morning meetings. I think it is most important to have the student enjoy and love being apart of and building a strong community for the class.
It also showed a lot of fun games and activities that you can do with your students to help them build relationships with each other. 

1 comment:

Teacherheart said...

Excellent job. I like the "bullet" form of response. It makes it easy for me to see what appeals to you and that you are understanding the reading a deep level. 4 points.