Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 15

Contacting and maintaining communication between parents and teachers can be tricky to do. Rick Wormeli offers some great technology and traditional forms of communication that is bound to meet the needs of almost every parent. I love the idea that he mentioned about an online posting service. The more that the professors have used this idea in the college, the more I like it. It is easy for me to go and check my assignment, due date, resources, and contact information for my professor and it is located on one easy website. If teachers use this posting service and parents and students have access to it, it can be a wonderful thing. However, if parents do not consistently check the website, it does not help anyone. My high school attempted to use a system like this to inform parents of the major events going on in the school. My mom already knew about everything because she was involved, but our Internet was slow and a pain to use most of the time so she would not have checked the website every day. If she would have relied on just the website for her information, she would have been way behind and simply gotten frustrated. However, if used correctly and consistently, I truly believe this type of system is perfect for teachers, parents, and students. Wormeli also mentioned that e-mails work excessively well too. If parents and students have the information to contact you, they will. Teachers just have to be open to answering emails frequently, which in this day and age is almost a given.

I also love the more traditional approaches that this chapter mentioned. Simply sending home a post card with a few good things that the student has done is a perfect way to keep parents informed, but also not make them dread talking to the teacher. The more positive the experience for the parent, the more likely they are to actually want to be involved with the teacher and their student’s success in that class.

Turning Points 2000 Chapter 9

Getting parents involved with the classroom and other school activities is probably one of the most difficult aspects of the education system. I witnessed my mother, who was the secretary/treasurer of the sports boosters at my high school, struggle to find parent volunteers to help with fundraisers and selling concessions. If my mom had a hard time contacting and getting just a few sport parents involved with their athlete’s school, I can imagine the difficulty that teachers have in having positive communication with their students’ parents. I know from experience that having my mom and dad involved in my schooling was not embarrassing, but actually super helpful if a problem did arise. My parents knew when to let me handle things on my own and also when I needed help because they were always helping out. I also witnessed some of my peers and their parents. It was not hard to see the correlation between those parents who helped and were involved in their student’s school and the student’s achievement. The more involved the parent(s), the better the student performed academically. There are the rare exceptions, but overall I feel that getting parents involved will help our students succeed.

Thinking back on my education, I realize that my mom and dad never really got asked to help with the school after elementary school. My mom and dad were just those types of parents that asked what they could do, and the teachers gladly gave them a task. However, as a teacher, I am curious how we can reach out to parents and show them that we want their involvement in their child’s education. Some of the best ideas that this chapter mentioned were the simplest ones, like scheduling parent meetings at a different location that is more easily assessable to parents and less intimidating and personalizing the communication by giving out a private line that they can reach you on. Another great hint was just contacting parents about the good things that their child is doing, not just the bad. This way parents are more receptive to be involved in the solution process if a problem does arise instead of just blaming the teacher.

Turning Points 2000 Chapter 8

In order for students to be completely successful in the classroom and in life in general they must be healthy, both physically and mentally. Imagine trying to ace a test or nail a presentation when you are overtired, dehydrated, or depressed from a breakup. It is difficult enough to do well with academics without dealing with your health too. However, what can teachers do to help their students’ well-beings. We are not with them twenty fours hours a day, seven days a week. But, if we provide a healthy learning environment with positive, healthy role models, we can get students that much closer to a healthy self.

Every school and classroom should strive to be a safe and healthy place to be. One of the hardest parts about providing this environment is the discipline problems that arise in the classroom. Having common expectations for misbehaviors is a simple way to limit these issues. However, if students do not have any say in these expectations and consequences, they will not be effective. Another common classroom dilemma is fighting students. This chapter mentioned the idea of peer mentors to help deal with this problem. I went through extensive peer mediation training in junior high, but I would have never used the system. I love the idea of a student helping students solve their problems, but a part of it does not seem logical. Some students are just not going to want to talk to another student or feel comfortable airing their problems to their peers. But if we could get past that issue, I have witnessed it working. Some of my fellow peer mediators saw success, which is what we want. Schools just have to remember to make sure they get students from every group in the school, not just the high achievers.

Turning Points 2000 Chapter 4

This whole chapter was about different instruction organizations that teachers can use in their classroom. However, there is a quote that I think is way more important than any of the strategies that were mentioned; “teachers must also become ‘students of their students.’” If teachers get to know their students, really know them, then any instructional model can be adjusted to fit any student. While reading the three different ways that this book mentioned to organize instruction, I realized that not one will work completely, but if students thrive with bits and pieces of all of them, then that should be what the educator should focus on. It is up to the teacher to know what works and what does not work for all of his or her students. I want to be one of those teachers that does whatever it takes to help my students succeed. That means I will have to branch out of the molds that this book mentions and pick and choose only the pieces that make sense for them.

There are ideas and strategies that were mentioned that I would love to implement in my classroom. The main one has to do with assessment. The WHERE instructional design suggests letting students assess their own work using rubrics and student samples. I fully agree with this idea. If students are assessing their own products, they can see how they are doing on their own. This also allows students to be accountable for their own work and not rely on someone else to tell them how they did. Students should be able to know how well they did without waiting for the teacher to give them a grade. With students assessing themselves, this will happen.

Book Talk: How to Become a "Wiz" at Brain-Based Teaching

"We are preparing our students for a world we know nothing about."

This quote could not be closer to the truth. Our middle school students will be working in a world fifteen to twenty years into the future, meaning we will have no idea what is actually going on. We can prepare them for the world they are in at the moment, but we will not necessarily know if that will help them. The ideas presented in this book talk, about dealing with stress and taking care of the individual person, seem like a better way to prepare students. Every person needs to know how to deal with their stresses and know how to take care of their bodies. By showing students that they can release their stress by simply walking around the room or writing it down, like the activity we did, students can learn to manage their stress without the help of a teacher. It also teaches students how to recognize how they are feeling and what is causing these feelings. Sometimes, I believe, that people, students especially, do not even know that something is really bothering them until they are asked about it. If students can learn to recognize their "symptoms" on their own, they will be better off in the long run. We cannot prepare students for a world we know nothing about because of our lack of knowledge. However, we can prepare them to deal with themselves, which applies to any type of world.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 8

Assessments are a key part of the educational process. Most people would think that assessments are those tests and/or quizzes that are given to students at the end of a lesson or unit. However, this is gives assessments a bad name. Assessments are meant to a teacher how well a student has mastered and understood the material. Tests and quizzes do not always adequately show the amount of information that students have mastered and retained. Not all students learn the same way, so why should they be assessed the same way? I loved the examples of unique assessments that Wormeli mentioned in the chapter. Musical compositions, debates, mock funerals, and restaurant menus are just a few of the different ways that students can show their mastery of the content, in a way that is comfortable to them and their learning style.

One of the best hints for an effective assessment that was mentioned was having clear goals. I do not know how many times throughout my schooling I did not know what the teacher wanted from me as I completed a project. It was so frustrating! Teachers should always make sure students know exactly what is expected of them so that they can receive the grade they want. I have grown very fond of using a rubric or checklist and making sure the students have a copy while they are completing their assignment. This way they know exactly what I am expecting of them while they work on their project. Then they can assess themselves and make sure they have all the crucial pieces.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 7

Differentiated instruction is not a new concept for me. My professors ever since practicum have been stressing this type of instruction and it is obvious why. Not every person is the same and we emphasize this all the time. We tell children to be themselves, be unique, and take pride in being one of a kind. Yet, before recently, we expect every student to learn from a traditional lecture and worksheet classroom setting. It is ridiculous. We, as teachers, must help every single student learn the material, even if it means teaching the same thing four different ways.

The most beneficial part of this chapter, for me, was the section about characteristics that teachers exhibit who are successful with differentiated instruction. Since differentiated instruction is so beneficial, I want to make it work in my classroom. However, the very first characteristic is risk taking. I am not a huge risk taker. I love to play it safe and have everything super organized. I know it is something I need to work on. I just wish there were more hints as to how to do it. The idea about letting students teach a day was great and all, but I feel many students would find teaching a math class as super hard and boring. Though, the spontaneity that a student “teacher” could bring to the classroom would be perfect. Another hint that I loved was letting students see that mistakes are not the end of the world. This is scary to some teachers because that means admitting to their students that they make mistakes in a field that they are teaching. I find some comfort in letting students see I make mistakes too. No one is perfect, especially not me, and students should see that even the teacher messes up. That will make it a little less awful if they make a mistake themselves. Failures are not meant to be dead ends; it is the beginning to some new learning.