Turning Points 2000 Chapter 3

The whole time I read this chapter I felt like I was back in practicum all over again. The backwards design model, project based assessments, and essential questions are all techniques that I have been practicing for the past two years. It is a very nice feeling to know that my money is well spent on my college education because my professors are up to date on the newest ideas.

One of the major shockers in this chapter was that they recommended using tests as an assessment technique. I guess parents and community members might frown upon schools without these traditional pieces, but I really do not like them as a major assessment. Most students do not test well and it is unfair to judge their conceptual knowledge on a test. I do kind of like the idea of little quizzes maybe before or after a class to gauge students’ abilities with specific skills, especially in a math classroom. Math has a lot of skills that need to be learned, like adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers, multiplying fractions, simplifying equations, etc. These skills are important to a student’s ability to meet the standards and can easily be tested with quizzes. However, these quizzes should not be counted for huge portions of students’ grades because the skills are not the most important part of the class; the conceptual understanding is.

This We Believe p. 43-62

It is quite apparent after reading the rest of this book that my professors at UMF are on the right track when it comes to educating us about educating students. Everything in this last section of reading was all very familiar to me from all my education courses. Providing a safe environment, using inquiry-oriented, problem based, and student centered lessons, being aware of outside influences, and getting parents and community involved are just some of the bigger picture ideas that I have seen and practiced in my lessons. The newer concepts I learned were the middle school students’ physical, emotional, moral, intellectual, and psychological developments.

One of the biggest realizations I learned was that middle school aged kids need to release energy. This is why this age group tends to suddenly have outbursts of energy. Teachers need to keep this in mind when planning lessons. We cannot expect students to sit through fifty to eighty minutes of lecturing and practice problems without some sort of movement. Teachers also need to be aware of when they praise students for a job well done and what they praise them for. Middle school students are constantly comparing themselves to each other. If one student gets more recognition than the other, the one not being congratulated could shut down and stop trying. However, we still need to make sure there is plenty of praise going around. Students of this age often have lower levels of self-confidence in areas such as academics, sports and creative activities. Without the adequate congratulations and good jobs, they too might shut down in a certain area.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 12 Synthesis

This chapter was quite short, but it made a very valid point about a crucial part of middle schools: advisories. Wormeli talks about his thoughts on a more effective advisory system. Instead of meeting every other day or once a week and having boring, meaningless lessons, schools should employ the full day advisories. This type of meetings would only happen a few times a year, but would be more beneficial to teachers and students if done correctly. Wormeli’s experience exampled showed that students can get closer because they learn something about one another that they would have never seen in a classroom setting. Various ideas were mentioned for full day, out of the classroom advisories, but that is not always possible, so here are some team building type activities that get students working with each other in the classroom. There are also these middle school advisory activities that are typically done in the classroom that will aid teachers in learning about their students.

Most of the experiences talked about in our blogs reflected the old school advisory setting. Short periods where the Pledge of Allegiance and announcements were done and nothing else really got accomplished. To all of us, this all day advisory idea seems promising, but there are still some concerns. Like, how are we going to ensure that students actually show up for the day? And how do we get parents on board with allowing their child to go hiking or what not? The one concern I really connected with was how to deal with the hesitation from students for these outdoor type activities. I would have never wanted to go hiking or rafting in fear of getting hurt or whatever. Getting students interested in this advisory program will probably be the most difficult task. There are other frequently asked questions about advisories that are answered by Jim Burns.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 9

In my junior high experience, I had all my core classes every single day and every day had a different elective. I remember the classes being really short and just when we started getting into an activity, we had to move to the next class. Then in high school, the eighty-minute periods seemed to drag because all we did was listen to teachers talk. Junior high was the place for the longer class periods in my schooling. If middle school teachers were trained to plan block classes effectively, they could be super beneficial to students and their success in the classroom.

This chapter was a great basic instruction for the planning process. However, it all seemed very familiar to me. I have been working with this type of planning and lesson setup since sophomore year. Formative and summative assessments, activities, multiple intelligences, and making it applicable to students all comes naturally to me now. So even though this chapter did not teach me anything new, it did show me that all the hard work and preparation that I have been through will be exactly what my students need. I did really like the ideas presented for the percentage and sales tax activities in the lesson. I will definitely keep them in mind because they would be perfect for middle school students. It was engaging, applicable to their lives, and fun!

There was one interesting idea that this chapter mentioned. During a team teaching lesson, have one teacher lecture or what not and the other teacher is in control of a remote. Saying pause and rewind throughout the period is a fun way to make sure the students know what’s going on. I really wish there was a way for this to be done by students themselves. This way you know exactly when a student needs a rewind or a pause to catch up.

This We Believe p. 33-42

A safe and supportive environment is crucial for the success of every single student. There are many different aspects that go into making this type of atmosphere; everything from teacher-student interactions to the look of the school to the assistance of other adults needs to be considered. The two aspects that I liked the most were making the school itself a comfortable place to be and the health and wellness being addressed. Both are very important and can be done with relative ease.

Healthy choices are difficult to make as adults and it is more so for young adolescents. It is up to the responsible and caring adults in their lives to help guide them through these tricky times. If teachers can provide quality situations that demonstrate healthy choices or places for them to participate in these better decisions, it will be better off for the students. The best ideas this section mentioned was the intramural sports idea. We did this in my junior high and it was amazing the people the came out to play volleyball and basketball. Kids will get involved when given the opportunity.

Having a nice, attractive school is a great way to make students feel comfortable. If the school doesn’t feel safe, the students will not learn effectively. I loved the idea of displaying students’ work throughout the school! If we present our students’ work, we will show how proud we are of them. Students will also gain confidence because everyone will be admiring the effort they put into it. I also think all the work would be great decorations for the school as a whole.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 12

I had to really stress my brain to recall my memories of an advisory type class in my junior high experience. Turns out, we had a homeroom. We met there for roughly ten to fifteen minutes a day for attendance, announcements, and the pledge of allegiance. I had every class, except for the elective type classes, with my homeroom peers. Unlike most advisory or homerooms, I really got to know all my classmates, at least in an educational setting, because I spent almost all day, every day with them. However, I would have definitely learned more information about my peers if we had done the all day advisory programs like this chapter mentioned.

The pros of all day advisory programs are pretty vast. Students get out of the classroom, can help out the community, learn a new fact, get some exercise, get to really know their classmates, and lots more. However, I am curious as to how to make them work effectively. The chapter talked about all these great ideas, like hiking trips and community service clean up days, but how do we know that those will actually foster positive feelings? I know that when I participated in those types of days, my peers thought they were lame and a waste of time. A lot of my peers convinced their parents to sign them out of school so they did not even have to go! I wish the chapter gave me hints as to how to make these days effective and a good experience for all.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 11

During my practicum experience at Mt. Blue Middle School, I got to experience the community type teaching. I did notice that the students tended to be able to ask for help from each other much easier because they knew for sure that other students in their community were doing the same assignments as they were because they had the same teacher. However, some of the other benefits that this chapter mentioned I did not get to witness first hand.

I would have loved to see the integration piece of community teaching. I think it would be great to be able to do a unit combining English, social studies, science, and math concepts that are interconnected some how. I feel this way the teachers are bound to find a subject that students like. If a student does not necessarily like math, he or she may be more likely to learn, and like, the math content if it applies to his or her favorite subject of social studies. Teaching is all about making the content fun for students and if that means applying math to a history idea or some science material, I am all for it. In eighth grade, my teachers kind of did something like this. It was a special year in my town’s history so all the students had to pick a building on Main St. and make a scale model of it, find out what the building was used for when the town was first established, and write a paper describing the history of the building. This involved using mathematics concepts of scalars, history facts and research techniques, English paper writing strategies, and art skills to complete the final project. My peers and I enjoyed this project more than we would a research paper and math exercises and we learned a lot about our town in the process! If done correctly, this integration idea can really spark students’ interests and help them learn more effectively.