Chapter 15: Parents as Partners in Twenty-First-Century Learning

This chapter was about parents of the students getting connected not just with their kids schooling, but with the school itself. I thought that they key part of this chapter was the section titled "Reach out and Touch". I really liked a couple of the ideas, and really disagreed with others. A couple of the ideas that I really liked was the Postcard idea. I think that sending home good things about the kids is more important than sending home negatives that the students have done. I also really liked that Parents in the Classroom idea. I think that opening up my classroom to the parents gives it an air of confidence and trust that every parent wants to feel when their child is concerned.

The one thing that I really disagreed with however was the Home Visits suggestion. Never in my life would I consider visiting all of my students in their homes. I feel like that is an invasion of their space as well as a vulnerability for myself in that situation. I feel like having a meeting place that isn't the school or the home would work, but I would never go to their house.

Chapter 9: Involving Parents and Communities

This chapter talks about the importance of involving parents and the community within the student's schooling. As it goes on it gives steps to take to get both parties involved. Although I agree that this is a good idea I disagree with the assumptions that the book is making. I know that many students do not have an ideal home life. Sometimes the parents have to work numerous jobs, there are many children that need taking care of, or the students may not be living in an ideal situation. There is even the chance that although the parents are home they may not have the needed knowledge to assist the child in the way that they need it. Personally I feel like the hard part is not making parents who care take part in the child's schooling, but to make the parents that don't care or don't have time care, and make time.

Boys and Girls Learn Differently

Alrighty so this book definitely brought up some really intriguing points that cause great discussion. I loved how you introduced the book by giving us a couple of activities as a warm-up exercise. I am a firm believer in getting the brain thinking about the ideas at hand. I also liked the way that you randomly split us up into groups and I think two out of the four group stations had us doing an activity of some kind. I think that the activities really helped make the ideas more memorable. My one critique of the presentation would be that I didn't feel that there was enough time at each station. I really enjoyed the discussion and wish that we would have had time for a longer one, or even one where the whole class was involved. I know that this book brings up a lot of controversial ideas and I like hearing other peoples opinions.

Chapter 8: A Safe and Healthy School Environment

This chapter was all about the results of safe and healthy students on their grades and test scores. After reading this chapter I thought about the video that one of the students in our class showed about exercising before the hardest classes. I think that if students have an effective way to burn off energy then their brains will be more ready to focus in on the harder things. The chapter and I believe that students feeling safe plays a similar role. This safety aspect is the harder environment to create. This, according to the book, has to be created through the students, teachers, and administration. Without all of these players the safe community that all good teachers want for the students will not happen. It's a struggle that is constant, but attainable. It's worth the effort.

Chapter 4: Designing Instruction to Improve Teaching and Learning

I found the section titled "Instruction's Key Connections" extremely illuminating. They give three parts to to making instruction successful. The first part that they say an educator needs to do is play off the curriculum. They say that the importance of this is that the curriculum is based on the agreed-upon standards. I think it is also important to be firm and to stand by the curriculum even if you don't like it. If the teacher is not behind what they're teaching the students will not want to learn it. Another part is the assessments. This for me would never have fallen into the instructional aspect of teaching, but after reading why they think this I understand that after giving assessment you find out how well you instructed the classes prior to this, and to see how we must instruct them after the assessment. The last part of this section was the students themselves. If we as teachers are not sympathetic and observant to the students needs then no matter how well we plan the instruction and deliver it the students will not understand the concepts.

Becoming a Wiz at Brain-Based Teaching

I really loved the way that you played not only with the title of the book but also with how to make it interesting. Your project really brought the different sections to life, although in a couple of the sections I feel like the actual book message was lost because of the focus on the game. In the sections that the message was successful I really remembered what was being said and the way to remember it.

Your book sounded like it had the general idea of very similar things that we learned about in Practicum, but with more examples and going more in depth. I really liked the different ideas about how changing the room can make learning easier and more fun, and about how using a portfolio to grade is much more of a fair way to go than standardized teaching. I'd always had this idea, but your project was the proof that I needed. I also thought it was awesome for the book to go into detail about memory, and how different ways that we remember things impact what and how much we remember. Good job guys!

Chapter 8: Effective Assessment (Class Abstract and Synthesis)

Abstract:

The introduction of this chapter is a story about a student who was not a very strong writer, but was a really amazing guitar player. The teacher knew that if they gave him a summative test over the book they just finished this student would get an F, so the teacher decided to give the student other options that they could do to prove they know the information. The student ended up making a song and preforming it on his guitar showing full understanding of the information. This is an example of good assessment. The chapter then continues by explaining what makes assessment effective. Some of the things that the chapter suggests are: defining clear goals, make the work motivating, giving students choices for their culminating activity, and using various formats to name a few. The final section of the chapter begins with two sentences that really impact the reader. They are "Good assessment is easy to grade. Complex assessments aren't difficult to track." When making assessment criteria that is what we should keep in mind.

Synthesis:

In the blogs there were some very specific things that a majority of people focused on. One of those things was standardized testing. It became very clear to me as I read the blogs about this that no one is fond of them, and would much rather find some other form of summative assessment to view students understand of information. The other thing that was really popular with the blog postings was appreciating the ideas and options that Wormeli gave for making effective assessment in the chapter. This chapter gave many people really awesome ideas for making their own assessment in their classrooms.