Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 15

This chapter, like chapter 9 of Turning Points 2000, is about involving parents in the classroom. However, this chapter is more about how to actually do this than the importance of doing it. There are many simple ways to get parents involved, such as sending newsletters and questionnaires to parents. Wormeli also writes about websites that function as "Homework Hotlines." These websites help parents stay in the know about what their children are doing and allow them to help their children better.

In my experience, I think a homework help website would have been very beneficial. There were many times where I needed homework help and my parents had no clue how they could help me. I think some resources for my parents and me would have made homework time less stressful for everyone involved.

Turning Points 2000 Chapter 9

This chapter is all about involving parents in the lives of students and in the school community. The authors say that it is very important to involve parents, especially in this time of life where students are both pushing parents away and craving their attention. This can be as simple as sending newsletters to parents, and as complex as having student led conferences with parents. Either way, it is important to make sure parent care and are aware of what is going on in school

In my middle school experience, my parents were moderately involved in my school life. They would occasionally chaperone field trips and would attend student led conferences. I think that it was nice for me to know that my parents cared about what was happening at school. This helped motivate me to keep up on my school work and do well. It is always nice knowing that your parents are paying attention, and I believe that this would help motivate students who are struggling, as well.

Boys and Girl Learn Differently

I think this group did a really good job with a really tough book. The book clearly had some very controversial points that the group disagreed with, which I know would be difficult to have to teach to us. I think it's great that they were able to intertwine their own opinions, the author's opinions, and even the rest of our opinions.

Personally, I didn't agree with most of the points of the book. For example, one of the big topics we talked about was uniforms and dress codes. I believe that dress codes are unnecessary and do nothing to actually fix the problem. I think dress codes are a product of a misogynist culture where females are expected to change themselves to benefit males. Why should a girl have to change her clothes so that males aren't distracted by them? Why are we not teaching boys to respect girls and not view them as sexual objects? I think that dress codes are intrinsically linked to rape culture and victim blaming, as it sends the message that boy's behavior is the fault of girl's, not of the boys themselves.

While I didn't read this book, I just feel like the general theme of the book was to enforce gender stereotypes, although it feels like they were also trying to say to break them. This is very contradictory and confusing. While the book did have some good points, I think in general is perpetuated negative gender stereotypes for both males and females and didn't consider issues such as transgender students, gender fluid students, or non-binary students.

Turning Points 2000 Chapters 4 and 7

Chapter 4

This chapter discussed one of the most important parts of middle school: allowing students to succeed academically. Specifically, the chapter is about designing instruction that will improve learning in students. A major part of this, as we have learned time and time again, is to differentiate the instruction. Everyone learns differently, meaning that we must teach everyone in a way that suits their learning style. I think this is especially important at the middle level because, as the title of the book states, it is a "turning point" in a child's education. If they have a positive experience in school at this age, they will be more likely to carry on with success and excitement to learn in high school and even college. While the models of differentiated instruction and WHERE were already familiar to me prior to this reading, I enjoyed reading about authentic instruction. I like that one of the emphasises with this model is that the content we teach should have value beyond school. I think teaching content that is actually useful beyond school helps motivate students to learn and makes it so we always have an answer when they ask "When am I ever going to use this?"

Chapter 8

This chapter is about creating a healthy school environment. As one of the end goals of middle education, according to Turning Points, is to create healthy students, the health of the school is also important. While I don't necessarily agree that it is a teacher's job, or frankly, any of our business, to involve ourselves in a student's health, I do think that creating a safe and positive environment is crucial. One point that the authors make is that students should be guaranteed to be and feel safe in school. I completely agree with this, and see that this includes controlling bullying and harassment from other students. Many students may not even feel safe at home, so making school at least one place where they are comfortable should be a priority. The text states that this includes strict and consistent policies against things like bullying and techniques such as mediation could also be involved. I also think that teaching mediation to middle school students would be a great skill for them to have for the future and would teach them how to compromise and work out problems in a peaceful and organized manner.

Whole New Mind Response

Although I missed this book talk presentation due to illness, I was actually already familiar with this book. During my practicum experience, my mentor teacher was using Whole New Mind in his freshman humanities class. The students had to do a project where they researched a career that they were interested in and applied elements from the book to that career. During this time, I briefly looked over the book and I saw how students were using it in their projects; however, I didn't get a chance to fully read it.

Looking over the powerpoint from the presentation helped to clear up what the book is about, such as that it talks about the myth of being only left brained or right brained and is more about how to use the whole mind. The powerpoint shows me that the book talks about different ways of thinking and what one can do to practice that kind of thinking. Knowing these different types of thinking and what kind of activities go along with them would help a teacher in differentiating their lessons.

I also decided to take the quiz that was included in the powerpoint that is supposed to determine if I am right brained or left brained, even though that is a misconception. I found this quiz to be really interesting because the questions were very different than other quizzes of this type that I have taken. However, I thought it was a great idea to include this quiz within the powerpoint presentation to break it up and create some conversation and even a bit of movement with the questions asked.

Meet Me in the Middle Ch. 7 Synthesis and Links

Chapter 7 focuses on differentiated instruction, a concept that we are all very familiar with and supportive of due to it being covered so extensively in Practicum. However, while this chapter did provide a lot of review for most of us, there were some new concepts and ideas that many of us mentioned in our blogs.

One thing that this chapter expanded on is, not just what differentiated instruction is, but how to actually apply it and what is and is not differentiated instruction. For example, the author makes a point that differentiating does not mean adjusting how much work students do depending on their skill levels, it is about adjusting the work to meet the needs of each student. The chapter also outlined skills that will help teachers use differentiated instruction in their classroom, such as being risk takers, organized, empathetic, flexible, and resourceful, as well as using humor. Here are some more resources that may help you better understand differentiation, as well.

With all of these details given, many of us wrote about our concerns with differentiated instruction. Many of us expressed that we feel that we know what it is and are familiar with the skills and strategies given, but have no experience actually using it in the classroom. This can be daunting, since we all know how important it is and that it requires a lot of skill to determine the needs of students and how to meet these needs. This video follows a new teacher who is trying to improve on her differentiated instruction.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapters 6,7,8

Chapter 6

In Chapter 6, Wormeli addressed the issue of accountability and how it relates to several parts of teaching. First, he writes about ways to use accountability to encourage students to produce quality work. One of these options is to tell students that their work will be displayed somewhere that their peers or other teachers will see it. I think that this would encourage students to put time into their work, as they would be concerned about what others think of them. I think a better way to get students to put effort into their work would be to have a real audience for what they are producing. That way they see a purpose and it is not just scaring them into doing well by forcing them to face the judgement of their peers.

           

One thing I found questionable in this chapter was the section about using accountability to control student behavior. In theory, I think this would work. However, something about filming students and forcing them to watch themselves or having their parents sit with them in class just seems cruel and embarrassing. I do not think accountability means embarrassing and shaming students into doing what we want them to do.

Chapter 7

I feel like I have already learned so much about differentiated instruction throughout this class and Practicum, but this chapter did give some new insight into the practice and how it related to Middle Education. One point that I found interesting is that middle school students are all over the place when it comes to their level of development. While this is still somewhat true in High School, I feel like there can be huge differences in middle school settings. I think this issue is something that really needs to be considered when differentiating for a middle school classroom.

            

Another good point Wormeli makes about differentiating is that it does not just mean adding or taking away the amount of work, it means changing up the complexity and difficulty of work. For example, Wormeli writes, “Requiring gifted students to complete more of the same type of problem that they have already mastered is a recipe for boredom or rebellion.” I think this quote perfectly illustrates why teachers should not differentiate by adding or removing quantity.

Chapter 8

Assessment is another topic that I feel like is highly focused on in Practicum, but this chapter actually addressed some of the problems I have with this type of assessment. For example, it makes the point that—while some assessment ideas proposed may seem light, fluffy, and easy—if you really consider all of the knowledge, time, and skill needed for the project, you will see that is really is a fair assessment.

However, as an English concentration, I have some concern with how many of these projects move away from writing. I think teaching writing is extremely important, and having students practice this writing whenever they can is ideal. If there are not any writing assignments for, for example, books we have read, I feel like the students will be missing out on practicing and learning and important form of writing. While I understand that there can be separate units on writing, I also feel like incorporating writing assignments into other topics is also quite important as an English teacher.