Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 3

I thought that this chapter was basically about using multiple intelligences and differentiated instruction in the classroom and how important it is in a middle school setting. However, the chapter also touched on how memory works—it is important to move information from working memory to long term memory. To do this, students can use chunking, which is basically storing a lot of little details to help recall something. Something I found interesting in this chapter is that using emotions in teaching can help adolescents learn. This makes a lot of sense since this age group, and people in general, are very emotionally charged. I think that people can identify with emotions because they are a common human experience. People will always pay more attention and learn better when there is something they can relate to—we are often told to try to incorporate student interesting into our teaching—so it makes sense that emotions will help information stick in their minds.

Another thing in this chapter I found interesting was the idea to change the order of what is taught in the classroom. Since studies show that students remember most what is taught first, an idea is to put the most important information at the very beginning of the period. The author points out that the first fifteen minutes of class are typically consumed by matters such as announcements and attendance. This means that it would be necessary to restructure the way the class works.