Turning Points Chapter 3

Chapter three of Turning Points 2000 focused mainly on curriculum and standards, and making sure that the lesson you’re creating can be accessible to all of your students. Equality was something that this chapter talked about, and how when creating a lesson, being able to reach every single one of your students can be challenging but is also one of the most important parts things to remember. Coming up with essential questions to be answered in the lesson, and coming up with ways to connect the lesson to their students past learnings will help all students take away the important points from the lesson, and utilize the skills that they already have.

One of my favorite things that they talked about in this chapter, was connecting lessons to the world around us. I think that connecting what you’re teaching to the world that kids live in is something that is extremely beneficial and will really help students understand the lesson better, and take away something that they can then carry into their life outside of the classroom. If students are learning about something they can then go outside and experience, and touch and hear and feel, they’ll be much more likely to call back to it later, as opposed to learning about something that doesn’t actually exist or that they can’t experience for themselves.

One of the most challenging things is making sure that every student takes away the same important essential ideas from a lesson, because not all kids learn the same way. As teachers, we must make sure that our ideas and lessons are accessible, so that all students can learn something and take away the same key ideas.  

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 9

In chapter nine of Meet Me in the Middle, Rick Wormeli discusses extended class periods, and what that means for your classrooms. This is also referred to as block scheduling, where students don’t have every class every day of the week, but when they do have it, it’s an extended class period. While to some, this may look like a bad thing, like can students really stay focused enough for 80 minutes, or will students absorb as much if they aren’t meeting every da. But, it has mostly proven to be a positive thing and that students actual absorb more information during extended class periods.

One thing that extended class periods allow is more wait time, which can be beneficial to students who might have been struggling with processing information in the shorter class periods. These extended class periods also are beneficial because it allows you, as the teacher, to use multiple instructional methods to help students understand the material. By using multiple instructional methods, you’re reaching out to more of your students who may benefit from multiple methods or those who just learn a different kind of way. While this may seem repetitive to some students, it will help them understand the important material and process information better.

There are plenty of other benefits to block scheduling, like having the ability to do longer lessons, or having more time in a class period for presentations or movies that you’d like to show. And students will absorb more of your lesson.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 12

Chapter 12 of Meet Me in the Middle tells the account of a middle school teacher who brought his students on a hike and ended up getting caught in a downpour and freezing temperatures. The story is meant to highlight the value of students working together to overcome an obstacle, and that even if something goes wrong, there can still be a positive outlook on things. This teacher turned the horrific weather into a bonding experience, with students looking out for each other and helping each other stay safe and warm. In the end, almost all of the students enjoyed the experience and were happy that they had gone on the trip, despite the weather.

This chapter also talks about the benefits of something called a “teacher advisory” program, where one teacher is assigned to a group of 12-15 students, and the group meets during the week, and does activities together. The trip that is described in this chapter is part of the advisory program, and is referred to as a full day advisory trip, where that one teacher takes his students on a field trip that isn’t related to any of their school subjects. The reason that this kind of program has a benefit, is that it allows students to bond, and allows them to explore the world outside of the school with their classrooms, without the pressure of being in a school setting.

Since in the middle school that we are creating, we want there to be a strong connection between our students and the outside community, and our students with each other, something like the teacher advisory program could have a significant positive impact.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 11

In this chapter of Meet Me in the Middle, Rick Wormeli dives into the topic of communication and team relationships in the middle school. Most middle schools have “teams” of teachers, all of whom teach different subjects, but teach to the same group of students. These teams are meant to collaborate and work together to make sure that each of their students is reaching their highest potential and being successful in all subjects. This is accomplished by teachers talking about their students, making sure that their own lessons and schedules are ideal for student success (such as making sure major deadlines don’t overlap, and that students have enough time to complete all their work for all their subjects), and teachers listening to each other when a concern or idea comes up.

In this chapter, there are a few different scenarios that are brought up, that would cause trouble among a team if they were to ever happen, such as one teacher assigns too much homework and is always yelling at his students. Depending on the structure and communication of the team, this scenario could either go very well, with a discussion leading to a solution, or very badly, with the teacher being angry and frustrated and refusing to change his ways.  If the team has good communication, then the scenario should end like the first option, but if there’s disjointness among the team, then the latter option might end up being the case.

All in all, the team’s major focus should be on the success of the student, with student needs and feelings coming first. Teams should make sure that they’re always keeping the student interest in mind, and should always be working towards the highest student success.

This We Believe

pages 1-26
One of the key points that was made in the first part of This We Believe, is that students are the most important part of teaching. This is something, that theoretically should be a given, but it’s not always the first thing that teachers think about when designing lessons or creating their classroom. In This We Believe, there’s a lot of discussion about how middle school is when kids are developing the most both mentally and physically and the effect that these developments have on students, both socially and in the classroom. The book also touched upon how kids socioeconomic status, family situations and home lives can have on their learning, as all of these things are things to take into consideration when planning out your lessons and looking at the curriculum of the district and working it into your lesson.

I firmly believe that your students are the most important thing when being a teacher, and I think that this part of This We Believe did a good job of bringing the students into play without forgetting about the lessons and the curriculum, which are also, extremely important things to take into consideration when being a teacher, obviously. This book highlights the importance of assessment, and how to assess your students in ways that work for them, and talks about the importance of addressing the things that students are doing correctly, while also helping them improve in areas that they aren’t excelling in.

There is so much happening in student’s lives when they enter middle school, with their bodies changing, the way they interact with their classmates changing, their minds developing, that finding a way to connect their lives with what they’re learning and encourage them to continue expanding their minds, is the key.

pages 27-33

The second part of This We Believe had to do mainly with the collaboration that must exist between teachers, and other staff members, in order to create a healthy and accomplished middle school. As this part discusses, without communication and collaboration between teachers and staff members, the overall energy of the school wouldn’t be as positive and students wouldn’t get as rich of an education. One of the major reasons that collaboration is a key part of being a teacher, is that nearly every subject can be intertwined and connected, which means that the lessons being taught in one class can easily cross over to another class. If teachers are collaborating and communicating with each other, they can combine lessons, or match up their lessons, so their students are getting a holistic look at the entire theme of the lesson.

Being able to communicate with your fellow teachers and staff members is one of the most important things to do as a teacher. In my practicum experience, in the community that I was one, there were three teachers (coincidentally, all three of said teachers had practicum students) who were really good communicators and always were on the same page with each other, but the fourth teacher in the community wasn’t involved nearly as much as the other teachers, and never seemed to be completely up to speed on what was going on during the community meetings. Because of this communication issue between teachers, the connect between science (which was that singular teacher’s concentration) and the other three subjects was severely lacking.

Talking to your fellow teachers and being able to talk to the principal and administration about important issues is one of the things that should be established early on, as it’s going to be a lot easier to form communication in the beginning, then have to try and form communication as soon as a problem arises.

pages 33-42

This part of This We Believe focuses primarily on how to create a safe and healthy environment that allows students to grow and succeed in your middle school. There is a stress on interaction with students outside of the classroom environment, making sure that parents are aware of what is going on in the schools and making sure that students get physical activity time in, so they have some outlet for their energy. One of the things that I feel most strongly about is the physical activity aspect, not that I was ever a fan of gym class, but since my school was a K-8 school, when 8th grade rolled around, my class still got to go outside for recess for 20 minutes every day. When talking to my friends who went to actual middle schools, almost none of them had recess in their middle schools and hadn’t had recess since they were in grade school.

Kids in the middle aged group have a lot of energy that builds up throughout the day, and are expected to sit through hour, sometimes longer, classes, without any outlet for that energy. Most schools have gym class, but sometimes kids still don’t get out their energy. I think that recess time has a lot of value, even in the middle level grades. If kids are spending time outside, they get fresh air and an outlet for their energy, so when they are sitting in class, they’re less likely to be distracted by thoughts of being outside.

By communicating with students and giving them something like recess, it will allow their to be better relationships between students and teachers. If the relationship between students and teachers is strong and healthy, then the students will feel safe in school. When students are feeling safe in school, they’re more likely to succeed.

pages 43-62

In this last part of This We Believe, it mainly focuses on how to bring all these ideas introduced and talked about into action. Hence the chapter title, “Call To Action.” We learn a lot about ways to teach adolescents and how to bring leadership and community into the classroom, but this chapter brings it outside sources to stress how important some of these ideas are. Such as, parent involvement to create a real community within the school, doing training sessions among the teachers to build leadership schools, and developing a curriculum that gets students involved and keeps them interested.

The very last section of This We Believe was about the students. Throughout this book we’ve learned and discussed how important ages 10-15 are for all kids. They are going through things, physically, intellectually, morally, socially-emotionally and psychologically, all of which play a hand in their learning and might end up coming out in the classroom. As a teacher, we need to be aware of these changes and understand them, and try to understand where all of our students are in these areas. Such as, if one girl in the class is developing faster than all of the other girls, and all the boys, she might be a subject of bullying, so knowing that ahead of time, you might be able to stop it before it becomes a problem. Of if some students are developing social-emotionally faster, this might cause a problem in the classroom, and in the school community as a whole.

The most important thing is to be aware of these changes and not be afraid to talk about them with your students. Students will respond better if open communication is stressed and introduced to them while all these changes are going on.