MI Chapter 11

This chapter was about how teachers tend to focus on the negative things that students either do or don’t do. The text expressed that this is harmful to students who want to do better, but are continuously put down because of the things that they don’t do right. Covering that teacher’s look mostly at what students are incapable of doing; the chapter went into special education students and the challenge that they can bring to a teacher who does not know how to practice using MI’s. MI helps teachers see what a student with a special need, behavior issue, disability, etc. can accomplish and are able to do. This encourages the student to focus on their strengths and then the teacher can slowly work on broadening other areas that she/he feels needs to be worked on. By broadening their learning styles they learn more and are able to experience learning in different ways, which ultimately helps them over all. Also along with this is that when there are students that are using just one or two of the MI’s, that in order to teach them other MI’s a teacher must first work with their strongest ways of learning, thus creating a better understanding for the student.

The reaction from this chapter was that it rang true and that students who are in special education, have behavior issues, or are different from what the “norm” is are taken from the classroom, because they are believed to be too stupid to be there. If given the chance though and the right teaching style the kids are more than capable of being and thriving in a regular classroom with some small accommodations to lessons. It was expressed that no matter what the disability be that all students can learn. Yes some take more time, others catch on quick, and some may seem like they haven’t moved all year, but when that student does, when given the chance, it is clear that they can learn. This learning may not be something huge in the small of things, but in the big picture, a teacher who takes the time to teach things a different way so that that student can take a step forward has made more progress than they know.

FIAE Ch 1: Introduction

Summary:
The first chapter of FIAE gave an introduction of differentiated instruction (DI). Not all examples of DI are obvious because certain things like proximity or rephrasing questions don't seem like instruction. DI is all about how to make school fair for each student, which isn't the same for every student. Teachers have to get to know students in order to reach each and every one of them where they learn best. Although this is sometimes seen as a crutch, the author argues that DI helps each student find their own starting platform, whether high or low, from which to spring from. DI allows students to understand themselves better and see how they learn best. DI can be enhanced by using technology because where it helps students in lower levels, it brings an interest level to all abilities.

Reflection:
Most found this chapter to be very informative. Students also recognized incidents in their past where they experienced DI. This helped give perspective on effective uses, and not so effective uses. It was acknowledged that it is important to get to know students. Without this, DI is not possible. Taking the time to get to know students will allow teachers to use DI with ease. Most of us found that DI is something that is completely usable in the classroom, and that it would be especially helpful as each student is obviously different and therefore needs to be taught with a different approach. This chapter provided a useful sampling of examples and provided a great base from which to build our beliefs about DI.

FIAE Chapter 3

The common theme of this particular chapter is assessment with pre-assesment being the most vital component. From reading all of the abstracts, I see that students are more like raw materials like trees: the teacher's job is to turn them into lumber that can be used to build a home, a table or even a child's clubhouse. this analogy is similar to what a teacher is supposed to do: turn students in the classroom into functioning members of society much like lumber mills turn trees into building material. Perhaps the most important part of processing is assessing the raw material: most of you said that giving the blank unit test out during day one was one of the best ways of doing this; this is a good idea to do so but some of you also said that weekly or even daily assessment is required to do the job right. Both ways are, in fact, effective in test how we should chop up our oak tree so it can be made into a functioning cabinet. As a mill, we have to assess our raw materials so we may optimize their use: it makes no sense to waste supplies that are perfectly good. We need to continue to assess our manufactured material to make sure we are doing our job right: in some schools of thought, this is known as coaching. We, as teachers, can optimize the success of the student by knowing the level that they are at and by checking up on them with little quizzes and such. If we do our job right, the student will not end up as a literal piece of lumber.

Many of you agreed with this chapter and so did I: I believe in doing a "damages" check before the unit and assessment along the way. I actually got something different from the chapter entirely: utilizing the building blocks or perhaps I just have a different take on this chapter. I thought that with pre-assessment, the lesson can work in intricate parts that build the unit: kind of like assembling a model. In all, your reactions said that pre-assessment is vital to a student's education and and that the student should be quizzed along the journey that is the education of a unit.

FIAE Ch2: Mastery

Abstract:

This chapter gave insight to what mastery is of a subject and how it is used in the classroom. Mastery is not just being able to repeat the information back, but to actually make a connection to it of some kind and be able to relate to it. This allows the students to apply what they have learned to the surrounding world around them. Educators must be able to give their students an outline for what they expect them to know and how they will get to that point. This allows the student to know what is expected to come, prepare themselves, and then put their own spin on the material. Another huge issue with mastery is what content is essential in the classroom and what can be left out. This is hard for teachers, because there is information that teachers have tend to teach just because it’s there and not because it has any relevance or connection for the students. It is important for teachers to make sure that they are teaching the information in a way that will impact students. The Six Facets were included in this chapter, because they focused the teacher on seeing the deeper side of the information they were relaying to their students and that if there students could do some or all of these facets the teacher would know they were not just memorizing information and repeating it.

Reflection:

It was helpful to know that there are ways to make learning fun and enjoyable by doing simple steps to connect students to the content teachers need and want to teach. Teachers are looking for information on how to make that connection with students and are finding it in this chapter. Working with information is not simply researching and then repeating it to your students, but helping them make that connection in their life. Testing for students is seen as a negative way to test whether or not learning is taking place, because of the memorization techniques students are so used to using. Teachers need to be clear with their objectives, aims, and goals so that students may follow along and be learning at the same time. The six facets are extremely important because they can be broken down into an assessment tool for teachers to use in their classroom to see if students are really learning and how they are applying it to their world.