WOTD

Dr. Peterson! Thank you so much for the WOTD (waffles on the deck) experience. It was really a chance for all of us to breathe deeply and enjoy. You and Bob certainly do have it down to a science, and it was so delicious. I loved the buttermilk syrup the most. Could you pass the recipe? Thanks to all the members of this amazing cohort! You're flippant but fantastic:)

Least used -- poor baby

The model I will use least in my Language Arts classroom is vocabular acquisition. Not! Vocabulary is actually in our core. Ha ha. My content excludes none of these models, so I'll have to make a decision based on the number of times per year I will use them. I'll have to go with -- and this breaks my heart -- inquiry. The reasoning for this is that when my students will be doing this, they will be writing a research paper, and those only occur once a year for me. When I use it, I will really use it, but it won't be on a continual basis throughout the year for my classroom. I hate to be grinch-ish about this model, but I can only afford to use it once a year. Rest assured that when I do, it will make my students' brains grow three sizes that day:)

Webquest worth looking at

http://questgarden.com/51/74/3/070524161336/index.htm
One of the units I'll be teaching this year is on Romeo and Juliet, and one of the concepts I love to teach is conflict, and this webquest combines the two. When we talked about true webquests asking students to create a new and unique product as the outcome, I had a difficult time picturing ways to do this. I think this webquest's assignment is excellent: it has students write their own modern day conflict and its resolution. I think this webquest that is already done for me could fit into my curriculum smoothly. I can really see myself using this in a few months:)

Concept Development for me

One way I can see how concept development would work for me is for a piece of our core that is labeled inquiry which is the process of researching a topic and presenting that research. If students could discover and define the concept of inquiry as a whole, they will learn the more specific information of how to cite a source correctly with more ease. I start talking about capitalizing this author's name and putting a comma between piece of information A and B and the students have no concept of why that is important or even have a place in their brain files to store that kind of information. A lot of those rules seem arbitrary and unneccessary to students, but when they understand the inquiry process as a whole, it makes more sense. I'm excited to try this model in a lot of different ways.

Proactive? What's that?

I can see through our discussion of differentiation that teachers need to foresee ways to differentiate, and that's not going to be easy for me. Chess requires thinking a move ahead, and I wish I were better at that. I see how good teachers can systematically collect information about their students and turn that information into a solution before the problem really emerges. I am not one of those!!! At least by nature. I tend to react to situations when they're bad, not foreseeing potential difficulties.

When the stakes are high -- that's the key. When the information is important enough, it should be as "proactive and deliberately planned as possible." Just looking into the future for my classes this fall, the stakes are going to be high for my seniors who will still struggle with writing. That's one group I will need to be proactive with. They will have to pass a writing competency to graduate and move themselves out of my class. I'm going to think of ways I can proactively differentiate for them in particular. It should yield some interesting results. Hopefully I'll be shouting 'check mate' this winter!

Direct Instruction

I believe the step which is most easily left out is stating the objectives. Maybe it's because we feel like we're ruining some sort of surprise for our students. Maybe it's because we feel like they won't listen to something so mundane. I'm not really sure. I personally have a hard time with this step as well. It doesn't come naturally to me. I have to force myself to do it, and when I do, I feel like it sounds forced and unnatural. I just need to remember that even if it sounds a little formal and stiff, learners would much rather have a short bit of formal than spend the whole lesson wondering what they are learning.
Students will be tortured when #3, presenting new material, is flat. It is the step that requires students to do three of their least favorite things in the whole wide world: sit down, shut up, and listen! I'm also a little weak in this area. My thoughts sometimes wander, and I'm a little dry without student interaction to liven me up!
Guided practice allows students to be their own person for a bit compared to the presenting phase. I say that the guided practice step requires the most creativity from the teacher. The sky's the limit for this step, and the more creative, the better.
I have been so thrilled to hear everybody's direct instruction. It's really been a great part of learning in this class for me. From Moana's haka to Jim's hard apple cider, we really get to learn and grow and examine teaching in a real way!

Classroom Community

Looking at everyone's blogs, I quickly came to the realization of how different we all are. We've all taught that student whose personality is larger than life who wants to keep taking over. As teachers, we're all innately like that in one area or another. It's what makes us good teachers, but that's got to be a little ugly for our own teachers when we're all together. A group of teachers is like a crazy mix of fruit salad: we all love teaching, so from watermelon to peaches, we all belong in the bowl. Keeping all of us in the same bowl, while preserving our uniqueness, might be more of a challenge than Dr. Peterson envisions at this point. But that is the aim of a classroom culture: preserving uniqueness of the individual while maintaining the functionality of a learning environment.

I see my role as being a contributor without taking over. I could be considered a kiwi. Don't laugh. My flavor is aromatic yet mellow enough that the facilitator knows I'm there and learning without getting too strong a flavor in her mouth. Whether kiwi or cantaloupe, we can validate each other and boost one another's self esteem through discussion. Corny, I know. Sorry about that, but as learners in this master's cohort, we all have different, unique flavors that we shouldn't try to hide because the melding of flavors is great, but we should never forget: we're all in the same bowl. Maybe next time I should try a boating analogy.