SummerInstitute07

Wow!  I have just spent the last hour getting educated about podcasting and I can’t wait to use it in my classroom!  First, I read the section “Something Brand New – Podcasting” in Raw Materials for the Mind, then I located David Warlick’s podcast on the Internet.  From Warlick’s podcast, I linked to “Podcasting in [...]

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A Teacher Is…
Aware of the following truths about teaching and schools –

Students respond to warmth and kindness.
Students are more open to learning if they know that you genuinely care about them, and that you genuinely want them to learn.
Excitement about learning is contagious; if I am excited about a subject, most students will be too.
Staff [...]

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I plan to incorporate blogging in my classroom this fall using David Warlick’s ideas in Raw Materials for the Mind:

Homework assignments
Project descriptions and assessment rubrics
Reflective articles on the importance of topics being studied in class
Reports of current events related to topics being studied in class
Selected student writings
Events in the classroom (avoid naming names)
Descriptions of upcoming [...]

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Journal Prompt #20
“A teacher never sees failure in their students; they only see what they have taught them.”  Discuss a teacher who taught you to succeed or fail.  How did that teacher impact your educational life.
This prompt immediately brought to mind my high school Latin teacher, Miss Rita Hunt.  Miss Hunt taught me to succeed [...]

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Journal Prompt #7
All of our children deserve teachers who believe they can learn and who will not be satisfied until they do. – Joe Nathan.  Do you believe all of your students can learn?
In an article titled, “All Children Can Learn: Facts and Fallacies”, by M. Donald Thomas and William L. Bainbridge, the authors address [...]

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Journal Prompt #1
 
Admiral Arleigh Burke said, “What’s the difference between a good naval officer and a great one?  Answer:  About six seconds.”  What’s the difference between a good teacher and a great one?  What do they do that makes them so effective?  Also, what does it mean to teach really well?
A good teacher teaches with [...]

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Summer Institute Reflective Writing
 
It was not really a notion that I had, but more of a discovery that I made:  for me to find that people like the ones in the Summer Institute 2007 classroom at Logan High School actually exist!  They actually write!  They not only write, but they write exceptionally well!  On top [...]

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Post-Position Reflection
When I think of my classroom this fall, the first students to come to mind are “my boys”:  Zach, Jamie, and D.J., who will be 6th graders this fall.  They are the three that I know with absolute certainty I can inspire to write.  These boys are so eager to learn!
This past year I [...]

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Warlick brings up an extremely important subject, a twenty-first century subject that I feel is going to be difficult for some twentieth century teachers to embrace, and, to willingly integrate into their “already set in their ways” instructional techniques.   As Warlick points out, “Information, today, is different, and we have to be willing to rethink [...]

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I agree that students are more motivated, more conscious of their work when they are communicating with an audience of many as opposed to an audience of one.  They “are engaged in authentic writing.”  As Warlick noted on page 208, Margaret Riel and Moshe Cohen, authors of  “The Effect of Distant Audiences on Students’ Writing”, [...]

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