Becoming a Wiz at Brain Based Teaching

My favorite part of this presentation was the association between the amygdala and armadillo and Hippocampus and a hippo. Plus the team added the visuals of stuffed animals to further the analogy. The group also shared with us information like how memory works and the attention span of middle school students. The hand out made it easier to stay focused on the lesson. I was also impressed that the group remembered some of the things we learned in practicum, like putting the agenda on the board so we knew what was going to happen next. Lastly the role model activity also made me think about myself as a person and how that was different than what who I wanted to be as a teacher. This presentation had a lot of useful knowledge and things that I will think about for a while.

Chapter 13: Outdoor Adventures

This chapter was filled with a lot of fun ideas for extended field trips that a teacher could do with students. As a future social studies teacher obviously I was partial to the reenactment ones. The argument for the benefit of this kind of trips is very self explanatory I think. As I was reading all I could think of was how much I wished I could do that sort of field trip now. There are a lot of roadblocks though. The first two major problems I thought of were funding and the permission of the principal to allow student to miss that much school time. If both of those were taken care of the next hurdle would be permission from parents. Some parents would not be comfortable with their child in a tent in the woods over night. The next problem would be getting enough chaperons and making sure someone in the group was CPR/First Aid certified. After that it would be logistical nightmare with supplies and transportation. Once all of those things are worked out, I bet the trip would be an amazing and memorable learning experience.

A Whole New Mind

I really liked the organization of this presentation. There was an introduction, a middle, and I'm sure an appropriate ending if time had allowed. I liked how the book was broken down into different chapter and the group pair each chapter with an activity to help us fully understand it. One critique I have is when the group posed a question and then each member of the team separated to help each table out. Immediately we were asked if we had any ideas yet. That kinda flustered me because I did not have an idea yet... I had about 30 seconds to even process the question first. Other than that I think the teammates helped the tables out quite a bit coming up with ideas and guiding us in the right direction. Overall it was a very effective presentation and I definitely have a general idea of what the book was about.

Chapter 4: Active Learning

This chapter was about incorporating kinesthetic intelligence into the lessons. The main example was using trees and shadows outside to discover ratios. The chapter also listed a lot of other ideas including all sorts of topics. The chapter also reasoned that adolescents’ growing bones cause them discomfort sitting for long periods of time. Movement not only helps them physically but it moves more oxygen to the brain to increase function. Students will also be able to remember better and for long periods when they can use their bodies to trigger their memories.

I will definitely use movement in my classes in the future. Just reading about the lesson ideas made me so excited to do them myself let alone teach them to my students. I know I will use role playing a lot but I want to think of other ways to understand different concepts in history. It will be good especially for the hard and boring stuff like how the government is set up or remembering different places on a map. I will have to always keep brainstorming for new ideas and listen to other colleagues talk about activities they do in their class.

Student-Oriented Curriculum A Remarkable Journey of Discovery

To be perfectly honest I probably should have written this blog Thursday night after class so I would remember exactly what I wanted to say. I think the purpose of this blog was to think about what I learned from the presentation. We have the other sheets that we used to critique the performance of the presentation. I learned that one of the most important aspects of learning involves the community. The whole purpose of student led/generated curriculum is that the students learn about something that is relevant to them. The community is very relevant and meaningful because that is the environment they interact in everyday. I also liked Lydia's point that this situation will only work with a strong teacher. The teacher has to lead and model how to build a unit that the students want to do. The teacher also has to recognize when learning is occurring and when it is not and what to do to fix it. The paradox is that most new teachers will probably not have the experience necessary to do this as effectively as veteran. But a veteran will be far more opposed to even trying a situation like this. The last thing I want to mention was i really like the end activity/wrap up/reflection. I thought that was a great way to reflect on what we had learned in the chapter. The pieces of paper made some statements that really could have two sides that would be correct. It definitely made me think.