Kim Trott Blog Post for Chapter 2 and Chapter 3

In chapter 2, The Inquiring Human Animal, knowing who you teach is critical for a successful PBL so that students do not pull away from the project if they feel overwhelmed by the material. Therefore, it is important to consider what types of learners you have in the classroom. Knowing that brain development doesn't really take place fully until age 25 has made me think differently even about my own 20 year old children.  I like the chart on executive skills.  Incorporating all of these in the classroom is a must.  Flexibility in the classroom is a must and it has always been one of my stronger traits with students.  Improvement on organization and time management is needed on my part as far as providing students with calendars to manage project time.  The ideas of modeling self control is a standard tool for most teachers.  Meta cognition is an area that can be expanded on. In the past when students have been asked about their performance on an assignment they are normally pretty honest and tell me they did not spend time on the assignment.  Using this as a tool to teach is considered an executive skill so in the classroom it would be wise to explore methods to have reflection before a final grade is assessed.

Knowing who my students are can really help me develop better material to be sure students of all abilities engage in quality research.  In the classroom I teach high level learners and low level learners.  The frustration for myself as a teacher is the lack of interest on the students part to find quality material that has been vetted for quality.  It is challenging to get students to go beyond assuming the first thing they read is the final authority on the material they assemble.

In the last class I realized I did not know my students.  I have 31 in each Honors class and am terrible with memorizing names.  This year I failed to play name games with the students and have now only just began to remember who each student is. The problem is that I feel bad about taking almost an entire class to get to know students.  I tend to be content driven and have difficulty allowing myself the leisure to play games at first to help me recall students.

Looking at student Test View data was helpful because a couple of students tend to fall in the lower ranges on several of the components and when placed in groups may need to be placed appropriately with students who may be able to help but not leave them out of the group process. I was also surprised about several of the students with the higher scores as well.

Chapter 3
Display learning is a great tool because students love to see other students projects.  Movement in the classroom is great but with 31 students it must be controlled in order for there to be an environment where learning can take place.  Because of my class sizes using the library tables is a great alternative to the normal classroom environment.  Grouping desks into teams is an effective strategy for my class.

I like the idea of reimagining who the stuff belongs to in the classroom.  I never thought of it that way.  The idea that the stuff in the room is the students is a great way for me to see my classroom as a tool for learning.  I always like my room to have a particular feng shui, so now it is my goal to make sure I let the students know this is their room. My room is not arranged in the traditional manner.  I like students facing one another and in a circle as much as possible.

Also the use of compare and contrast, cause and effect, and using graphic organizers and thinking maps to teach and reinforce these skills is a nice insight.  I use them but not a lot, and I do want to incorporate them more.