My Contribution to the Class Wiki

I contirbuted a link to a webquest titled Gatsby Meets the Press. This webquest allows students to dive into the roaring 20's as newpaper Jounalist. Students are put into teams that are responsible for producing a newpaper. Each student is responsible for certain articles. Each team is competing for the Pulitzer Prize title.

Chapter 10 Going Beyond the Classroom

One section of this chapter suggest to do regular class work out side of school. A student comment that goes with this is that a class went on a field trip to clean up a park and pond and they learned about fish and their environment at the same time.
This reminded me of my 6th grade year. Every year my science teacher had the 6th grade raise salmon eggs. It was part of a wild life and fishery project. So it involved institutions out side of the school at the same time we learned so much about fish and their environment and how they grow. When they where ready we got to let them go into the wild as a class.

Chapter 9 When Things Go Wrong

"Learning Involves Failure."
This is one of my favorite lines in the entire book. Sometimes you have to get it wrong before you know how to do it right. Sometime you have to mess up, or know what you don’t want to do again, in order to evolve and make progress. This holds true for students and teachers alike.

Chapter 8 Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

This chapter offers advice on working with ESL students. On piece of advice offered is to give students analogies, pictures, photographs, movies, and televisions to help make connections and provide background information in a variety of subject areas.
I like this because it is something that most educators can do and have access to. They are very common and fairly inexpensive. I also liked this because I think that these things would help all students not just ESL students.

Chapter 7 Teaching Difficult Academic Material

In this chapter there is a section titled Give us time to think, to draft, to revise. One student says that she was told “Hand it in and we’ll sit down with you and we can work on it.”
I really like this because I believe that writing is a process that may never actually stop. Every thing can be improved upon so the concept of a final draft, to me, is only for the sake of a deadline. I think that as long as students are learning a making progress they should be able to revise their writing.

Chapter 6 Motivation and Boredom

My favorite part of this chapter was a story. A student asked a question that was not directly pertinent to the lesson. Rather than ignoring it the teacher said that they would talk about it another time. I would assume that the class did not believe that the question would be addressed because the students were surprised when the teacher came in the next day with an entire lesson planned around the previously asked question.
This really stood out to me because I believe that it is ok and necessary for little side tracks like that to happen. I like that the teacher didn’t go on a tangent that day but stuck to what was planned; however she did make room in her curriculum for it. I think that students should feel that if they ask a question it will get answered. I also think that they should feel the questions they ask are important.

Chapter 5 Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

This chapter is all about group work. One idea presented is to let the students pick what group they are going to work in, especially if “outside” work is expected.
I completely agree with this. I think that the dynamics of group work are complicated and are further complicated when teachers expect students to work outside of school. What if students live on opposite sides of town? What if students have obligations and responsibilities after school such as work, sports, or babysitting a sibling? I think that group projects certainly have their place in education but I also think that they should be well planned and carefully thought out by the teacher prior to being assigned.