Morning Meetings and Ch. 1 - Fullfilling the Promise

I am so excited to be in this class. I am a firm believe in differentiating instruction for each individual student (as is the goal for many teachers wanting to make a difference in the lives of her students), but I was fairly clueless as to how to go about this. Thank goodness for this class!

MORNING MEETING PACKET
I love, love, love the idea of morning meetings and think that the benefit for both the teacher and the student is monumental. Morning meetings help both the teacher and student focus and prepare for the day to come. They also foster friendship and community within the classrom - which is essential if you are striving to have an ideal learning/ teaching environment. The benefits extend beyond the walls of the classroom and include helping students become responsible citizens.

Morning Meetings consist of 4 parts:
1) Greeting
2) Sharing
3) Activity
4) News & Announcements

One of the ideas from the Morning Meeting packet which appeals to me was Terrance Kwame-Ross' method for including parents in morning meetings and in rule making. The idea of having the children create a special ticket inviting a significant adult to attend the meeting helps both children and parent see the importance. Also, the option of taking home a video recording to help parents share in morning meetings that way for those who just aren't able to attend one. Another idea from this teacher that I really liked was having the parents write on a shape cut-out one social and one academic goal (hopes and dreams) for their children as a way to include them and receive their support for classroom rules.

In the Morning Meeting packet there was the Building Bridges of friendship activites, in order to help build that sense of community. My favorite activity in those listed was the Beam Bridge Job Chart! I especially love the part of including pictures of the students! I not only believe in the benefits of morning meetings, but I think as a student they would have helped me fit in better with my class and form friendships easier. I was shy growing up and therefore, many times, isolated myself and dreaded "group" work.


CHAPTER 1 - Fullfilling the Promise
Some of the most imporant things I read from the chapter (which I hope to remember), are the following:
4 Student Traits
1) Readiness - which refers to a students knowledge, understanding and skills
2) Interest - topics that evoke curiosity and passion in the learner
3) Learning profile - how students learn best
4) Affect - how students feel about themselves, work, and classroom as a whole

4 Classroom Elements
1) Content - what we teach adn how students gain access to that knowledge
2) Process - how student makes sense of the info, ideas and skills presented
3) Product - assessments or demonstrations of what students have come to know
4) Learning Environment - operation and tone of classroom

NOTES of interest in a differentiated classroom
- What we as learners bring to school matters in how we learn.

- As teachers, we must take into account who we are teaching as well as what we are teaching.

- In differentiated classrooms teachers are continually assessing student readiness, interest, learning profile, and affect in order to modify content, process, product, and the learning environment. In a differentiated classroom, I realize that it is not just a one-time set-up, or lesson plan. Changes are continually made in order to meet each students' needs.

- In the metaphor of "The Little Prince", although the prince might be considered as the teacher because he is taming the fox, the fox also ends up teaching the prince. So, they both take the role of teacher and as learner. It truly becomes a "student-centered" classroom where both student and teacher are edified.

WONDERFUL QUOTES
- "The one-size-fits-all teacher may very well discover that the "size" of instruction he or she has selected fits almost no one." (pg. 2) - How true is that?! Even when we pick out clothing or accessories that claim to be "one-size-fits-all", usually it doesn't fit us as well as we think it should - because we are all different.

- "What is essnetial is invisible to the eye" (pg. 87 in The Little Prince) pg. 9 I think in becoming a true differentiated teacher who makes a difference, you MUST see those things which are invisible. Growing up I didn't come from the tradionally family home. My grandmother raised me, my father had died when I was a toddler, and my mother was in a hospital for Schizophrenia. One of the teachers that meant the most to me, I imagine must have known those things that were invisible to the eye, reached out to me...and although I wasn't a top student and probably acted out sometimes, made me feel important and cared about.

- "You become responsible forever for what you have tamed" (pg. 88 in The Little Prince)pg. 9 Thinking about this as a parent who raises/ teaches, a child, once the child is grown and moved out - that child still belongs to you. Their successes are your successes, and their failures or struggles, become yours as well.

- "We are no longer teaching if what we teach is more important than who we teach or how we teach.(pg 10) This concept seems soooooo common-sense and yet, with the pressure on teachers to acheive high scores in tests, etc., I can see that it can be and likely is, a battle for teachers to remember and practice this each day. As a teacher I WANT to remember this and remind myself each day, WHY I AM TEACHING - it's for the students!