Chapter #1: Organizing your classroom and materials

This chapter talks about the setup of a teachers classroom. They talk about the importance of placement of desk, bookcase, computers, etc. It also talks about the importance of different aspects of classroom management like plants/ pets, bulletin boards, work areas, and placement of materials. These are all aspects of teaching that can easily be overlooked but are very important.

I think that all this is very important to keep in mind. One part that I thought was really important besides room placement is putting plants in a classroom. The teachers in my classes that had plants made their rooms less like classrooms. Plants add a home aspect and make the classroom more comfortable.

Chapter #10 Going Beyond the Classroom

This chapter talks about things that students can do outside of the classroom while still learning. It makes learning different and usually fun at the same time. Some of the ideas for activities outside the classroom were internships, summer programs, and classwork outside. These all allow students to learn but not in the same boring classroom way.

I liked the mock trial that was suggested as an activity in this chapter. My high school did a mock trial that the whole school was invited to. I liked the mock trial that the book talked about because they had a real judge and court typist and the class went down to the city center to preform the trial. It makes it more realistic and I think the students would learn more about court justice by putting it into a real life situation.

Chapter #9 When Things Go Wrong

Chapter nine of Fires in the Bathroom discusses difficulties in the classroom like grades and students skipping class. These things can discourage both student and teacher but if the teacher stays positive and supportive the student is less likely to be discouraged. This chapter also talks about teachers confidence and not showing that they are scared in the classroom.

I think my favorite part of this chapter was "we're like dogs, we can sense fear and sniff it out" (p168). I think that this is so true and I had first hand experience with it when I was substitute teaching (9/15/08). I was really nervous at first and I started to notice that the students were taking advantage of that and not doing what they were suppose to be doing. I then realized that I have nothing to be scared of and I put a foot down and had to separate students so that they would do their work. Once I did that the students actually listened to me the rest of the class and did their work. After my first day substitute teaching I was actually proud of myself and how I handled them.

Chapter #8 Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

This chapter talks about the difficulties that students learning English face. It talks about the things are help and not so helpful for their learning. Teachers should challenge them but also help them along. They are just as eager to learn as other student and teachers have to realize that.

I think that being a history teacher opens up the door for different activities with English learning students. I think that I can make connections with where they come from and the history of America. It would be beneficial to both English speaking students and English learning students to learn about each others countries and cultures.

Chapter #7 Teaching Difficult Academic Material

This chapter discusses how to get students learning and thinking. The chapter talks about pre-assessing, linking material, and trying different approaches to get a class started. To get students thinking use open-ended questions and ask what the students assume something means (like the word ghetto). This chapter also talks about what is affective learning/ teaching methods for different subjects. Lastly the chapter makes it clear that it is alright for a teacher to show that they might not know something.

I think that it is important that a teacher shows that they might not know something. I feel like it might connect the students with the teacher because they are both learning something. It will also show the students that the teacher is not perfect and not better than them. No one can know everything about a subject. I also feel that if a teacher can not answer a question that both the student and teacher should look up the answers and come back and share the answer with the class. I believe that this will allow the students to learn the answer themselves because the teacher is also looking for the answer it will make the student feel less like it was busy work.

Chapter #6 Motivation and Boredom

This chapter talks about what motivates students and how to keep them interested in the classroom. It seems that the co-authors agreed that a passionate teacher that appreciates them motivates them. Keeping students motivated is the key to avoiding boredom. Real world applications, collaborative learning, and purposeful homework are some things that can keep students motivated and away from boredom.

The section where it talks about "making learning a social thing" connects to things that I have learned so far from being at Mt. Blue High School. Collaborative learning allows students to work in groups, but gives everyone in the group a job so that everyone is doing work. While in the classroom I learned that it can be very difficult to use collaborative learning. The class that did this got extremely off task. My mentor teacher said that that group of students learn better when they have desk work, but it is also nice to give them the opportunity to work together (even if it does not work that well).

Chapter # 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

This chapter talks about why some students may or may not participate in the class. It also talks about group work and how you can actively engage students that may not always participate. It is important to remember that even in group work students are individuals and need to be graded accordingly. Assigning roles in a group helps so that all students pull their own weight.

We actually just talked about cooperative learning in Beth's class today. Cooperative learning assigns roles to each student so that they are actively engaged in the task at hand. I liked it because it allows students to discuss ideas without feeling slighted. I was the facilitator and had to make sure that the whole group was actively engaged in the conversation. I think this is a great way to make group work successful so that it is not just one person doing the work.

Chapter #4: Creating a Culture of Success

This chapter talks about supporting the students in order for them to be successful. It is also important for students to take risk, like asking questions even if they do not feel comfortable (a supportive environment helps allow students to do this). It is imperative that the teacher gives the students feedback on their work. Feedback helps students actually fix what they might have done wrong. Revisions are also important when there are major papers/ projects. This allows students to see what they did wrong and make it better.

I definitely understood where students were coming from when they were talking about not feeling comfortable enough to ask questions. I have felt that way before. I will definitely have to make sure that students feel comfortable in my classroom. Trust will also allow students to take that risk and ask questions without feeling embarrassed. I think that I will make sure that my students know that they will not be judge no matter what question they ask.

Chapter #3: Classroom Behavior

This chapter discusses the importance of behavior in the classroom by both the students and the teacher. Expectations are set at the beginning of the class and help maintain fair behavior by both the teacher and the student. This chapter also discussed that consequences have to match the wrong doing. It also brought up the issue of substitutes and how students do not respect them because they do not respect the student.

I completely agree with a comment that one student made, "if a teacher shows that they're scared of the students, the students are going to try to take control" (p.36). I was very nervous the first day that I was at Mt. Blue. My mentor teacher threw me right in front of the class on the first day. I learned very quickly that if I present myself as nervous or scared then the students are going to take advantage of that. As I was in front of the class I realized that there was nothing to be nervous about. I know that not all my experiences are going to be this way and I will not have that type of support when I do become a teacher. It was a good first experience and since reading this chapter I know that showing that I am scared will not help my position in my classroom.

Web 2.0 Educator

I picked Wes Fryer. He current works with applying technology around schools in Texas. He was an elementary educator but is currently working at teaching technology to people and applying it to classroom use. He seems to really enjoy children's use of technology for learning. He seems really interested in the different ways that technology can be used for teaching. He comments on anything that he hears about education that is of interest to him. He also has people comment on their thoughts about the subject and even give their input on education and technology. I think that Wes Fryers thoughts on education are very interesting. He even comments about UMF's own Mike Muir. I feel like Wes Fryer really knows what he's talking about.

Focus the Nation

This is not something I have done yet but I saw on the Today Show and it made me very interested. There is a Magazine do-not send list, this is similar to the do not call list. The story that was presented a couple of weeks ago about students from a school in Massachusetts. The students had gone out and collected magazines from their homes and brought them in to class. Then during class they would enter in the information about the magazine and address it was sent to. This website would then send the information on to the magazine company and the company was then required to stop sending the magazines. By doing this students stopped the production of thousands of magazines that were not being used. The plan was to lessen the students impact on the earth and by eliminating thousands of magazines before they were even printed helped save thousands of trees. I can no longer find the website to do this but if I do then I will definitely add my unwanted magazines to the list.

I thought that the idea that this teacher from this Massachusetts school had was a really good idea of helping lessen that classes (and their families) impact on global warming. This is a generation of technology and by the time I become a teacher all students will have there own computers. If I make a Wiki-space or my own website that has all class information and documents then it will lessen my classes pollution by not using paper. I can use blogs and do tests on line that they can send to me. This will cut down on the amount of paper that the class uses. Every little bit helps and I believe that if I use small amounts of paper then my class will contribute to the lessening of global warming.

Type I/ Type II Technology

Type I Technology: Word Processors and before. Type I is when teachers used chalkboards and other one dimensional non-appealing ways of presenting materials.

• Chalk boards
• Typewritters
• Overhead projectors
• Green-screen computers

Type II Technology: Word Processors and beyond. Type II is when teachers and students were able to use more visually appealing ways to present ideas.

• PowerPoint
• Photoshop
• Blogs

My MEL Experience

• Student/ Teacher Relationships: (Positive) My High School History teacher Mr Thyng was one of my favorite teachers. He respected everyone of his students. Even the students that often skipped class would not skip his class. He gave everyone a chance no matter how well they were doing, he did not judge. He did a trivia extra credit game for those that wanted to get extra points in the class. (Negative) I had an English teacher that played favorites. I happened to be on the field hockey team and she was the coach. However others that did not have that luxury. For those students she did not help them out as much as she should have especially the ones that were really struggling. Also if you were doing good in her class then she would be nice to you but if you were then she would not give you the time of day
• Autonomy: (Positive) Mr. Shaw was a visual/ performing arts teacher in my high school. This job required creativity but it also consisted with our other classes. This class gave students the opportunity to become creative and use methods of expression that they would not have normally used before (ex: skits and movies). (Negative) I had a math teacher in Junior High that had the same homework and class format the whole school year. It was very predictable and I personally did not learn much from him. It was not challenging.
• Hands- On:(Positive) My Junior High History teacher had us do two major projects. One was a research paper/ presentation to our teachers and parents and the other was a reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run during the Civil War. The reenactment involved our whole class (100 students) playing both the North and South. It was fun and creative and on project graduation we watched the tape from it. (Negative) One of my Junior High Science teachers literally stunk at teaching. He read from the book had us do some homework. We did not do any actual lab work or experimenting or hands-on learning. I thoughts what you were suppose to do as a science teacher.
• Connections:(Positive) My high school algebra teacher was very good at connecting the material that we were working with to real life. Most of our homework contained real life situations. It was helpful that she did it because there are still some algebra equations that I still use today. (Negative) My history teachers did not do a very good job at connecting the past to the present. However that is a difficult task to do with some history subjects. I think a good way of connecting things is for a student to look at how other students in history were effected by certain events.
• Learning Styles:(Positive) My senior English teacher allowed for almost every activity that we did in class the opportunity to choose how we would create it. we were given the choice of whether we wanted to do essays, a presentation, a poster, a children's book or whatever else you could come up with. This allowed for everyone to have their learning needs to be accommodated. (Negative) My high school history teacher (the same one from the very top of this blog) had no creativity in how he presented his material. It was straight read a piece and fill in the blanks or listen to him lecture and fill in the blanks. Even though all students liked Mr. Thyng a lot of students did not do good in his class. However he did allow extra credit activities that would hopefully help students that were not doing good.

Learning Style Inventory Results

According to both learning style tests that we took (the above and a paper verison) I like to learn in a logical manner. My social and physical learning styles are also closely matched on both tests. The learning styles test does not have any learning styles that are more apparent then the other test that we took. I think that my results for this learning result are pretty acurate. During Dr. Grace's class we took a similar test and my results are close to the same.

Thanks you: learning-styles-online.com

Chapter #2: Respect, Liking, Trust, and Fairness

Chapter two covers issues of respect and fairness in the classroom. To gain respect from your students you must follow a short list of rules. The same should be expected from the students. “Showing up on time, take your responsibility seriously, don’t insult, respect one’s identity, don’t assume, and be careful what you say” (p.19). There has to be a balance between teaching and connecting with the students.

I think maintaining respect with students is a key component to teaching. To make the classroom comfortable for both the teacher and the student they have to both respect each other. I never thought how important it is for a teacher to be respectful to their students in order to gain the students respect in return. As long as the student has respect for the teacher then whether or not the student actually likes the teacher does not matter. Respect from the teacher allows the students to focus on just the teacher’s ability.

Chapter #1: Knowing Students Well

In the first chapter of Fires in the Bathroom the students talked about allowing the teacher to get to know the students better but without over stepping boundaries. The students received a questionnaire that asked questions about themselves and what they expected to get out of the course. Students also had the option of not answering the questions if they did not want to. The students also gave feed back that it would be good if the teacher also filled out the same questionnaire.

I thought that this was a great way to make the students feel like equals. It also made the students feel like they were being listened to. It allows the teacher to cater to the different needs of the students. The teachers can then gauge how much work the students are expecting and what they expect to learn in the class. If the teacher does take some ideas from the questionnaire, the students will become more engaged in the subject. If a teacher completes the same questionnaire then it allows the students to feel more comfortable with the teacher. It also allows the students to know exactly what the teacher expects and plans to teach in the class.