Turning Points 2000 Chapter 8 Synthesis and Abstract

Abstract:
The main point from chapter eight is that having a safe and healthy environment for students is essential to learning. Students need to feel comfortable, both physically and emotionally, in order to be effective students. With nationwide budget cuts in schools, districts are cutting programs like physical education and health, when it would be in each student’s best interest to have these classes, and increase the number of programs. This chapter discussed the results of living a safe and healthy lifestyle on student’s grades and test scores. The concept of safety in the school community is harder to create. According to the book, this idea has to be created through the students, teachers, and administration. In order to create a positive learning environment, students, teachers and administrators need to feel safe and comfortable In the school and classroom environment. For some students, school may be the safest, most secure place that they will be at all day, so we owe it to those students to provide what safety and security we can. Good physical, mental, and emotional health are all parts of creating a healthy environment In a school. Unhealthy children are not going to learn as well as healthy children. An important part of good health is eating nutritious food. Students need to be well-nourished, and just as the school may be the safest environment a student is at all day, it may be the only place that they have the opportunity to eat a good meal. It is the job of schools to ensure a nutritious lunch menu for students. The author discussed peer support groups as a great example for the students to use to connect to one another with, as sometimes talking with one’s peers is easier than speaking with adults. School faculty and administration need to do their part to promote healthy behaviors for a healthy school environment. To do this, they need to be aware of what risky behaviors are happening and know how to prevent them by having an effective health and physical education program. It is also important to have a health services program for extra student support.
Synthesis:
After reading through the blog responses to this chapter, the majority of us have similar comments about the reading. A comfortable school and classroom environment is integral to student achievement. Teachers can do things in the classroom to influence a positive classroom environment. A point that was made in the book, that should have been embellished on was the idea of nutritious school lunches. If a school is going to be where students have the only option of eating lunch, then they need to offer healthy options for students to choose from. Physical health is just as important to academic achievement and good behavior as emotional health. It is refreshing to see that many of us have the same feelings towards how a class and school should “feel” for students, and that its not just about academics in school. We need to do what we can as educators to foster an engaging learning environment, and part of that is having a safe and healthy environment.

Chapter 15: MMM

This chapter was all about getting parents involved in the classroom. Wormeli talks about using both technology and face to face meetings as a way to get students involved. The chapter talks about finding a website, like blackboard, and getting your school to use it so that parents and students can see what work needs to get done. According to Wormeli, this will help make parents and teachers a team instead of having them argue with one another. He also added that with this system, he gets nearly 100% completion on all of his homework assignments because the students can no long say “I didn’t know about the homework”. The chapter also talks about how to get parents who don't have the internet involved. He suggests sending out notes, post cards, calling, or going to their homes in order to make contact with them. He also suggests that teachers allow parents to come in and watch a lesson so that they know what is going on and can be a bigger part of their child’s life and education.
I liked this chapter a lot because I thought that it gave much more insight into how to get parents involved along with giving interesting ways to make sure that they are involved. I thought it was great that he spoke about the fact that not every parent will have the ability to use the internet. He also spoke about how it is difficult for some parents to make it into their child’s classroom. I think that is very important because it is much more realistic than our other books. Not all parents can or will want to come in or communicate with the teacher and if we understand that we can find different ways to help our students to be successful.

Chapter 9: TP2000

This chapter dealt with how to get parents and the local community more involved in the students and the school. Research shows that students who have high expectations from their parents and receive involvement from their parents have higher grades and test scores, better school attendance, and higher graduation rates. Also, teachers experience improved morale, more support from families, higher student achievement, and better reputations in their communities when parents are involved. A teacher cannot disagree with the fact that his or her students will do better when the parents are involved, and they will try hard to make sure the students include their parents. The chapter also talks about getting the community involved by running community out-reach programs where students go out in the area and volunteer at a hospital or a soup kitchen. That is a great thing to do, and many students would learn from that experience, plus it is something that the school can do with or without parent involvement.
I want all of my student's parents involved in what my students are doing, but there comes a time when you must realize that you are not always going to get a lot of involvement. Many households need to have two incomes so both parents work, parents need to take care of things at home, and in some cases the parents just do not care about what their child is doing in school. It might be depressing, but it is the truth. Depending on where you teach, you might get a lot of involvement or none at all. You can try all you want to get them involved but many of them will just refuse no matter how many times you try. The chapter also talks about how parents are more hands off in middle school and high school. I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing. I think that students need to know how to do the work by themselves and not have their hand held. Though, this seems to be changing now with parents calling college professors to complain about grades. I do not know if there is a solution to make all parents happy and get many of them involved. I think that you need to work with what you have and try your best to get people involved. If they really want to be there then they will, if they do not then you cannot force them to care.

Chapter 8: TP2000

This chapter talks about one of the most important issues in schools today, how to form a healthy environment for learning. The chapter outlines how many teachers believe that student discipline is the biggest problem that they face. One way to help prevent bad behavior is to make sure that all students understand the rules and know why they are important. Another big step is to communicate the consequences of bad behavior along with making sure that teachers and administrators know who is in charge of dealing with discipline issues. Another big part of the chapter is dedicated to race and ethnicity. The book points out how preschool children understand race, and middle school students are at the age when they begin to develop thoughts about people. It is important to make sure that these thoughts are not racist or bigoted ones. The other big health problem that students run into is that this is the age when they may begin to experiment with drugs, sex, smoking, alcohol, along with bringing guns to school, and eating poorly. It is important that your school is prepared to deal with these issues and help students avoid bad behavior that can harm their school work along with harm their lives.
I agree with most of the things in this chapter. I know that if you do not feel comfortable in school then you will not want to go or participate. In turn, failure to go will not only harm your grades but will also harm the social skills needed to survive in society, which you develop during this time period. I think that schools need to develop good health classes, ones that students do not think are jokes, so that we can help prevent under aged sex and drug use. I remember when I went to middle school, my school had a real bad problem with discipline and it not only hurt learning but it made many people not want to go to school. I will definitely make it a goal to have a classroom environment that promotes comfort, and will always lend a hand and offer an open ear to students with questions and/or problems, school related and otherwise.

Chapter 4: TP2000

This chapter dealt with how to design instruction so that the students will be able to learn the information that they need to, to be successful students. One of the big topics in the chapter was a set of criteria for teachers in order to get their students prepared. These criteria were: students should be able to produce knowledge instead of repeat information back; students need to be involved in work that makes them think; students’ achievements should show that they have gained a life skill instead of being nothing more than a measure of their rote memory. The chapter also talks of the importance of using differentiated instruction to help all students be able to learn the information. A big issue with this is to make sure that you do not give some students work that is too easy and you should also avoid giving more work to students who are above average. The chapter also talks of the importance of technology. The author warns teachers to make sure that computer use is for higher-order thinking and not just to play games on. When technology is used correctly, then students exhibit higher grades and more involvement, which is exactly what a teacher wants to see.
The content of this chapter was not all that new to me, but I did find two sections of the chapter very fascinating. They once again talked about the notion of tracking which is definitely a hot-button issue. In a perfect world, tracking should be used to make sure that students with the same abilities are in the same room in order to maximize learning,but in actuality tracking prevents students from working hard and there is also evidence that minority groups are overrepresented in lower tracks in school. This is what makes tracking such a terrible thing to support. When it came to technology, there was one thing that stood out to me. The section talked about how most African American students are asked to do much more lower-order thinking, such as playing games, than their white counterparts are. That very fact is quite sad and needs to be corrected, but I am curious why that is the case. I assume it happens because many more African American students are in lower tracks, and so the level of expectation is much lower. Set high standards and your students will reach them!

Chapter 8: MMM

This chapter was all about designing effective assessments and how to go about doing that. Wormeli gives some ideas of how to make sure that you have designed good assessments for your students. When the assessment is good, it should clearly outline goals. It should prove to be challenging enough to make them work hard but not so hard that you avoid making the student upset or stressed. You should give options for assessments so that students have a say in what they want to do. You should be able to link other content areas in so that the student can see how one interacts with the others and you should make different formats when creating assessment instead of always asking students to write an essay. The other part of the chapter that many teachers are probably happy about was that Wormeli says to make sure that your assessments are easy to grade. If they are too time consuming or too difficult to grade then your assessment has missed the mark. It is important to always remember to use a rubric, it makes your life easier and it makes the student’s life easier.
I liked this chapter because it gave some great ideas for different assessments such as to use menus, journals, debates, games, or time lines to see if your students have learned the materials. I really like the idea of doing different types of assessments and within those assessments using different topics. The easiest way to describe it would be if you gave an essay to the students to make sure that there are different essay topics. I know that from personal experience, I really like when a teacher gives some choice especially in a history class. It is easier to write a history essay when you are actually interested in the topic. I can also attest that clear instructions and directions are vital to the success of the students. If you do not make things clear or the directions are hard to follow, many students will either refuse to do the assignment, do it poorly, or the wrong way. To be a good assessment, it must be hard enough so that it takes time to accomplish but not so difficult that you get frustrated with the whole concept. I also think assessment should be fun because it makes the students happy along with making it easier on you to grade them.

Chapter 7: MMM

This chapter was all about differentiated instruction and how to implement it into your classroom. This is probably the most difficult aspect of teaching because you will have students with learning and/or physical disabilities, students who are general education students, and those who are considered to be gifted and talented. What makes it that much more difficult is that these students will all be in the same classroom trying to learn. Obviously, a teacher is not going to give the same amount of work to a student that has severe mental disability than a student considered gifted and talented. The objective is not to give the same amount of work, but to make sure that you get these students to the same level so that they all can understand the major concepts of the unit. Wormeli gives a list of characteristics that a teacher using differentiation should possess. These include being a risk taker, being empathetic, organized, flexible, resourceful, and having a good sense of humor. Those are all characteristics of good teachers regardless, so that means that you are more than halfway there if you want to be able to differentiate your classroom.
I have said this many times before, but I believe that differentiation is the hardest thing to do as a teacher. I think what makes it so difficult is that there really is no answer to how to do it. There are so many different types of students, and they all learn in different ways so there is no one method or plan that you could follow in order to differentiate. I do think there are things that you must avoid in order to be successful and that is to make sure that you do not give the gifted and talented students more work for the sake of doing more. As the teacher you also need to make sure that you do not give less work to the students with learning disabilities as well. I think that it should be about the type of learning and not about the amount of learning. I almost feel like differentiated instruction is a very abstract term because you would have to know each one of your students to be able to tailor lessons, but while in a college education class you do not have that ability so you end up learning about something that you do not fully understand which is what makes differentiation so difficult to understand sometimes.