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 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.

Chapter 6: MMM

This chapter was all about making sure that both students and teachers are held accountable for high standards. The first few pages talk about how to make sure that the students are held accountable. Some of the suggestions were: when assigning a project, give examples of good work so students know what is expected; avoid giving extra credit, but instead allow students to go back and make corrections on their work; to use a rubric that outlines everything that the student needs to do to get a good grade; and another good idea is to display their work public because they will be more apt to work harder. Not only do students need to be accountable, the teachers need to be also. Some suggestions for doing so were: make sure that you help your students be life long learners, do not simply teach for the test; make sure that everything you teach is relevant; if you cannot tell a student or parent why you are covering a particular topic, then you should remove the topic all together. To be better teachers we must give formative assessments to students to track progress, place the student first, and think outside the box.
I liked this chapter because it talks about holding everyone accountable and not just the teachers. Obviously, the teacher should be held responsible if he or she is doing a terrible job, but if the students are not doing the work then they need to be held responsible also. I completely agree that we must put the students first and make sure that we are not teaching them so that they can pass a test but instead teach them so that they can learn and function in society. The last big step to an effective teaching environment is to make sure that you collaborate with your teaching colleagues and make sure that each one of you works together to help the students learn.

Chapter 3: MMM

This was a very interesting chapter on how to take what we know about brain research and turn it into learning for the students. There were a couple very fascinating parts of the chapter, one of which was the discussion on how to keep students engaged. Wormeli has the suggestion which he follows in his own classroom; to ask a question and give time to answer, and once the student answers you then ask another student whether he or she agrees. Once that student has answered, you call on a third student to give an opinion; this is aimed at making sure that all of the students are learning and not just zoning out after the teacher calls on someone to answer the question. The chapter also talks about the importance of drinking water during the day to make the brain stronger. If you are well hydrated, then the neurons in your brain flow faster, and you get better results and quicker response time. The last part of the chapter that was interesting was the list of activities that a teacher can do so that students can practice how to reason; one of the big problems today is that students have a hard time being able to reason anything out for themselves because they are asked just to spit out answers. We should teach them meaningful information but at the same time teach them how to reason and be able to do things on their own.
I liked how the chapter was set up because it looked at learning from a scientific background which is huge considering many teachers, except those in science, know little about the human brain. This is a very important time for a young adult because he or she is starting to find out who they are and what they want to do with their lives. It is also a time with a lot of experimentation, not all of it good, which can cause a lot of problems for your students. I thought it was interesting to find out, and slightly sad, that students now do not see how giving a person an answer to a test or coping down homework is considered to be cheating. It appears that we have a moral flaw in our society, and more and more people are unaware of how their actions are morally wrong or detrimental to themselves or others. I am not saying that we should preach to students, but I do think that we need to set good examples and try and show students what the types of behaviors are that show good morals.

Chapter 13: MMM

This chapter was quite interesting because it talked about how the importance of having an outdoor activity is to the health of your class. Wormeli talks about different camping trips that he took students on and the benefits that they shared. In general, he said that there are two major events that take place as a result of his camping trips. The first is that students come back and are much more proud of and thankful for the things that they have at home such as food, heat, and electricity. He said that the second big change is that students are much more apt to do things for themselves and be autonomous – which is an important part of becoming more mature. One final thing that was important from the chapter is that Wormeli talks about how the camping trips end up making students more comfortable with each other and with the teachers. He feels like the students are more likely to open up to the teachers and to each other after spending time in the wilderness and needing to rely on one another.
I am not so sure how I feel about going on a camping trip with a bunch of middle school students. I would love to be able to do something like this with my students, and intend on seeing how far my school administration will let me go, but to me I feel that this is an incident waiting to happen. With things such as injury, arguments, or some kind of misconduct taking place. We live in such a politically correct world, and we are so afraid that something terrible is going to happen that we try to shy away from it. For instance, teachers have to be very careful around their students for fear of anything being taken out of context. I personally cannot see many schools approving this, but maybe I am wrong. On a positive note, I did like his ideas for the Civil War re-enactment and the slave journey idea. I think that those would be fun activities that would also teach students history at the same time.

Chapter 4: MMM

This chapter can be summed up using one term, bodily-kinesthetic. The entire chapter is about helping students participate in active learning. As the name implies, active learning deals with movement and activity, which for middle school students is a necessity. At this age, the middle school student's body is changing rapidly and causing difficulties with some motor functions and sitting for long periods of time. Wormeli suggests that you get students moving about every 10 to 15 minutes so that oxygen can get into their brains, to stimulate learning, and to relieve pressure on the students’ aching joints. The other important thing to remember about middle school students is that they are very concrete thinkers, and have a hard time thinking abstractly. The chapter gives an example of a student who learned best when he did hands on work; so the teacher decided to take the class outside to measure and work with trees, the topic of the class. This little exercise greatly helped the student learn the material.
I thought that the chapter was interesting and gave some great ideas to get kids moving, but more importantly stressed the need to do so. Some of the things that stood out to me was to have the students stand up while talking about the materials just covered in class. I also liked the idea of having students get up to bring their papers to the teacher or making them put it in a basket on the other side of the room. My freshman year of high school, my history teacher had us do a lot of moving around. We also passed papers in a basket which required us to get up and move around a bit. I would be more than willing to try these approaches along with mixing in other ideas such as having students perform skits or re-enactments. On the other hand, I do think that you cannot really do this with every class because there are some classes were movement like this might distract them and prevent them from working. Taking a chance and having students be more bodily-kinesthetic is worth a shot, and I am willing to try anything that might help my students do better in school.

Chapter 9: MMM

Chapter nine discussed the benefits of block scheduling versus traditional class period lengths. The block scheduling format is not only helpful for teachers in that they are more inclined to vary instruction and spend adequate amounts of time on different subject material, but it's helpful for students. The author mentions the students that 'are invisible in traditional scheduling' because they require additional attention from the teacher. The chapter also discusses other considerations, such as how to deal with missing work and students who are absent, other methods of instruction (such as guests, extended simulations or activities, activities that build on developed skills each week, etc), and what block scheduling can do for professional relationships with other teachers.

I found this chapter interesting because I experienced block scheduling in my middle school, high school, and in Phillips Elementary School when I did practicum, and each method was different. I think that the basic concept of more individualized education for each student, more exposure to specific contents, and teacher and lesson collaboration between the team teachers is great. Rarely do I see it play through. At Phillips Middle my social studies teacher and the english teacher did an integrated unit which I though was really cool, and what team teaching is all about. The foundation is there, we just need to improve the methods by which we team teach.

Chapter 12: MMM

Chapter twelve discussed how important it is to be a good, just adviser to the students you teach. Being able to communicate with your students in different situations is an important part of developing strong relationships with them. The author used an example of taking his students hiking and experiencing firsthand how their classroom attitudes were different from their attitudes elsewhere. He suggests taking the time to engage your students in different activities to further bring out the different sides of the students' personalities. This can also double as personal development for the students, as they can hone different skills and talents they may have and get positive feedback from their classmates.

The ideas that the author puts forth in this chapter are really interesting. I think taking the time to experience your class and teachers in new ways like this puts things into perspective a bit, and could also bring the team teachers close together when they see each other outside of school walls. Being able to take your students outside the school will help that class environment grow, as students and the teacher are able to communicate on a different level, which will help the student teacher relationship.

Chapter 11: MMM

Chapter eleven discussed team teaching, and how the teachers formulate working plans that compliment each others' plans; that is, if one teacher has a test coming up in their class, the other teachers are able to schedule their tests to fall on different days. Team teaching also allows for further collaboration, which would be made much more difficult if they didn't have this connectedness between each other. Teachers can plan units that interconnect, for example, if the history class is discussing the sinking of the Titanic, the science class can build Morse code transmitters. The team teaching aspect allows for more integrated activity, which further encourages students to communicate and collaborate on their own.

As far as this chapter is concerned, I agree with more integrated instruction, as I think it's easier to grasp certain concepts when small parts are revealed throughout different disciplines. I think it's equally important for integrated units simply for the 'good example' teachers set for students as an example of good communication.

Chapter 17: MMM

Chapter seventeen discussed the negative media representation that middle school students are introduced to. The author included the rampant outbreak of sexually transmitted disease as the most significant example. He also discussed several incredible feats that his middle school students have achieved that certainly outshine the negative. His students have raised substantial sums of money for good causes, managing websites, performing at events that have thousands of people in attendance, coordinating construction projects, and an avid reader of 2,000 books in the time of 4 months. The entire chapter suggested taking any previously held notion about middle school students and re-evaluating that notion, because the results may surprise the person who doubts.

In this chapter, I liked how how he incorporated a graffiti wall in his classroom. Not only is this something I would enjoy as a student, but I could see myself as a teacher waiting excitedly to see what people wrote on the paper. I think the whole point of this chapter is to trust the middle school students in your class enough to be savvy, smart, and intelligent. Because the media tears them down, many teachers' minds are poisoned with the media representation, and that trust is lost. I have always believed that you should trust someone and treat them with kindness until you're given a reason not to.

Chapter 2: MMM

Chapter two of Rick Wormeli’s Meet me in the Middle discusses different strategies we can use in the classroom to help motivate middle school students. Early in the chapter Wormeli states that “trying to get the students to pay attention is eighty percent of the battle.” This battle is one that some teachers spend their whole careers losing. The battle does not have to be that hard. All of us enjoy doing things that we’re good at and interests us. The classroom should not be any different. Educators who take the time to get to know and understand their students have half the battle already won. When you understand what makes the students go, you can apply that into the classroom and lessons. Lessons should be made around the students’ interests, with a wide variety of activities that also allow them to use their strengths. Communication with the students is essential to carrying out a successful lesson. The classroom environment is also extremely important. Providing a safe and comfortable atmosphere that encourages the students to learn and be themselves helps the students to open up their minds and abilities. One of the most important concepts is to show enthusiasm for the material, and the students learning it. If the students are excited about being in your classroom, then motivation becomes very simple.

Chapter 1: MMM

In Rick Wormeli's Meet Me In the Middle, the first chapter discusses the topic of communication with your students. First, the stereotypical thoughts of some teachers are "TGIF" or "The best three things about teaching, June, July and August." Our attitude towards teaching is one of the biggest things teachers need to remember when walking into a classroom. If we walk in positive and upbeat then our students are going to be more engaged. It is very important to be a good role model for students as well. The author also mentions that what we put into teaching is what we will get out of teaching. If you go in with a poor attitude then you aren't going to get a whole lot out of your teaching experience. Wormeli also discusses the idea of perceptions, and that not everyone's are the same. A joke that you think may be harmless, may I fact be very hurtful to a particular student. Perception could also be based on the student- teacher relationship, because a student may take one comment from a teacher differently than they would the same comment from another teacher.