Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 3 Synthesis

This chapter was about brain research, and applying that to teaching middle school.  The beginning of the chapter focused mostly on helping students make memories, so they can remember the material they are learning.  The chapter also talked about how important emotions can be for young adults, and how we, as teachers, can use this to our advantage, and use emotions to help students learn.  Another thing this chapter talked about was helping students think for themselves, and be have reasoning and logic skills, and Wormeli provided a list of argument fallacies that students can recognize.


Most of the students in class liked this chapter.  We all pretty much agreed that, at this age, children are going through a lot of changes, and need their minds and brains taken care of, as well as their bodies.  Most students pointed out that we need to cater to students' emotions, in addition to teaching them academic stuff.  And we also liked how Wormeli talked about how we need to teach students to think on their own, and use their brains to learn.

A Whole New Mind

This was a really nice presentation!  I especially liked the links in the Story and Play parts of the presentation.  With the Story links, Amanda, I definitely think those could be awesome for an English class, although I'm sure you already knew that!  And Justin, I definitely liked the part on video games.  I think they can help kids a lot.  And I also liked the other parts too Erin and Darcie!  Overall, a great presentation, thanks!

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 3

This chapter was all about psychology and brain research, and how you can use that in a middle school classroom.  It was a fairly interesting chapter, but I thought the best part was the part about emotions, although I did have some problems with it.  During middle school, students are changing very much.  They don't always know how to feel, or how to express how they're feeling, so teaching them that emotions are good thing can be very helpful to them.  With that being said, the part in the chapter about emotions was kind of self serving, I thought.  The entire section was just him talking about how good a lesson he did on plagiarism, and why it was so good.  I thought the section would be better if he had used some research and facts and actually talked about the emotions of adolescents and how to use that in a classroom, instead of just telling us about one lesson he did.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 13

This chapter was about using overnight trips, and other field trips in your class.  I love field trips, and think they're great, but using overnight trips into the forest might not work.  When I was in 6th grade, my class took a weekend trip to a camp, and it was not enjoyable at all.  That's why I'm not sure if every student would really be into a trip into the forest.  Not every student is comfortable being outside, especially over a night.  But the part in the chapter about the Civil War reenactment, I thought that was great.  It might be hard to get a whole group of reenactors, but if you could, the results could be wonderful. 

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 4

This chapter was all about how to get students physically involved in the classroom, by making them get up and do things.  I loved this chapter.  I hate sitting in the same place for an hour (or however long the class is).  I lose focus, and I can't think, so I just end up doodling in my notebook, not taking any notes at all.  There are many students who feel like that as well.  Teachers can't just stand up at the front of the room and make the students stay seated for a whole class.  Teachers need to make sure students are actively engaged in the class, and sometimes that means having them get up and do something.

Waiting for Superman

I liked this movie.  I really did.  It was very interesting, and I found myself getting emotionally attached to all the people in the movie.  What I didn't like about the movie, however, was what it said.  To me, the movie basically said to the viewer, "American public education is dead, and the only way your children will be successful is by going to charter schools."  It made it seem like the children who didn't get into the charter schools were going to fail just because they were going to public school.  And I don't think it gave enough information about charter schools.  It painted charter schools as this panacea to cure every problem with education, and it makes the viewer wonder, 'Well, if charter schools are so great, why don't they just build more so every kid can go to one?'  But the problem with Waiting for Superman, is that it doesn't address the answer to that question.  I think it would have been better if the movie went more in depth about charter schools.  Anyway, that's how I felt about the movie.

Turning Points 2000 Chapter 3

This chapter focused on the Backward Design Model, which we learned about in Practicum.  While I was reading this, I thought it would have been nice to read this chapter while I was in Practicum!  But reading it now, it was nice to have a little more research with the Backward Design Model than we did in Practicum.  Back then, we just put it into practice, but reading about it really reinforced it for me (as it's been a while since I've taken Practicum and my memories of it are a little faded).  But anyway, I really like the Backward Design Model, because it forces teachers to really look at the point of their lessons, and to make sure that with every lesson, students are learning something, and can show what they learned.  I'm more of a fan of the performance task, because I don't really like tests, as I don't think memorizing facts and spitting them back out on a piece of paper really shows you know something.  I think with the performance task, students can really be creative, and show that they really know the material, and can remember it and have actually learned something.