Week Nine: Chapter 7

There were so many great bullet points from this chapter but I will only list 5 that stuck out to me.

• Effective teachers carefully establish classroom routines that enable them and their students to work flexibly and efficiently. 
• Caring teachers intentionally develop awareness of their students' cultures outside of school. 
• High levels of teacher motivation relate to high levels of student achievement. 
• Effective teachers know and understand their students in terms of abilities, achievement, learning preferences, and needs. 
• Effective teachers match instruction to learners' achievement needs. 

There were so many more and it became slightly overwhelming because I felt like I needed to be all of those things at once. Maybe I do. But for now, I am going to pick a few to work on at a time. 

I agree with the book and most of the reasons it list's as to why teaching is hard. But I got thinking, no matter what profession I went into, it is always going to be hard to some degree. This is when you adapt, learn, and make things work. I know there are many things that are going to be hard as a teacher, I will probably want to pull my hair out at some point, but I know it will all be worth it in the end. 

"Through cultivated passion for whom we teach and what we teach, we become what we can be, even as we accept the quixotic challenge of helping every learner we encounter to become what they can be." 

I agree with this, and can't wait to start my journey. 

Week Eight: Chapter 6

I really like this chapter because it showed even more how to apply differentiation to our planning. I like how it says to "plan multiple ways to teach and revisit the essentials". I think this is a key part in really helping students understand the curriculum. It's very important to create and engaging curriculum so the students aren't just memorizing material but actually learning the material. I like how it said to "focus student products around significant problems and issues." I agree with this. It's going to make the learning so much more engaging. I think it's my responsibility as the teacher to make sure I'm trying my best to make as many things as I can engaging. This means I will definitely have to differentiate for the students in order to make sure they are all engaged.
Another thing the book mentioned was "provide choices that ensure focus". It can be from RAFT's to Think-Tac-Toes to Learning Menus. These all give great options for each student to crease something that will ensure their focus.
It's also important to make sure you are keeping your teaching fresh. If you teach each subject the same exact way, it's going to get boring really quickly. Now this isn't saying you have to do this everyday, but make sure there is some variation at least sometimes.
Then the last thing from this chapter I want to mention is when it talks about "Aiming High". We often underestimate what students can do. It's very likely student can achieve much more if we push them just a little bit. I think this is where differentiation plays a huge role. If students are getting challenged in their own differentiated way, they will surely have success.