This week I commented
on Rachelle’s, Jim’s, and Cherie’s blog. It was amazing to see how each one of
them had a different focus than each other. All of their ideas really helped me
reflect on my own week with a student that needs more than learning support
because of the fact that his home life is not stable.
I learned quite a bit
this week but the main thing that I am going to apply to my classroom is that
learning can’t happen if the brain is not ready. I am going to add in
activities to help the brain get ready for learning. For example, I would like
to have about a one-minute exchange from Math Review to new material in direct
instruction. My plan is to have a different student each day ready with a
school appropriate song to play for the minute while the students are getting
out their notebook, homework, math book, etc. Another thing I would like to
have the students do when they walk in is let me know if they are ready to
learn today or not. In what way I am not sure but I am thinking about having
multiple ways to do this such as telling me when they walk in the door via
verbal or planned communication such as sign language. Maybe I will have them
answer a 2-3 survey that only I can see via computers or text. The reason I
want to know is so that I can work with each student in the way that they need
it for that class period.
Lastly, a revelation
that I need to think on more that I got while reading Jim’s post is how the
brain needs time to fully learn something. Where do I get this time or how do I
carve it into my classroom? Is the direct instruction time to long? How can I
break up this class better so that learning can be committed to memory? Lots of
questions I am still asking myself as a somewhat new teacher.
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