Wiz Response

I felt like this presentation had a lot in it that was useful. I really liked your wiki page, because it was full of resources and it helped to unify your presentation. One thing I thought was highly important from the book was the section on memory. As teachers we need to make sure we've got our students' attention and that they are remembering what we teach them. Also, we need to become students of how the brain functions in order to maximize our teaching time. Lastly, it's really important that we make our classroom environment welcoming, because it becomes a home for our students.

I also have a few pieces of constructive criticism for you. A lot of the specifics about the parts of the brain and how it works weren't really relevant, yet you kept telling us to "remember them for the activity after." This was contradictory to everything you were teaching us, because you weren't helping us to learn the material and remember it. Overall, one thing that I think would have been helpful was to have a mini-activity between each section, so that you could make use of the down-time that you taught us our minds' have. This would also have helped to make for easier transition throughout the presentation, and maybe if one activity had been kinesthetic, it would have reduced antsy-ness.

response to "Becoming a 'Wiz' at Brain-Based Teaching" presentation

I really like how you guys stepped outside of the book and found websites to supplement the points and to give us more examples. I wrote down/tagged many of the resources you offered us, and the activities were fun and engaging. I particularly liked the color activity; using it will force students to step outside and look at themselves in a different light, in a more holistic sense.

The need for a safe and supportive environment was reiterated a few times throughout the presentation; this was effective. Adolescents are susceptible mood changes and their egos are fragile; a supportive environment is necessary in the classroom to maximize learning. You delved deep into memory --what it is, what it means, and most importantly, how to make productive use of it with out students. Again, your resources will help later when the facts you gave and points you made may be forgotten. I thought it would have been useful for you to address specific ways to make concepts and content more significant; you spoke of the importance of sense and significance, but didn't shed any light on how to go about actually making the content significant.

I really liked that a couple of pages have a "review" at the end of the page that listed the big ideas and overarching concepts of the chapter; it fit in well with the steps the author gives for moving information from sensory memory to long-term memory. The last page reviewed the prominent themes in the book, which was a helpful in tying everything together. Great presentation.

Student Oriented Curriculum

Overall, I enjoyed the presentation on Student Oriented Curriculum. I really enjoyed the activities you had the class participate in but I think even more would have been great. They were very original and I think they could be used in any classroom. Moreover, the ideas stated in your presentation were great and I think that the book, along with the other books to come, will be great tools for all of us someday. The wiki and the PowerPoint were great as well and can be easily accessed for future reference. Lastly, everyone participated in the presentation evenly and that is very important for any group presentation. Again, very nice job and good explanation of the book and its important ideas.

Book Talk: Student Oriented Curriculum

I thought that the ideas in this book were helpful, especially since we are currently doing an integrated unit. I really liked how the teachers had such free reign over what they could teach, it seems like their administrator really let them go crazy. However, I don't feel like we got to know enough about the teachers, and that you guys jumped into the effects of their work before we knew a lot about it. I don't know how much freedom we would have in our classrooms, and I also think having more teachers on a team makes it more complicated to be as integrated as they were. Regardless though, their success is a great example to follow.

Your presentation was alright, but I felt like there could have been better use of the MIs and maybe more hands-on activities for us. You would have to have shortened your other activities, but it would have kept us more engaged. It also seemed like some of the members of the group put a lot more effort into the presentation, but that the work they did was really good. Lastly, I feel like your wiki was very jumbled, and that you should have all stuck with the wiki format rather than just linking your individual pieces to it.

I really liked the idea of team building, and having us do an activity was a great idea. It can be very important for a class to come together (as we saw with the Freedom Writers). I also like how students guided the curriculum and how you guys walked us through the process of designing curriculum. Having teachers and students sharing all of the roles in a classroom is a great way to turn everyone into teachers and help provide a sense of ownership to the work you do.

SOC blog-Abbie

Although it all came together as you went through the presentation, it was hard to follow along with you at first because there wasn't enough explanation of the book and what its actual purpose was. The diagram on the wiki helped pull it together and clarify the idea of Student Oriented Curriculum -great use of a graphic organizer to pull together the key components.

The team-building activity was a great example, and it really gave me the feel of what is needed to get the students to work together so that the responsibility can effectively move from the teachers to the students. The unit-deciding activity also gave some insight as to how much the students are involved, how much they are in charge of their education.

You had some great resources: Steph's chart is certainly helpful; again, it lays out what is necessary, and how the process works. The clip we watched on "This We Believe -In Action" was great because we can see that these ideas and concepts are really being implemented in the classroom -Dr. Grace should consider showing us more of it because of what our goal is in this course. I'm going to go out and get a copy of Student Oriented Curriculum; it will be a great tool, even if the school I end up at or the team I end up working on doesn't go all out as Lee did, it appears to have some good ideas and resources for integrating students' opinions and needs into a regular curriculum.

It's interesting that this appeared to be specifically useful to students who were on the "cusp of staying and taking directions, or moving on and thinking on their own." It's great that your group pointed this out because that is the point that many middle schoolers are at, and it's important for us as future educators to take note of it.

Overall, great job; it was quite interesting and informative.

Katie's SOC Blog

I really liked the way that the team building part was introduced, but I felt like there should have been a little more explanation about Student Oriented Curriculum first. The diagram on wiki explained the important parts of team building well and the activity was a good way to introduce it to our students. I know the activity wasn’t meant to be done twice but being able to change activities when they don’t work out the first time is a part of teaching.

The blog and websites about inclusion were very good, and I’m sure it was a big part of Student Oriented Curriculum but I would have liked to seen some examples of how they used it in the book. I know that the ed techs were part of the teaching staff instead of sitting next to the students but I’m curious about how the teaching roles were split between them.

The responsibility table on the wiki was great, it showed how as time goes on students get more and more responsibility and teachers are just there to guide students and access the work they’re doing. In the beginning, teachers play a much larger role in choosing the theme of the unit. I thought the activity on helping students choose a theme was really great, because at first I had no idea that the questions had anything to do with themes. It was a fun activity and I’m sure students will enjoy it too.

The powerpoint was a great way to wrap up the main points of the book, but it also had some great links on it. The only part that confused me was the video, I think a little more explanation was needed before it was shown. Other than that it reinforced concepts that were already mentioned and highlighted new ones.

Overall I thought the presentation was awesome, good job!

Turning Points 2000 - Chapter 3

This chapter was about how to improve teaching and learning through the use of backwards design. It is a process where the teacher begins with the standards before they develop their curriculum. When selecting standards for schools to use, the book recommends the following characteristics: concerned with the essential ideas, useful and clear, rigorous, accurate, sound, brief, feasible, taken together, assessable, developmental, selected and modified or supplemented by consensus, and adaptable and flexible. Another important idea is tailoring mandated standards, when teachers take the vast number of standards and decide what is most important and work on that first before focusing in on the narrower ideas.

When you start with standards, teachers know exactly what students need to learn from their class. Focusing on the big ideas and essential questions is the best way for teachers to accomplish this. They also have to create units that connect with students' lives and maintain their interest. Just because a teacher covers a lot of material during a school year, it doesn't mean that the students will learn any more material. Students will do a lot better if they spend more time working and mastering the big ideas, instead of speeding through smaller concepts.

Assessment is another big part of backwards design. Turning Points 2000 supports varied and authentic assessments along with some formal test and quizzes and informal, such as walking behind students and check their work. Projects are another great assessment strategy. Students need different ways to show that they know the material. They also need to know exactly what is expected of them. Rubrics are a great way for students to know what they are going to be graded on before they even start their project.

Chapter 3 also discusses the "twin towers" of education - excellence and equity. Excellence and equity should be present in both the curriculum and assessment. Excellence requires high standards that makes students acquire and utilize specific skills. Equity means that the standards set expectations that every students can meet.

A Whole New Mind

Now that we have discussed the concepts of A Whole New Mind and participated in a few activities dealing with the six senses, reflect on what you learned. What sense most appeals to you? How would you teach it to your students?