Chaspter 3 and 4

Chapter 3

I found this chapter very interesting and so full of information. Its hard for me to focus on the all the information that the chapter presented so I tried to keep notes of the things that I felt would be the most beneficial.

The main thing hat stuck out to me in this chapter was that as a teacher I need to gain a personal life lasting relationship with everyone of my students. If I gain this relationship I will be a better teacher in more than one way! Some ideas that I had for gaining this relationship was through one-on-one conferences with each one of my students and doing the pre-assessments and inventories that we read about last time.

The chapter talked about good teachers and the reason why they are so good at teaching is because they live what they believe. When I read this I thought back to a teacher that I had the chance to work for and realizing that she really lived what she believed and she had that relationship with every student and she still kept up with everything else.

The chapter talked about five responses to students needs. They are: invitation, opportunity, investment, persistence, and reflection. I picked one thing that I liked out of each one of these section. In the invitation section I like that not only should the teacher learn about the student they should also learn from the student, and i just liked that because it opens the door for opportunities. The part that I liked in the opportunity section was how many opportunities I can give my students. Then there was investment and this came easy for me. When I was reading about it I thought back to one of my classroom management classes and the teacher of the class saying that she tries to go to at least one extra curricular activity for each one of her students. I just thought that it was a great idea, I know that it will take a lot of time, but what doesn't in the educational world. In the section on Persistence I liked the quote "there is no finish line in learning" I just really liked that because it just goes to show that learning is a life long adventure and that we must keep going and going. In the reflection section I liked the quote "Failure is not an option" I would have never put that with reflection, but if I were to keep that in mind when I was reflecting with my students I would never give up on them. There was so many great ideas and lots of information in this chapter that I almost felt overwhelmed, but then I think that is why we as teachers need to collaborate. What I see in the material someone else might have looked over and what they see may help me in my future teaching.



Chapter4



There were six main points in this chapter. The first element is the classroom environment. We have talked about the environment in class before and that we need to make a positive environment for our students so they can feel safe and feel free to express their concerns. In order to achieve this they gave some examples, but I think the one that I will fall back on is Morning Meetings, just because I see the benefits that it brings to a classroom. The next element is communication and one way that the book suggested to enhance communication is to hold goal-setting conferences. I liked this idea cause in addition to enhancing communication it would also help me gain that personal relationship with each child. The next element I was a little confused on, guidelines for classroom operations. The thing that stuck out to me was that students would understand that the class would be governed by what the student needs to succeed. I liked a suggestion that it had that stated that fair is ensuring all leaner's get what they need to succeed. Routines was the next element and students always learn better when there is structure in the classroom. I liked that it stated that routines help the students achieve autonomy, which is one thing that all children need to learn in their life time. The support system was the next element and I never thought of this as an element, but after reading the chapter it makes perfect sense. I just think that it will be hard to be that support system for every student and in order to differentiate is going to take a lot of patience and practice. The last element was sharing the responsibility and this just takes me back to the story of the fox and the little prince and how it stated that everyone is both a teacher and a learner, and I think that is one thing that will I will have to remember when teaching.