Morning Meetings and Part 1

What?

I read about Morning Meetings and Part 1 in Differentiation in Practice. The Morning Meeting Packet was very interesting. It talked about the Four components of Morning Meetings: greeting, sharing, group activity, and new and announcements. It also talked about the rationale behind morning meetings. The main purpose for morning meetings is to accomplish a sense of community in your classroom. They also help students to develop cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. For learning to take place, learners must feel safe, and morning meetings establish that safe environment. The packet also gave insight to some concerns that teachers have had, the main concern is what parents will think.
Part 1 of the text book talked about that parents use differentiation in raising their children depending on their children's personalities. The book talked about balancing two factors in instruction: needs of the students and requirements in curriculum. There are four classroom elements that affect differentiation: who, what, where, and how. The book goes into detail about each one of these factors and how it affects differentiation. The book also talks about that there is no "right way" to differentiate instruction.

So What?

All of this in important, because morning meetings are one of the best ways to gain that sense of community in the classroom. There are other ways to achieve community, but through morning meetings the students gain so much more as well. In one classroom the students scored higher on the end of the year test because they participated in morning meetings. One other aspect of morning meetings is that they are fun. I think that teachers are starting to forget that its okay to have fun with your students. Having fun with connect the teacher with the students and make the classroom environment so much more enjoyable.
Knowing what differentiation is and how to implement it in your instruction is so important for teachers to know. Its important to know that one-size does not fit all and that each student deserves their own instruction, for the best way they learn. Its also important to remember that there is no one "right way" to differentiate instruction and we just have to learn form mistakes and keep pushing forward.

Now What?

Now that I have read about Morning Meetings I am so excited to do my student teaching and implement them in my teaching. I want to have that safe environment in my classroom so students feel free to learn and ask question and grow as a community. By reading about differentiation it scares me that I may not be able to differentiate my instruction to fit every child every day, but I will so my best and I now know the importance of differentiation and how it will benefit both my students and me.