UbD Chapter 4 Response

I think the general take-away point from this chapter emphasizes how important it is to get to know your students and to recognize that your job as a teacher is to do your absolute best to guide them towards success.  One part that really stood out to me was the scenario about Mrs. Callison and the notes that she takes on her students.  Once I got over considering the possibility that my teachers could have taken notes on me (yikes?) and realized that it’s probably more useful than creepy, I thought to myself, but I want to know my students well enough that I don’t need to refer to a notebook.  This generated another fear: the likelihood that I will have so many students coming in and out of my classroom on a daily basis that I may not be able to know them as well as I would like to.  Not only do I want to know about the different learning styles of my students so that I can best meet their needs, I also want to know about their family, hobbies, and interests because it will help me to make the curriculum more appealing to them (hopefully).  I also think that if I know a lot about my students, they might be encouraged to learn more about each other.  The more they know about and respect each other, the better the classroom community.  So, while I want to be the best teacher I can be, I also have to understand that it’s not going to be an easy task, and that getting to know my students will take a great deal of time and dedication, and maybe even some note taking.

UbD Chapter 3 Response

This chapter was a comfort to read because it addresses many of the anxieties I have regarding Common Core Standards and suggests strategies for successfully covering a wide range of content (which is demanded by the standards) through the backward design model.  One thing I certainly don’t want to do as a teacher is make a “chronological march through the textbook” (28), because it would be miserable for my students and even miserable for myself (imagine going through the same book year after year!).  Fortunately backward design can help to prevent this while still ensuring that I cover all the standards (as long as I do it effectively… I’m sure that I will need to practice it many times before I can master it).  And, because I am a “clipboard” learner, I appreciate the structure that the backward design planning template provides.  At the same time, however, I was relieved to read that “[b]ackward design does not demand a rigid sequence” (32), meaning that I do not have follow the template in order when I design my units.  Too little structure is nerve-wracking to me, but so is too much structure.  For these reasons, I feel that backward design will be a very useful tool for me as a future teacher.

I also found the section on integrating differentiated instruction into the backward design model to be valuable because it acted as a reminder that simply planning for content and for the standards isn’t always enough.  I think it’s definitely important to provide more than one form of assessment and that they should be accounted for when designing a unit.

MI Chapter 4 Response

I really appreciated this chapter because I think it’s important for students to be aware of the different kinds of multiple intelligences.  I cannot recall any of my teachers (in elementary, middle school, or high school) ever mentioning Gardner’s theory, but I truly wish they had.  I think that a teacher can foster a positive and respectful learning environment by introducing the concept of multiple intelligences and having students partake in an activity that explores the different intelligences.  If students understand that everyone learns differently and get the chance to “test out” activities related to the different intelligences, they will be more likely to respect one another and may even gain a greater sense of self-esteem.  For example, a mathematically inclined student might realize that his peer who isn’t so great at math has a talent for music.  If the class hadn’t been introduced to the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, they may not have known about one another’s intelligences or talents and maybe wouldn’t have recognized their own intelligences as valuable.  I do think that the secondary ed. classroom is more limited than the elementary school classroom in its potential ways to explore multiple intelligences (at least based on the examples given in this chapter), but I definitely think it’s still possible and important to make students aware of MI at the secondary level.  It would be great for kids to learn about them sooner, however, so as to promote respect for the different intelligences sooner in schooling, but I understand that that may not always happen and that they could and should still be emphasized at the middle and high school levels.

MI Chapter 3 Response

I think that this chapter provides very useful tips and suggestions for determining the most developed intelligences of your individual students.  I did notice, however, that some of the tips were more conducive to a secondary ed. classroom than others, and I will remember to focus more on those once I have my own students to observe.  (I also think that our field experience for this class will be great practice for trying to guess student intelligences based on sole observation).  I found it humorous but insightful when Armstrong says that “the one good way to identify students’ most highly developed intelligences is to observe how they misbehave in class” (34).  I had never really considered how much there is to learn from what we might otherwise view as poor or unacceptable behavior, but now I am curious to see what kinds of crazy things my future students will do!  I also really like the idea of using “choice time” as an opportunity to observe students’ intelligences, but the “choice time” Armstrong refers to is more prominent in elementary schools (I think).  So, I began to think of ways that middle or high school students could show their intelligences through choice.  In the English classroom, this could mean through the types of books they chose to read or how they chose to format a book report or paper.  In terms of other suggestions that Armstrong provides for determining students’ intelligences, I think that looking at school records, talking with other teachers, and asking the students themselves are the best suited for secondary level.

UbD Chapter 2 Response

The biggest take-away point that I got from this chapter is that it is important to be flexible and adaptable as a teacher.  Otherwise, it will be much more difficult to meet the many varying needs of your students.  The chapter also made it clear that you can’t always rely on one particular “plan” when it comes to helping a student; you must be open to having a Plan B, Plan C, and so on, as demonstrated in the section about Yana (14).  Likewise, teaching requires a great deal of patience.  I will have to constantly remind myself that it’s okay if I don’t “get through” to a student immediately, and that just as we expect the students to learn from us as teachers, we also have a lot to learn from them when it comes to their individual learning styles, interests, strengths, weaknesses, personalities, home lives, etc. and that it will take time and dedication to the student in order for us to gain a full understanding of how they best function and what they need from us as educators.  I also felt that a lot of what was discussed in this chapter ties into what we’ve been reading and discussing in Dr. Theresa’s course on classroom management.  For example, in the story about Noah (15) we learn that he is a kinesthetic learner and that he learns best when he is able to move around.  The reading we did for Dr. Theresa (from Classroom Management for Middle and High School Teachers) gave the impression that classroom rules and regulations should be directly stated and enforced with little room for compromise or exceptions.  I don’t think that this idea correlates very well with what this chapter is emphasizing, which is the teacher adapting the differing needs of his or her students as opposed to the students adapting to a strict set of rules. 

UbD Chapter 1 Response

I thought that breaking down the components of Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction into axioms and corollaries was extremely helpful in allowing me to understand what the two concepts are all about and how they work together (especially after reading Chapter 9).  I did have one specific question arise while reading page 9, however, and it is something that I feel is important to consider when drafting lesson plans and implementing them.  In the scenario following Axiom 5, Mr. Axelt provides his students with the same assignment and questions and he differentiates the resources given to the students based on what he knows about their strengths and weaknesses.  For example, the text says, “[s]tudents who have a need for support with vocabulary received a key vocabulary list of essential words and clear explanations of the words.  Students who need structure in gathering data worked with a graphic organizer designed to help them categorize ideas they found.  Mr. Axelt also designated resource materials at various levels of difficulty… Students are generally accustomed to such designations… and generally select resources appropriate for them” (Tomlinson & McTighe, 9).  While I understand how this example demonstrates differentiated instruction and I can see how students might benefit from materials and aids that are tailored to their needs and capabilities, I am curious as to how these differing resources are implemented into the classroom in a way that is either confidential or does not make students feel “grouped” in terms of their abilities or lack thereof.  In other words, how do teachers effectively prevent segregation that may lead to bullying or self-confidence issues while still using differentiated instruction?  This is something that I will want to be aware of in my future classroom as I do not want my students to feel segregated.

MI Chapter 2 Response

This chapter encouraged me to think even more about which intelligences I may be “lacking” in and how I might be able to bring them into my future classroom despite the fact that I am not proficient in them.  I really liked the suggestions that the chapter provided, particularly drawing on colleague’s expertise and the concept of team teaching (21), as well as asking students to help out (26).  When I did a practicum course at my previous college, I was placed in a global literature class that was team-taught by an English teacher and a social studies teacher.  Not only were they diverse in their areas of content and expertise, they also differed in terms of MI (as far as I could see, at least).  For example, one of the teachers had a great deal of “naturalist” in her, which allowed her to connect well with a group of students who were crafting lobster traps for a service learning project.  This particular group of students happened to be boys who had little interest in schoolwork and preferred to work outside as part of family businesses (some of which were in the lobstering business), but they were fully engrossed in the project with the guidance of their “naturalist” teacher.  Another group of students worked closely with the other teacher, who happened to be a former cross country coach and was very kinesthetic, to organize a 5k for their service learning project.  After reading this chapter and looking back, I can see even more of the benefits of having teachers with differing intelligences because it allows them to learn from each other and to connect to a larger range of students.

MI Chapter 1 Response

I really enjoyed reading about the eight different kinds of “intelligences” because I find them fascinating.  While this chapter didn’t directly discuss multiple intelligences in the context of education, it is easy to see how it is so important to bring them into consideration when it comes to teaching.  When we took the test in class to determine which intelligences were strongest for us, I scored highest in the interpersonal and naturalist categories and lowest in the musical and logical-mathematical categories.  The results of my test make me aware that it might be difficult for me to connect to students who fall into different categories than I do at first, and this chapter makes me aware that I will have to be able to recognize these rather foreign intelligences in my future students, as I am sure that I will have students who are musically and mathematically inclined. I will need to be able to connect with these students just as well as I might connect with students who fall into the same MI categories as I do.  Apart from the fact that Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences might pose challenges to me as an educator when it comes to discovering how to best suit intelligences that I do not strongly possess, I think that differing intelligences have much to offer to a classroom’s learning environment as I will be able to learn from my students and they will be able to learn from each other.  This is a very valuable thing and I will be sure to make my best effort to get to know which categories my students fall into as individuals and to give them the opportunities to utilize those intelligences.