Reflection on Chapter 1 and 8 & the Think Center

Ch. 1
From chapter one what I found to be most important was the different strategies that were talked about, such as think-pair-share, learning stations, jigsaw, reciprocal teaching and reflective teaching.  I learned about all of them in intermediate block, and I think they are all great!  My favorite would have to be reciprocal teaching.  It stood out to me the most.  I think it is really an effective strategy to use in the classroom.  When using all four steps it gives students a deeper understanding of what is being taught, when they have to question, clarify, summarize and then predict, it leaves them with no excuse not to understand, and if they don't reciprocal teaching prompts them to do whatever it they can to get a better understanding of it.  When I was in the sixth grade class at Petal this week, I actually seen reciprocal teaching being done in small groups when an article the students were reading about space.  It was pretty neat!  The only questions I have after reading chapter one is with jigsaw, when we did jigsaw in intermediate group we all learned a section from the chapter and taught it to the class.  It did not seem that way when they explained it in the book, Is there many ways to do jigsaw?  If so, do they all work?

Ch. 8
Chapter eight was also very helpful.  From this chapter, what I found most important was the section on "Why is Writing Neglected in Many Content Area Classes?"  After reading this short section, I could not believe how true it is.  Other content area teachers believe that writing should be left up to the English or Language Arts teacher.  This is not true at all, it is ineviteble that we use writing in all subjects, even math when trying to figure out multiple step problems, and then going back to explain them.  After reading this chapter, I was left with the question, How can we get other content area teachers to use writing to learn strategies in thier classrooms?  How do you make them see that writing is very important in all subjects, not just Language Arts?

Think Center

I enjoyed our time at the think center, I learned tons of helpful information.  I love how we were required to question ourselves to get the answer and how we actively used metacognition.  The technology in there was amazing!!  I think the technology that we learned about this week could help students in all subject areas, but espcially in writing to learn.