Oh my! where do I begin! My head is spinning with so many good ideas that we have discussed in class, on discussion board, blogging, and reading. I plan to take the summer and go back through it all. The books were all very good and easy to understand. I enjoyed them all, I just need more time to let the information sink in this old brain.
Melber & Hunter's 25 strategies for Integrating has a lot of good activities that are easy to follow. I especially like the way they give suggesions for teaching each grade level and how the lessons meet the needs of ELL and EC students. The work is all done for you, all you have to do is adapt it to fit the needs of your students. I even used one of the lessons in my Transportation Unit.
Drake & Burns' Meeting the Standards for me was a great guide in learning how to design an integrated unit. The backward design is just what the name implies and it was not an easy task. By doing it I think I now understand what it means, knowing where you want the studetns to be at the end in the beginning is very important (I hope that made sense). When you know this, it makes it easier to develop the activities. The KNOW/DO/BE bridge was also very helpful. I really like the idea of the BE. While this part seems like it cannot be measured it really can because our AIM as teachers is to produce responsible citizens. When I see former students working or preparing for college I am proud to say that was my student.
Daniels & Bizar's Best Practice made me do a lot of reflecting (not my favorite thing to do). Chapter three Representing-To-Learn, I realized I have been cheating my students in the area of writing because I only do the story writing. I now realize that there is sooo much more to writing than just writing stories. Again oh my! art is writing I had never considered this, and writing for fun what is that! Maybe if I had experienced these when I was in elementary school, I would not be afraid to write. Yes writing was one of my weakest subjects. Everything was graded in red and given back to correct and I always got mine back more than once and the more I corrected the worst it got.
With all that said, I will be doing a lot of rereading this summer!
I never liked to grade in red, it is so harsh, especially when there is alot incorrect. Yes writing is alot of fun and it is important to teach children that from the beginning.
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