Morning Meetings and pages 1-14

I really liked the reading about Morning Meetings. I connected to it by thinking of it as a warm-up. In volleyball, we do a variety of things in order to get ready for practices and competitions. First we start with high knees and shuffles to get some blood flowing. Then we will do a simple passing warm-up to remind our arms and bodies how to pass correctly and efficiently. Then, of course, there is an arm warm-up so that we can get our shoulders ready to hit the ball. I think of a morning meeting as this kind of warm-up for kids. You have the greeting which prepares them for their interactions with one another that day. Then there is the activity to wake them up and get them excited and engaged to learn. After that comes the sharing to create a greater sense of unity and cohesiveness within the classroom. Finally, there is the announcements portion which will "warm-up" the students minds for what they will face academically that day. I think that it is also crucial to remember these things when we begin teaching each subject. We can't just jump in and expect the best results. For example, when teaching math, you are not just going to start teaching new material, but should start with simple tasks that they know so that they can have success and shift their brains into "math mode."

I also liked in the Differentiation in Practice reading how the author described what differentiated teaching really is. She said that "differentiated teaching is responsive teaching." She didn't say prescribed teaching or set teaching, she said responsive, which means that you have to understand your students before you teach them. She was very careful though to make sure that the readers didn't become teachers that "wing it." She says that we need to have a plan, but that plan needs to be based on the children's readiness, interest and learning profile. She also said that differentiated instruction is the "how we teach" part of responsive teaching. Obviously the who, the what and the where are also part of it, but it is the how that really defines what differentiated instruction is.