Chapter 4

At school I am currently in the midst of observing teachers. As I read the Theory into Action guidelines on page 116, I found many strategies listed in this section on applying information processing that I have observed my staff doing in their classrooms. Many examples are listed below:

• Moving around the room, using gestures, and avoiding speaking in a monotone. A 6th grade reading teacher spoke in accents when discussing a novel about Hispanic Americans (she has a degree in Spanish).
• Beginning a lesson by asking a question that stimulates interest in the topic. A 7th grade reading intervention teacher presented a riddle at the beginning of class, the topic of which was related to the read aloud that followed. He also gave students a tip on how to use thinking strategies to solve the riddle.
• Note the information on the board in colored chalk. I included this example only because chalk boards no longer exist in our school. However many teachers utilized their SmartBoards to enhance their instruction. I was impressed that most teachers didn't use them only as glorified white boards.
• Have students work with partners to quiz each other. One of the 7th grade math teachers paired up students with their clock partners (student pairs preselected by an hour of the day prior to class). They were instructed to find equivalent decimals and exponents.
• On the following page in the textbook, I even found a questioning technique to help aid my discussion when I go into homerooms to discuss bullying prevention. At the end of my presentation, I have the two questions developed by Nancy Perry on page 117 to help students reflect on what they learned: "What did you learn about yourself as a student today?" and "What did you learn that you can do again and again and again?".

With these classroom observations, I would surmise that my staff's teaching philosophies primarily revolve around the cognitive view of learning. My view is that this approach is very appropriate for the middle school setting. Adolescents are starting to become aware of their own thinking and are able to think abstractly.

A question came up as I read the Point/Counterpoint sidebar on whether homework is a valuable use of time. How do leaders in a building get teachers to adopt practices that are proven effective yet not accepted by veteran educators because it is hard to change? Staff members in my building have attended conferences by Guskey, O'Connell and Wormeli, yet a few of them still do not employ what they know to be best practices. For example, points are still given to students for getting their parent letter signed and turned in at the beginning of the year. This is a distortion of their grade according to the experts listed above, and I couldn't agree more. As my kids start to enter school I hope their teachers use best practices in assessment and grading so I truly know how they are doing in the content areas.

Chapter 3

This chapter delves into the past and current understanding of intelligence. I appreciated that the text touches on the most recent findings that intelligence is dynamic and can be increased through hard work and the use of specific learning strategies. I was fortunate enough to witness this happen in my school. A male student who had been in the cognitive disabilities program since kindergarten was actually exited out of the program because he raised his IQ enough points. This student was very motivated to learn how to read. Every day he volunteered to meet with the counselor and read with him during his study hall time. I believe through simple determination and hard work he was able to increase his intelligence, a promising example for other students with disabilities to follow.

Looking at the information on tracking, I found it interesting that not all tracking is bad, i.e. AP courses for high achieving and gifted students. I understand that remedial courses can have a negative effect on low achieving students. Our local high school I believe does a nice job of offering regular and advanced courses, in line with the text's recommendations. One question that came up was whether or not high schools should strongly encourage all students to take AP courses. Will students with different levels of abilities all make significant progress during the year? What would happen when some students made significant progress but did not score high enough to qualify for college credit? How does a school encourage bright students who do not have post secondary plans to take AP courses? These are a few questions I had as I read this part of the chapter.

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