Exponential Teaching

The article titled, "Teaching to the Fourth Power" demonstrated the importance of incorporating a variety of ideas into a lesson, as well as the vitality of differentiating instruction. The four T's: Transmission, transaction, transmediation and transformation are able to provide new teachers, like myself with some ideas on how to better instruct a diverse group of learners. I think this article can be a powerful piece of information when dealing with education, because it points out the many roles teachers must play in the classroom in order to be effective. It seems as though sometimes, it is easy for people to get caught up in the monotony of attending school everyday to "teach"; but some people lose track of why they are there and forget to instruct students to the best of their abilities.

In my opinion, it is vital that teachers carry out each role they are to play both inside and outside the classroom. I feel that the knowledge and understanding of multiple intelligence plays a key role in any lesson planning, and I try to take that into consideration when planning a class-project. One example of a recent project assigned to my non-RampUp English I class was a magazine project. Currently, we are reading Harper Lee's, To Kill A Mockingbird. As a result, I wanted to give students a chance to be creative with their big project (which is due next week). Students are to write a number of articles, analyze an art or musical selection of their choice (from the 1930s), draw a certain amount of pictures, etc. The assignment was created to help students who do not always test well, but have strong talents in other areas. (Some of my students' drawing abilities are absolutely amazing and I do try to incorporate that into projects when given the chance.)

This article helped further my knowledge on the importance of differentiating instruction. I already see, on a daily basis, how important it is to showcase a variety of both student and teacher strengths. This article just made me think more about the last blog entry I submitted, which centered on the curriculum I teach; and how I feel it fails to include as many forms of evaluations and skills testing as possible. Perhaps this article should be distributed to more than just teachers sometimes...

I have a dream...

An everyday text that was recently introduced to my students centered on Martin Luther King Jr's, "I Have a Dream" speech. First, I had my students complete a popcorn reading, and their enthusiasm was more than amazing. Then, we collectively listened to a recording of MLK giving his speech.

The assignment that followed had each student writing his/her own dream. Their words were moving and I plan on taking pictures of their essays to post on here by the end of the week. I was able to relate this assignment to the reading because of the way the students were able to connect to a text and use what they were given to communicate their own personal dreams. Some students wrote about dreams they have regarding their lives, while others discussed dreams similar to those of MLK. It was an amazing experience to see my students compare their thoughts with those of such a respected historical figure.