Kristine+W

=**Observations:**= 1: **Making content meaningful:** The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students. 2: **Child development and learning theory:** The teacher understands how children learn and develop and can provide learning opportunities that support their intellectual, social, and personal development. 3: **Learning styles/diversity:** The teacher understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners. 4: **Instructional strategies/problem solving:** The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills. 5: **Motivation and behavior:** The teacher uses an understanding individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagements in learning, and self-motivation. 6: **Communication/knowledge:** The teacher uses knowledge of effective verbal, nonverbal and media communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom. 7: **Planning for instruction:** The teacher plans instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, students, the community, and curriculum goals. 8: **Assessment:** The teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner. 9: **Professional growth/reflection:** The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of his or her choices and actions on others (students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community) and who actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally. 10: **Interpersonal relationships:** The teacher fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support students’ learning and well being.

- Indifference about students behavior shown by first teacher of the class. In fact he was in the lounge when he should have been in class.
====- I found this clip terrifying. It is a nightmare of mine to find myself in a situation where the school staff is indifferent and unsupportive and the students purpose for going to school is the emotional abuse of teachers and debauchery.====

- Lesson one was concerning grabbing your students attention. Specifically using the call and response of class and yes. This method works, even on masters students.
====- Lesson two introduced the five classroom rules. 1) Follow directions quickly, 2) Raise your had to talk in class, 3) Raise your had to leave your seat, 4) Make smart choices and 5) Keep your dear teacher happy. Each of these is accompanied by a had motion and is designed to increase student engagement. Which is what we want, students paying attention to the lesson they are to be learning.==== ====- Lesson three discussed that these rules are to be fun. Learning them is fun and performing them can be fun too. This is particularly true of rule one. Make passing papers out fun, give the opportunity for students to shout and cheer. Again this is all about engagement of students to the activity at hand. Biffle also introduces the idea of a score board, however hasn't fully explained it.==== ====- Lesson four states the difficulty of getting students to raise their hands in class when they want to talk. This, he says is the most difficult, however most rewarding of all rules for students to master. He encourages teachers trying to implement rule two to use the times of mass talking to practice rule two, using it as a prompt to get kids refocused on the task at hand. So, when students are talking call out "Rule Two" and students will respond with "Raise your hand to speak in class." Now students are practicing the rule and then are also focused on what you need them to be focused on.==== ====- Lesson five discusses rule three, raise your had to get out of your seat. Again Biffle suggests that you practice this rule by having students break the the rule first. Again using call and response with the rule to get students attention. Again this is tremendously empowering for the teacher. By asking the students to break the rule, and consequently them performing that task they are still following your instructions and are engaged with the lesson. Again, the score board is used as a reward system. Biffle also acknowledges that sometimes rule three needs to be broken because of an activity the class may be participating in. He gives the suggestion of placing a colored sticky note next to rule three when it is alright to break it. I believe this would also encourage student engagement with the rule, how fun would it be to be given permission to break the rules.====

**Blooms Taxonomy**
====I agree that Blooms Taxonomy should be used to direct lesson planning. Like one of our videos states, we should change the words from descriptors and into verbs, especially for content and language objectives. This I believe does at least two things for the lesson planner and teacher. 1. We are able to determine which of our methods encourages how deep our students learning is. I have a list of Blooms verbs with "sub-verbs" (if you will). For example it has the Bloom verb analysis and underneath is a slew of action words like: prioritize, debate, correlate and classify. 2. It will help unit planning, where we can gradually increase the complexity of understanding and comprehension required by the teacher. Furthermore this will help teachers accommodate the diverse learning population within the classroom, with more complex tasks like synthesis for more advanced students.====

Blooms Taxonomy videos can be found at the following links:
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1. Ms. Mack is ENGAGING! from the moment her students entered her classroom she had them curious in her class and what was going to come next within the class.
====2. There is no wasted time within the classroom. Ms. Mack is prepared for her students and her lesson of the day, there is no wasted time in trying to find supplies, pass out papers. Urgency and preparedness are values that are introduced to her students as being a priority. Our author makes note of this herself "it was impossible to play any distraction games." (1989, p. 6) Furthermore, her instructions both verbally and visually (using transparencies) lead to no misunderstanding from the class.==== ====3. The class, while lead by the teacher, is student driven. It is their answers and their inquiries that drive Ms. Mack's responses. This provides for a dynamic class, but most importantly also provides on sight assessment of what the students are comprehending.====

5. No student answered a question wrong in her class. This encouraged cooperation between the teacher, student and the activity they were participating in.
====6. Learning activities were done both alone and as a whole. Students were asked to reflect with their peers and to share information. Again, Ms. Mack stated that good scientists share information. In fact the mantra of "good scientists do..." was repeatedly used.====

7. The homework was reflective not drill. Impressive and more likely to have more participants.

 * //The Easy Teacher// continued **

Chapter 2


 * It appears that Ms. Mack is establishing a routine, music, mystery, recording.
 * Supporting answers with evidence. The students had filled in what they thought E.A.S.Y stood for in relation to Ms. Mack, however it wasn’t enough to say she was energenic, awesome, suspicious etc. they had to justify, with evidence from their previous class why these words fit the acrostic.
 * Ms. Mack had students review the days previous lesson. This has helped her connect that days content to past knowledge to the current lesson.
 * Ms. Mack used her small group trios to inform a new student of what they had missed.
 * Students are given verbal and visual prompts and instruction before they are asked to do something.
 * Students are encouraged to ask a lot of questions, Ms. Mack is open to all of these questions, treats them non-judgmentally, which encourages more questions.
 * There are written tasks, not fill in the blanks or multiple choice. This is truly developing critical thinking skills.

Chapter 3
 * Anticipation, Ms. Mack keeps her students guessing at their next tasks. Again, back to mystery.
 * There is a lot of humor within the classroom, either giggles at the teacher, each other or the task at hand. There is humor and enjoyment of the interaction between students and teacher.
 * While sometimes irritating this teacher does not want to interfere with her students discovery. They ask a lot of questions, many of which she responds with a question, the students, in this manner answer their own questions.
 * Expectations are being set all of the time, furthermore these

Chapter 4
 * In our previous day, Ms. Mack and her students had collected unfinished business that the students and the teacher want to come back to and speak on. Today Ms. Mack went back through that list and addressed each on.
 * Ms. Mack is making connections between science and other subjects, her example is music, while she specifically is using classical music she creates the analogy beautifully. She is connecting the science content outside of the classroom, I believe it really drives home the interconnectedness of subjects. So often students don’t create these connections for themselves, especially in subjects like math and science.
 * The Spect family is introduced to the class.
 * The Johari Window is introduced.
 * Ms. Mack gives credit to the musicians, theorists and researchers who came up with these works she is referencing in class. Such a good practice.
 * Ms. Mack provides each new theory/idea with a concrete example.
 * Multiple intelligences are engaged, a readers theater, small group work, visual, auditory, very nice.
 * Again, record, record, record, as students find terms they are unfamiliar with they are asked to write these down and then the definition is given/discussed. Students are also asked to record interesting facts they may have come across, either within class, but most especially out.
 * Our “S” in E.A.S.Y. is skepticism, which the students discover in a very apt readers theater that not only addresses science but history as well.

Chapter 5
 * Our author is engaged in the class, she is going home and talking about this class with her family, who are in turn also excited and engaged. This has lead to an environment where the whole family is thinking about the class and what out author is going to do and learn next. This would be the ideal, to have students sharing with their family and friends.
 * Here a routine has been established, students understand that when they here Mahler’s symphony they are to be writing in their journals.
 * Journal writing may or may not be prompted, however it is always timed, which requires the students to be succinct.
 * Questioning skills are really highlighted in the activity Ms. Mack has her class do. (Card with animal on each students back, can only ask yes or no questions.)
 * She uses the example of the Woody Allen card and a specific breed of horse to encourage students to think beyond the most basic classification, that it is important to continue to ask questions even though you think you may have the correct answer.
 * Ms. Mack brought in students from her past classes to present in her class. Each of these presentations is dynamic and diverse. I believe it provides a role model for the current students and also reinforces that science and the skills you learn while doing science is applicable to many different subject areas.
 * For these presentations Ms. Mack dresses professionally, I have a feeling she will require all of her students to do the same when they give presentations.
 * The presentations are entertaining, not just full of facts... Just goes to show, you can do both.