Building a Community of Learners

I truly believe that a student’s will to do good starts from inside the home. However, some students do not have that parent involvement that encourages and motivates them to do good. We, as educators, have and need to be that positive influence in the lives of our students. The first page of this chapter caught my attention because it really talks about the way that we can help our students. It talks about four mind-sets that directly relates to the kind of atmosphere teachers establish in the classroom. They include the following: I belong in this academic community. I can succeed at this. My ability and competence grow with my effort. This work has value to me. I love these mind-sets, but not all of our students are going to think this. It is our job to make them feel comfortable enough so that they KNOW they belong in this academic community. It is our job to help them, support them, and motivate them so they know that they CAN succeed. It is our job to show them that when they truly try and put forth the effort, that their ability and competence WILL grow. It is our job to prove to them that their work DOES have value and that everything we strive to do for them in the classroom with hopefully help them now and for the long-run. This chapter describes multiple ways to show students that their teachers care. Some of these include, making the classroom a place where students trust their teachers, organize in a way that lets students work together and help one another, provide students with ways to take responsibility in the classroom, connect learning with the lives of our students, etc. I really enjoyed reading about each of these because it allows our students to become more involved in our classrooms and hopefully will make them feel like this is a safe place to learn and grow with their peers.

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How to Use A Textbook

I have never had a teacher have a lesson on how to use a text book. However, I think it would be a good thing to have and very useful for our students. I think a lot of students are overwhelmed by the amount of material that textbooks provide. If they knew what all the information was and where or how to find certain information, it could become more useful to them and less overwhelming. I also think the reading strategies used during this chapter would be very helpful. Students do not want to read every text book front to back. I really liked the jigsawing strategy. This gives students a chance to really engage in a certain part of the text. Also, since they have to explain the part that they read to the other groups, they have to dig in and really understand it so that they are able to give a good explanation to other groups. This way they will get a good understanding of the text and in return, the other groups will also get a good understanding of the text. It is hard to get students excited and involved when using textbooks and these strategies could really help them start to enjoy it slightly more. In the chapter it mentioned that teachers don’t take the time to have a lesson on how to use a text book because the first few days of school are really busy and there is a lot of paper. However, if they took a chance on it, they feel that it was useful for them and their students in the long run.

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Lisa Bu and the Importance of Reading

https://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_bu_how_books_can_open_your_mind?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread

The importance of reading really struck me in Subjects Matter. In this Ted talk, Lisa Bu explains how she adjusted to her life in the United States through books. She used them to expand her mind. Lisa Bu had an interesting way to approach books. She would read a book and then compare it to another book in a different culture. She would explore books in different ways. This is a good way for our students to learn. Reading is so important and it does help them expand their thoughts and outlook on topics. There are so many different ways to explore books and compare them. In comparing books, students can make deep connections between the two. Sometimes answering the questions: How are they different? How are they similar? Students can also pick books out that interest them. When they are practicing their reading skills, it is important that they are choosing books that they want to read. Hopefully in this way, they won’t get frustrated when they get stuck on a word or struggle to read a sentence. They will keep trying because they actually want to read the book they picked out. Practice makes perfect and that is what is going to help these students in all of their subjects, reading.

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Toward a Balanced Diet of Reading

During my high school classes of reading and writing, my teachers started making us get our sources from two or three different types of sources. For example, we could have gotten our sources from the internet, a magazine article, a book, etc. During the time I had to write these papers I thought it was annoying and inconvenient to have to have to find information from different sources when I already found all the information I needed in one source. Now, I understand why my teachers wanted us to venture out and read different sources. Students are so use to only needing to understand their textbook that they forget about all the other types of sources they can learn from and get information from. Not all are easy to read either which is another good reason why students need to try them out and see if they can analyze and understand the material. It may help them learn to take a part pieces of a writing and study it to realize what the words are saying. This will also teach them about the many different possibilities that can come from different sources. The range of views and the variety of ideas are endless. These sources give them a chance to look beyond the given text book. Maybe one of your students isn’t fully understanding what is going on in class or they are bored with the topic. This is a perfect opportunity to suggest them with an interesting novel about the same topic to keep them intrigued or to help them better understand. Students learn differently from one another so different sources will relate to different students in many ways. Either way, students are getting a wider range of resources to use to explore their curriculum.

Provide this student with another source!

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