Ashley Rogers - AEDU 335 Teaching in the Middle Grades

This class has been a great one, and has truly exceeded my expectations.  The readings were great, and the assignments were full of value.  While taking this course, I have also been working full time (45+ hours a week) and taking two other class here at Trinity as well.  I'm not saying this to brag, just that this summer has been a whirlwind for sure, and that I appreciate having a class that is not full of busy work, but rather well planned, insightful readings and projects that really challenged us to think, reflect, and apply our own life experiences.   When I saw this class was a requirement for my license, a part of me thought, “why do I need to take this? There are not many middle school business classes. I plan to teach high school."  But this has been one of the best classes I've taken at Trinity thus far.  I may never teach at the middle school level, but having an understanding of what middle schoolers are facing, what challenges...

I found this week's reading especially interesting because I LOVE talking about culture.  In my previously contexts, it's always been around "corporate culture" which I find such an important topic, so I loved seeing how it translates to schools as well.  Part of my own personal reasoning for leaving the corporate world is because of the corporate culture.  The corporate culture of my company has changed drastically since I first began working here over 10 years ago.  When I first started, everyone seemed happy to be at work.  Meetings were joyful and full of support and laughter.  We celebrated success a lot, and successes even included things like birthdays, or service anniversaries.  But through the years, and with the enhancement of IT, more and more people have been laid off from their jobs, meaning we're working with less people to do the same amount (if not more) work.  It's stressful, and exhausting, and because of the fear of being let...

I'll be honest, when I first heard the term "differentiated instruction" I did assume it was very similar to individualized instruction, which to me, does sound very chaotic.  How could a teacher possibly provide different instruction for nearly every student in the class to meet their needs?  How could this not be chaotic, and how could this be possible in a class that only meets for 40-50 minutes at a time? Both articles actually took away some of the overwhelming feelings that always come up when we talk about differentiated instruction.  I especially like the explanation on edutopia, that described different ways to learn fractions, like watching a video, or cutting a cake (even eating the cake!).  Different instruction can be short, but many different ways to explain/show a lesson is definitely achievable, unlike my previous misconceptions.  This article was also a great reminder that in lesson plans I've written for other classes, I've already incorpo...