Processing and Summarize the Learning

Students must be given the opportunity to process and summarize new information. There are so many ways to do this. When we think of summarizing we automatically think essay or book report. While there is a place for these things, it is important that the students are just regurgitating information. The task given should take them beyond the first level of Bloom's. In order for students to retain the information they must internalize it.

The old standard jigsaw works really well with this. The students have to understand their part of the assignment and teach it to the rest of their group.

One of my favorite vocabulary activities that I assigned my students for vocabulary is to assign them one or two words a day. Before the next day at that same time they must use the assigned word in a conversation at least three times. They would write down who they were talking to, the sentence that spoke the word in, and what the conversation was about.

Another activity I used to assign when I was teaching science, this can be used as either a front loading activity or a review activity. I'd assign each of the students a very small section of the text (sometimes it would be just one paragraph, other times it would all of a particular subheading) and have them become an expert on their assigned section. Then they would make a poster to teach the rest of the class about their section.

A student can memorize almost anything, but to truly understand the information and retain it for any length of time, the students must have time to process and summarize the information.

Classroom Management

I am currently working on a book about classroom management that works in the real classroom. If you are like me, you have read many books and attendend many seminars on classroom management. Everything you hear and read sounds wonderful and doable. Then you stop and look at your particular classroom and you realize that what you heard sounds great, but it's not realistic. What do you do with your classroom?

If your classrooms are anything like mine have been you will look at those faces looking back at you and see a student with Asperegers, a student with PPD (a level of autism), at least one student who speaks no English, several students in the 7th or 8th grade who read about the 2nd grade level. What do you do with this class? How do you teach those very special students and still teach the standards, and keep the kids on and above grade level challenged?

I know that my classes have been the rule instead of the exception. I'm going to write a series of articles about classroom management that works for your classroom. The real classroom. I will give you real strategies that work in the "real" classroom.

I'll start by posting my Philosophy of Education and continue from there. Thank you for taking the time to read me and please feel free to ask questions. If I don't have the answer I will fiind the answer.