Differentiation+-+Fom+Planning+to+Practice+Grades+6-12+by+Rick+Wormeli

Rick Wormeli
**One o ﻿ f the first Nationally Board Certified teachers in America, //Rick Wormeli// brings innovation, energy, validity and high standards to both his presentations, and his instructional practice, which includes 30 years teaching math, science, English, physical education, health, and history and coaching teachers. Rick's work has been reported in numerous media, including ABC's Good Morning America, Hardball with Chris Matthews, National Geographic and Good Housekeeping magazines, What Matters Most: Teaching for the 21st Century, and the Washington Post. //Rick Wormeli// is a columnist for the National Middle School Association's Middle Ground magazine, and he is the author of the award-winning book, Meet Me in the Middle, as well as the best-selling books, Day One and Beyond, Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom, Differentiation: From Planning to Practice, Grades 6-12, Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching any Subject, all five from Stenhouse Publishers, as well as Summarization in any Subject, published by ASCD, and the Homework foldout from Incentive Publications. His classroom practice is a showcase for ASCD's best-selling series, "At Work in the Differentiated Classroom," and //Rick Wormeli// is a contributing author to Middle School Matters and Because You Teach, published by Incentive Publications. ** =  = = = = =

=**Rick Wormeli on Differentiation** = =media type="custom" key="9302760" =

= = = = =Chapter 4 Summary = In this chapter Rick Wormeli points out that the greatest single tool that teachers can use is how the human mid learns. By understanding this teachers will be able to create better ways to reach all students. To differentiate effectively teachers must keep up with the latest cognitive science for their students at their grade level every year. The first section ends with a list of resources about how adolescent minds learn on page 99. The next topic is that of building background knowledge. Research contends that the human mind commits very little information to long-term memory unless it connects to something already stored there. Teachers must either frequently tap into it or create it for the students in order for them to successfully store information. They point out that Robert Marzano's "Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement" 2004, is an excellent resource. Our capacity to retrieve information down the road depends on how we sort and structure concepts and skills in our minds. To help with this it is suggested that we prime the students' minds for learning. Two things must be communicated with students as we prime their minds for learning. 1) Tell or show them what they will get out of the experience - Learning Objectives. 2) Tell or show them what they will encounter as they move through the lesson - Itinerary or Agenda. Resources to help teachers included Cris Tovani's "I Read It, but I Don't Get It", David Sousa's "How the Brain Learns" and Marilee Sprenger's "How to Teach So Students Remember." Major emphasis was put on the Primacy-Recency Effect. Best explained by Dr. David Sousa humans remember best what we first experience and remember second best what we last experience. In other words we need to front end and back end our lessons for significant learning to occur. In designing differentiated lessons we must include all essential ideas or skills in the first 10-15 minutes of class and revisit these concepts in the last 10 minutes either through summarization or application. Rick sugguests to try and get two or more of these cycles through every class period. It was noted that students learn more when they recognize similarities and differences among terms, objects, and concepts. Teaching students to identify close and remote connections is a useful differentiation strategy. He went on to say that making these connections successfully is tied to the hydration level of students. Rick Wormeli said that dehydrated students struggle to make connections necessary for learning and suggested that you give water breaks daily. Successful teachers cultivate a classroom environment that is safe and inviting. This environment reduces student's anxiety and encourages them to learn. Rick Wormeli gives several strategies to focus on relationship building with students on page 106. One critical one I want to point out is the example about making sure your students experience real competence in your classroom. Rick Wormeli states that like it or not we need to create ways to compete for our students' attention in this day and age of sound-bite news, accelerated downloads, and fast food to go. The mundane he says dulls student thinking, we must instead excite the brain. He suggests novelty, which includes creating lessons that cause curiosity, anticipation, and suspense to activate their intellects and direct their physical and emotional energy toward positive goals. Along with novelty he also made it clear that as teachers we must meet our students survival needs for them to be successful learners. It simply means we need to genuinely care about our students lives in and out of class. In regards to memory Rick Wormeli says that research shows that elements of memories are stored in different parts of the brain. This means we need to engage students in a variety of ways with a topic so they can secure a wider network of their memory's storage. This will then allow them to retrieve information easier at a later time. Spiraling your curriculum was given as an example of how you can keep your students neurons firing, thus keeping your learning fresh. At the end of the chapter Rick Wormeli talks about how the brain requires interaction to remember things well. Students need social interaction with each other to discuss their learning. We must he says encourage and enable students to ask more questions and teach ourselves and them how to ask quality questions. In this section Rick Wormeli gives a dynamite example of how to get learning conversations in your classroom that you will like to read on page 111. ||
 * =  ||< ** by Dean and [|ChiefDog] **
 * =  ||< ** by Dean and [|ChiefDog] **