Comments4Teachers 2

For my second Comments for Teachers assignment, I read 3 blog posts by Caren Carillo. She is a history teacher who implements technology in her classroom through videos, podcasts, and blogging. The following are links to the posts I commented on, a little about each one, and my comments.

Classroom Management: Commercial Breaks and Attention Spans

This post tells how Ms. Carillo schedules her class period. It is a great example of how to keep the students from getting bored with the class.

My comment:

Hi Ms. Carrillo,

I have been assigned to read a few of your posts for Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I appreciate the great advice for structuring a class period you provide here. As a future teacher, I want to learn all I can about how successful teachers do things and incorporate those tactics in my classroom. I also watched the multiple intelligences video and think it is terrific!

You can visit our EDM 310 class blog here and my personal class blog here.

Thermometer or Thermostat?

This post talks about teachers being either thermometers or thermostats. The quote I am referring to by Dr. Ginott is,

“I have come to the frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or hear. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, a child humanized or dehumanized.”

My comment:

Ms. Carillo,

I really love the quote by Dr. Haim Ginott you included here. I will also keep a copy of it available for when I have my own classroom. Teachers should definitely strive to be thermostats! Thanks for the inspiration!

You can visit our EDM 310 class blog here and my personal class blog here.

Assessing Gate Students

This post describes what Ms. Carrillo learned from a recent research article explaining how teachers can identify gifted students in their classrooms.

My comment:

Ms. Carrillo,

I appreciate you posting this article and your comments about what you learned from it. In the teacher education program they are trying to incorporate making sure we know what to look for to find students with learning disabilities, but knowing how to find gifted students is not emphasized as much. There may be fewer students who qualify for GATE, but we should make sure those who do are being identified.

I agree that providing specific criteria to teachers will help identify more students who are gifted. I also like that you pointed out students labeled as GATE may not need differentiated instruction for all subjects. We need to find what areas they need it for and not just assume they will need accelerated instruction for all subjects. I think a lot of teachers believe a student is either gifted or not, but it makes more sense they could be gifted in some areas and not in others.

I am commenting as part of an assignment for Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. Click here to visit our class blog or here to visit my personal class blog.