Lisa P.'s AEDU 335 Blog

    Good morning, everyone! This week's reading in AMLE  focused on the all the factors that play key roles in creating a supportive, safe, and inviting classroom and school climate. These factors include the following: respect among staff and teachers, among students and teachers, and peer to peer, encouragement and positive feedback, fairness, advocacy by adults, the inclusion of support staff at middle schools, and connection between school and family life.      All of these factors are significant in creating an environment where students feel free to express their developing opinions, to learn as much as they can, and to do those things knowing they are safe, supported, and valued. I discussed this a little bit in a previous blog post, but I feel it is worth expressing again: often times middle school age students feel like they are not heard, or dismissed by adults. If educators and schools together work towards making these students feel valued a...

     Happy Saturday, everyone!     The topic of the content this week was differentiated instruction. The first article emphasized what DI is NOT. It offered that differentiated instruction is not individualized, chaotic, a way to provide homogeneous grouping, or just for outliers. I am actually really glad this article was assigned to read. I think the term "differentiated instruction" is a bit intimidating because of the emphasis that our program- and I suppose many other education programs-  put on its utilization in the classroom. To quite honest, I was not 100 percent sure what it entailed until the articles assigned this week. The part of the first article that resonated with me was the idea that DI is NOT a way to provide homogeneous grouping.       I think that schools in the past often utilized the practice of grouping students with those of similar intellectual abilities together in the classroom. In fact, I do not think that t...

     Hello classmates! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!     The article and our text reading this week focused on effective leadership, specifically the role of a school principal. There were common themes between the two readings. First, both readings emphasized a goal of closing the learning gap and creating high expectations for ALL students. Another common theme in our readings was the idea that an effective leader works collaboratively with all people who have a stake in the education of the students: teachers, staff, parents, community members, and the students themselves. Additionally, an effective leader- or principal- will utilize the strengths of his/ her staff to the increase effective learning and a positive school culture. Lastly, both readings emphasized the importance of continuing educational development for teachers as well as remaining current on evidence based best practices for teaching.      In our readings, the id...

Hello, everyone! Happy St. Patrick's Day weekend!      This week's reading in AMLE focused on essential characteristics of middle school curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The reading wove several ideas for developmentally responsive attributes that should be explored in depth when considering developing curriculum, instruction, and assessment. I noticed connections from the text among all three areas. First, it is important for teachers and students to work together to explore content and develop skills. Instruction should include a variety of strategies that can cross content areas to maximize real learning, not just learning facts. Secondly, I saw that student involvement in designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment can be very beneficial to the students. It can help the teacher prepare lessons that include various student interests to engage them in the lessons and learning process. Lastly, assessment should focus on the improvement of each student in ...

   Good evening! I am Lisa Pesavento. I am currently studying to become a Secondary History teacher with an endorsement in Middle Grades Social Sciences. I spent a long time looking for a career choice that would satisfy my love for history and sharing my knowledge and skills with others, and found this program is a perfect fit for me. I have two children: a one year old daughter and a thirteen year old son. This course is rather timely, seeing as how my son just recently became a teenager! He is in 7th grade, and it is really a fantastic resource to have him and his friends to question about what kind of activities they find helpful, what they have a hard time tolerating, what is important to to them, and what kind of lessons and activities they would enjoy participating in the classroom. It's extremely helpful for me, and this insight will be an asset when I enter my future classroom.      In  This We Believe,  our text reading focused on the the f...