Chapter 7

I read this chapter and immediately thought about what I had seen in lab. This semester we are at a school way out in the country. Most of the kids talk about hunting and fishing and wear camouflage all the time. One day the math teacher was teaching about the quadrants of a coordinate plane. To introduce quadrants, he asked each child if they had ever heard of some four-wheeler called the king quad. Most of the students of course had heard of this. Introducing something the students knew using the word quad, gained their interest about quadrants.
Unfortunately, not all students are lucky enough to have a teacher that cares about what their int rests are. I find it very sad that there are teachers out there that do not take the time to get to know their students and therefore the student does not succeed. I think it should be the goal of every teacher to have every student in the class succeed. It should not matter the color of the child's skin, their SES, their cultural background, or even what they are interested in. A teacher should get to know his/her students and what helps them to learn the best.
The tools that Conley mentions are great ways to get to know your students. If used correctly anticipation guides are a great way to see what students know about a topic or idea that is to be taught. I think it is very important for teachers to remember to not hold students accountable for information on an anticipation guide until after the information has been taught. It is also important to go over the anticipation guide before the information is taught and after the information is taught. The Pre Reading Plan is a great way to activate a students prior knowledge. It helps teachers make decisions about how to increase that knowledge. A KWL is a simple tool that can be very easily incorporated into any lesson. With all these tools it is important to remember to revisit what the students predicted/already knew.