TAMU Meeting 2

Second meeting with TAMU went very well.  About 75 minutes and we basically adjourned although we were still going strong.  Topics included how to determine the usefulness of technology as compared to the time spent introducing it to students, how to police student activity and keep them on task, differentiating and having other assignments available for the quicker students.

The meeting went very well though it offered less to me as the direction it took was more about how to run your classroom and manage student behavior. This is not to say that I believe that I am perfect at it, indeed, each year offers new challenges as I change curriculum in what I like to think of as a very fluid and differentiated environment.  What was most instructional to me was the commentary from the other participants about how I organize and run my classroom.  I realized more than anything that I need to further differentiate and consistently differentiate through each unit - something I have thought of but have been somewhat slow to do in midstream.  I have been looking forward to spring and summer breaks to even out the units within my class.

We were also in a different environment for this meeting - sitting on grass as opposed to in the circles.  There didn't seem to be much difference in the group dynamic.  I think this was because we were still surrounded by  grassy area and not in a very classroom type of setting.  I also have been fortunate in that my group is very prepared and willing to share their ideas and even to reconsider their position.

Perhaps the most enlightening moment to the TAMU collective was after they adamantly argued against allowing head phones and multi-tab searches (where students might be looking up unrelated topics).  SAfter they almost unanimously said no, I asked them if they and anything else going on and they all  admitted having TV, radio, or e-mail open.

We ended by just deciding to, though we were still very much into our discussion.  We concluded , once again, that nothing is as clear cut as we might wish and that differentiating doesn't necessarily only apply to how students learn, but how perhaps even how they are allowed to multitask.