NMSA Podcast
I just listened to this great podcast (my first by the way) from the National Middle School Association about a new book written by Cally Stockton called Minds in Motion, Active Learning for the Creative Classroom. This Spanish teacher from Colorado made a collection of her wonderful activities as a gift to her student teacher and has now published them in this book.
This book fits right within the scope of This We Believe in many ways:
1. Leadership and Organization - This book would be great professional development with it's wonderful suggestions for improving the students learning experiences.
2. Culture and Community - The first few activities within the book are for the first weeks of school and can be used to help the students get to know each other as well as aid the teacher in getting to know here students. These activities would aid us in creating that safe, supportive, inviting school environment.
3. Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment - The author comments on how she allowed the students to discover the value of group learning on their own by first having them do a short assignment alone and then allowing them to collaborate. Some of the activities she discusses in her book were either student designed or improved.
Not only do I highly recommend this podcast, I also am going to look for this book. I think it will be a great addition to my tool chest of resources that I pull from to engage my students a challenging curriculum. - Gina Elliott
I really enjoyed listening to Cally Stockton. She sounds like a “real” teacher trying to solve problems in the classroom. I love how she talks about the beginning of the school year games. She takes the time for students to get to know each other and she does as well! I loved how she talked about managing not even behavior but also you are managing energy when you make learning active.
ReplyDeleteSarah Shewmaker