Chapter 6

Pg. 91 – “Typically teachers move from “I do it” to “Now you do it” with resulting frustration and failure for many students.”

I am guilty of this in my own classroom, even though I know when done the right way, the OLM really works. Every day seems to be all about a time crunch…and ultimately that leads me to shortchange my students. My goal is to use this model to its fullest potential so that my students receive the breadth of the lessons that will help make them successful when they work independently.

Pg. 93 – “When I embraced “less is more” and had public, in depth conversations with just one or two students about their topic and how they might develop it, the results were dramatic.”

I want to try this. As I think of doing these public conversations in my classroom, however, I have a couple of questions. Do I ask for volunteers or choose a student myself? How many times will I have to do this for the students to be willing to openly talk in front of their peers to the extent that I would like them to? Will this be as awkward as it seems it may be – at least at first?

Pg. 97 – “Finally, very important, I try hard not to repeat what a student has said. Students learn that they need to listen to me and one another the first time, and this allows me more time for instruction.”

This answers my question from an earlier chapter. I never really thought of repeating what a student has said as a time waster. Interesting thought.

Pg. 97 – “Students must have lots of free choice in reading and writing if they are to become readers and writers.”

This is something that we really have to embrace as teachers. We have to figure out ways to teach what needs to be taught while still giving students choices. They need to have ownership of their learning.

Pg. 104 – “We need to be relentless in not doing for students what they can figure out for themselves.”

I think the biggest issue standing in the way of this is time. I know for myself I sometimes end up allowing students to depend on me simply because we don’t have the time at that particular moment for the student to figure it out, and that can be detrimental to the student.

Pg. 107 – “Exchanging several writing samples (without names) from each other’s classrooms, Cami and Kaylene modeled how to use the newly created rubric to score a paper and set goals for improvement.”

Great idea! I am going to use this. Regie continues to give ideas of how this could work…I especially like the suggestion that we have students make a list of what the writer could improve upon. I also would like to try having my students score their own writing samples, make a list of what they have done well, and a list of what they need to improve.