ch. 4: Active Learning of Meet Me in the Middle

Active learning is the best form of learning. It is determined that if the students are not interested in the subject or engaged in the content then they are NOT there yet. We, as teachers, must find ways to push are students to be there all the time and be willing to grow and learn. Wormeli described many ways to activate learning in the classroom that I will keep in mind when I have a classroom of my own. Reading the setup of the student who did not catch on to learning ratios helped me zoom in on the different aspects of teaching. Teaching is not sitting in a room listening to the teacher talk for 90 minutes. Teaching is involved, interactive and involves movement of all the multiple intelligences. We can have active learning by kinesthetic, verbal, musical, spatial or naturalistic involvement. As Wormeli said, “movement helps transfer an abstract idea into a tangible sensory impression.” Before setting up an activity, we must know clear, essential information to pass on. In my high school, we were allowed to take a ceiling tile home and write a quote, paint a picture or illustrate a word that meant a lot to us. When we finished the tile it would go back in the ceiling as be a place for eyes to wonder when in thought or trying to gain ideas or brainstorm. This active learning idea that Mr. Hamel used is like Wormeli’s maintaining a bulletin board, carousel brainstorming, adding papers to wall and diagrams with chalk. Some of Wormeli’s ideas are very useful and some I would have to tweak to fit for an English classroom. Rap songs, the “wave”, rewriting traditional songs, summary ball, Olympics, punctuation marks, demonstrating pronouns and drama are the ideas I will most likely use. Overall, movement and motivation work hand and hand and lead to engagement and growth in all classrooms.