I found
Rutherford’s book to be the most helpful to me in preparing lessons and, I
feel, I will likely utilize this book frequently when creating future plans.
Finding ten takeaways from this book was extremely easy. I could almost just
take ten pages in a row and be comfortable calling them my favorites. You’ll
note by my page numbers, that I didn’t ‘quite do that, but I came very close!
1)
Student-Led Book Discussions (Rutherford, 2012,
pg56)
Rationale:
This is an excellent activity for getting students to collaborate together in
groups helping each other through the learning process.
2)
Class Mind Maps (Rutherford, 2012, pg59)
Rationale:
The single hardest part of writing (or creating anything for that matter) is
and always will be just ‘getting started’. Mind Maps are an excellent method
for allowing free associative thinking while providing a flexible framework for
organizing thoughts.
3)
Mnemonics (Rutherford, 2012, pg60)
Rationale:
Most students don’t understand that they use Mnemonics every day when they
memorize songs and jingles, etc. They’re incredibly effective tools for memory
retention.
4)
Numbered Heads Together (Rutherford, 2012, pg63)
Rationale: Again, this is an excellent activity for getting students to
cooperate in groups. It also ensures that every student is doing the learning
while only assessing one of them per question.
5)
Paragraph Predictions (Rutherford, 2012, pg65)
Rationale: I like this exercise because it engages
students in higher level thinking about their writing. It also is a great lesson
in understanding natural patterns of thought that we all take for granted but
are, nonetheless, extremely important in conveying ideas clearly
6)
Student-Led Mini-Lectures (Rutherford, 2012, pg
71)
Rationale: This one is simple. There is no better way to
learn a subject than to try and teach it to others.
7)
Invention Convention (Rutherford, 2012, pg 73)
Rationale: The Invention
Convention is an excellent example of authentic assessment. It will help
students to understand how, if they hope to create anything of value in this
world, they will need to utilize multiple skills and abilities to reach a final
product.
8)
Questioning and Prompts (Rutherford, 2012, pg 75)
Rationale: Honestly, I kind of like this one because it
is a ‘work smarter not harder’ planning activity for the teacher yet the
students will get a great deal from doing the exercise.
9)
Reciprocal Teaching (Rutherford, 2012, pg 80)
Rationale: Again, I love this one because I have found
that one learns a subject much more thoroughly if they are attempting to help
others to understand it.
10) Socratic
Seminars (Rutherford, 2012, pg 86)
Rationale: Socratic seminars can be a bit difficult in the
High School environment because students have been trained in a different
teacher-student interaction model. However, if a teacher is able to get
students to engage, they can be tremendously efficient in furthering higher
level thinking.
