Chapters 6 and 7 Daniels and Zemelman

           One of the most important aspects of teaching is to make a community in your classroom. A community helps serve all the needs of the individual and are crucial for a fully functioning learning community. At times, I get hung up over the intricacies of how to deliver a topic without focusing on all the necessary factors that need to be done beforehand, such as promoting a community. On page 203, Daniels and Zemelman share some research out of the University of Chicago that describes four academic mind sets that “relate directly to the atmosphere teachers establish in the community.” These four mind sets help simplify how to create a community of learners. I think the most difficult of these to promote is the one that says “my ability and competence grow with my effort” because students can become discouraged when the content gets tough. In math and science courses, I saw a lot of students get frustrated and not believe that their effort translated to a higher grade, which it doesn’t always do. In eighth, ninth, and tenth grade, I gave up on math several times because my effort didn’t result in a higher score and I felt helpless. In the context of this chapter, none of those classes were a community of learners.

Of the many strategies Daniels and Zemelman outline to promote a community of learners, the section on book clubs stood out to me. My first book club experience was in high school, but my first real experience with last semester in Dr. Horwitz’s MLED 330 class. Dr. Horwitz gave us a choice of several books to read and I chose to read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. My group and I divided the novel into three sections and read them by certain dates on which we would discuss what we read. Each of us would choose one role from a list to help us contribute to the group. Some of these roles were illustrator, summarizer, cool connector, and questioner. The roles helped the group work efficiently and got us thinking in detail about the book. I found this to incredibly helpful and it gave a meaning to reading. As a book club, we became a community of learners and actually did some research on Native American tribes. In science, I plan on using this technique for reading small articles from the news or excerpts from scientific papers. I think this will promote a community of learners and also help my students to think like researchers in biology.