reflection on memorandum (blog 8)

This past unit helped me gain a lot of interesting information in regards to classroom management, classroom teaching techniques, various students and their needs, and much more. I enjoyed how we were set up and how we used designated class times to interact with one another before attempting the drafts of the memorandum. I was a little confused about what exactly we needed to include, but, after going over it in class, I knew exactly what to expect and what I wanted to include. I think that this assignment opened a lot of our eyes in to the "real" world of teaching and that we may be asked to research on recommendations for the school(s) that we will be working at. I feel that someday we may be asked by our fellow staff members, principals, and/or possibly our district to find what can be used differently in our classrooms. I took on this assignment as if I was already an elementary teacher and tried my best to convey that my recommendations would definitely help our school.

I worked on two drafts before turning in my final draft last week and felt that my time during peer editing gave me confidence that my memorandum was leading towards the right direction. In my memorandum, the recommendations that I listed included that students should have a choice of what to write about, modeling is key, ensuring the classrooms that writing is a social process and the power of feedback. I thought these recommendations are something that teachers need to work on more and by doing so, I feel that students will learn to enjoy writing more and respect their teachers when they accomplish the same things in the class with the rest of the class. Did that make sense???

The wiki site took the time to get used to, but, I did feel that it helped a lot. Our particular inquiry group made the graphs on the actually annotated bibliography page so that we can go to it anytime versus the large paper the teacher ad given us. I felt that placing the graphs on the actually wiki site worked much better that the paper form. In the future, maybe that could be a requirement so that other inquiry groups can use it for quick reference.

Overall, I do think that this was an excellent assignment. It made me realize that we can be put into this position and our recommendations could possibly make a difference. In other classes, group discussions always lead to what can we do as teachers change what needs to be change within our schools, communities, districts, classrooms, and etc....wouldn't this be a great example of attempting to change what we would like to see change. I think the assignment gave us an insight and a good experience with writing memos in our future careers.