pete+wyndorf

[|Amy and Melissa's VoiceThread] 
 * Hi Pete! Here is our VoiceThread. We were unable to get our voices to record..oh well. Enjoy!**

Hello, my name is Pete Wyndorf and I have recently completed the Middle Level Teaching Program at UVM. I was born in Charleston, SC and raised in Bethel, CT. I graduated Keene State in 1997 with a B.A. in Film Production. I will be taking on my first ever teaching job at Milton Middle School this upcoming fall and I'm extremely excited and scared to death.

I'm married to an incredible outdoor educator, and father to a beautiful little 2 year-old girl. I'm a musician and filmmaker and love to create content in the world. I get most jazzed while working with young adolescents to create content of their own like writing, music, photography, and video production.

I would like to add a link to a website that I discovered recently called [|evernote.] It is an extremely helpful and useful organizational tool for students, educators, and others. I use it to organize thoughts, to-do lists, websites, tabs, favorites, research, etc. The coolest feature is that you can record notes through your phone straight to evernote, and you can take photos of text in a library and evernote will convert it to html. Very exciting and useful.

more links: [|prezi.com] Exciting interactive presentation creator for free. [|voicethread.com] Awesome site for adding voice, drawing tools, or text in order to analyze or discuss content. Huge potential for educators especially in Social Studies, English, Art, Science, or even Mathematics. Also free for all.

I love voicethread! Let's do some knock you sox off threading. Ch. 

http://voicethread.com/share/559087/

[|Amy and Melissa's VoiceThread]

Response to article by Evans and Schamberg

I believe that the research being conducted regarding working memory and its true function, limitations, and importance in establishing long-term memory is unbelievably important. It is crucial in so many ways with regards to education, but especially in regard to Evans' and Schamberg's hypothesis that prolonged stress can cause wear and tear on the body in such a way as to negatively affect the ability of the prefrontal cortex to function properly. The implications are profound. Without a functioning working memory, the brain loses its ability to properly plan, form precise language, juggle incoming ideas in order to form new opinions and beliefs, or to solve complex situational problems.

It is also important to note that according to Evans and Schamberg, once a child has experienced a heavy amount of allostatic load, the mind never seems to fully recover. The impact on teaching and society as a whole is significant to say the least. First, we as teachers have a responsibility to our students, regardless of SES to provide a safe and compassionate learning environment. We must remember that the world outside may be cruel, exhausting, and nightmarish, but we can at the very least provide a reprieve from these dangers. Perhaps studies may some day show that in classrooms that incorporated the arts, championed dignity and safety, and valued democracy and dependability would somehow prove to be an equalizer of some proportion to the relentless challenges created by extreme poverty.

Another avenue opened up by this discussion is the idea that those teachers who are in a position to teach high socio-economic students, could take the opportunity to truly understand what it means to be human. To teach the injustices of countless civilizations towards the poor and unlucky. We as a profession must understand that we have a duty to uphold, and that duty does not only apply to certain children, but to all children. As hard as we must work to supply advantages to the disadvantaged, we must equally school the prosperous of what an equitable society looks and sounds like. The fact that the richest and most powerful country in the world is inhabited by so many destitute is criminal, and we as teachers have a duty to shine a light on that fact.  __Twelve Good Teaching Practices__

**1. Always take the time to learn what your students know about a particular subject.

2. For every long-term task, ask students to create their own plan for accomplishing their goals.

3. Remember to incorporate mimicry in teaching. Ask students to recreate great works, analyze them, and truly learn what it means to critique.

4. Ask students to create content as much as possible, but make sure that it has a purpose. Serve the community and the world, not a letter in a grade book.

5. Teach brain behavior and brain function in every subject. Empower learners with the secrets of their own mind.

6. Establish and maintain an open, positive, and highly communicative relationship with your student's parents. Support must be equal and book-ended.

7. Demand the use of language. Ask students to describe themselves, their surroundings, and their emotions as much as possible.

8. Encourage opinions, anecdotes, stories, connections, and experiences as much as possible. Don't be so eager to move on.

9. Insist that students assemble their language accurately and precisely.

10. Allow time for response. Do not expect clear and concise plans, responses, or reflections in a short amount of time.

11. Always incorporate the arts. Allow multiple mediums of expressing understanding.

12. Insist on the critical analysis of their own thinking. Every step of the way encourage the analysis of thinking.**

[|Big Ideas from Zull Homework]

Debbie Meyer [|Personal Project Prezi Link]

http://prezi.com/1304

