C4T #4

Middle School Matrix
Hadley is a Middle School History teacher at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her most recent blog post, Brain Research for the Classroom #ASCD, was done to see the learning pattern of the kids in a classroom. What they found was amazing! She found that no matter what the task, after 20 minute of class the students lost focus. She decided that she was going to change her teaching strategy to accomodate this learning  pattern. 
I think this is a great idea. If we know the learning pattern of our students, we can plan our lessons around these intervals. This is definitely something that I will think about when making lesson plans for my classroom.


It's Always in the Eyes was a very inspiring blog post. Hadley described the passion of an elementary teacher, Liliana Aguas, who won the ASCD's Outstanding Educator Award. The most interesting fact was that the teacher had not planned to be a teacher, she actually wanted to be a scientist. It wasn't until she took an education class her senior year in college that she changed her mind. Hadley says that the sparkle in her eyes said it all. I love knowing that there are still teachers out there that have the passion to teach children. So many people want to become a teacher because of all the holidays off, or the health benefits that they really do not take pride in what they do. They do not understand that they have the power to shape the lives of these young children.