My contribution to the WebQuest wiki

I contributed three links of Civil War WebQuests that I found to be very useful examples of what a successful WebQuest should be.

http://www.stonewall.fayette.k12.ky.us/wq/cwwebquest/civilwar.htm
I found this WebQuest to be very valuable resource for the fancy graphics and transitions while still maintaining good content.

http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/civilwarwq.html
This WebQuest is awesome because of the content and the way it is laid out. I especially liked the task description for its depth.

http://students.umf.maine.edu/~pendlecv/Civil%20War%20Webquest/
I found this WebQuest useful because it is an example of a UMF student and what is expected of the WebQuest that we created.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 10: Going Beyond The Classroom

Steering students towards summer programs and enrichment programs is a great thing to do as a teacher.

It creates a bond with the student that does not cross boundaries. I saw this in Mt. Blue when Mr. St. Onge was encouraging the students to participate in Boy/Girl State and also various sports and sporting camps.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

The thing that struck me in this chapter is the part about the teacher having a bad day and how to effectively do their job regardless.

I think that this is important because you should be able to have a bad day or feel sick but still be able to perform your job. It is important that you seem human to your students and not be a superhero but it is ok to have a bad day as a teacher.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 8: Teaching Tennagers Who Are Still Learning English

The section about building bridges is insane because I was looking for a resource like this.

I have a girl from Vietnam in one of my classes and she understands and is able to speak English pretty well but it is hard to connect with her. One way that we did it was to teach her about the NCAA March Madness Tourney which turned out to be awesome because it connected her with the other kids in the class.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

"Don't leave students to learn entirely on their own."

This part struck me because what are teachers supposed to do. They aren't supposed to leave the learning to the students they are supposed to teach. They are supposed to teach the material and help students learn. It surprises me that students would have the experience of a teacher leaving them to learn the material on their own.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

Keeping the students on top of their workload is very important for motivation.

Mr. St. Onge was a stickler for keeping the students focused on their workload especially for students who missed class. That is why this part jumped out at me because the students did not seem happy that he kept on top of them but the students who wrote this book were.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

I really connected with the beginning of this chapter when the students described the types of students in a class.

I connected with this passage because it made me wonder what type of student I was in high school. I came up with the fact that I was a hybrid of a wallflower and a dreamer. It wasn't really anxiety that was keeping me from raising my hand but rather apathy.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

The part in this chapter that I liked was when Latia was talking about how when certain students get labeled as the ones that participate, nobody benefits.

I feel that this is important because it applies to the classroom. When only a few are giving answers everyone else is left out of the class and then no one is learning anything. It is unfair to the class and the student.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

The one thing that struck me in this chapter was the part about keeping student learning as the top priority.

I liked this part because in my classroom at Mt. Blue that was the main goal and my mentor teacher did a good job of staying on task. In some of our classes the students were not interested in learning but rather talking about in appropriate things and Mr. St. Onge made it clear that the focus and purpose of his classroom was learning.