CONNECTIONS

BALANCE AND RELATIONSHIP

Math: In math students have to use balance and relationships when working with specific
numbers, equations, graphs, adding, subtracting, and more.
History: Relationships are present when looking at personal relationships or cause and
effect. Balance is used when looking at pro and con lists and also cause and effect.
The concepts of balance and relationship connect not only to the students courses but also
to their lives. This proves to be important to middle school students because as
adolescences they are in the stage of their lives where they are trying to find themselves.
They are balancing school, clubs, sports, friends, family, their emotions and so much more.
They are forming or lacking relationships with their friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, teachers,
siblings, and parents.
These concepts are also in the subjects they are in throughout their school day, spanning to
an interdisciplinary level. These big ideas help to show students how their lives and what
they are learning can connect. Showing these students the connections can ultimately get
their more interested in their students and help them to think on a deeper level about their
lives and their school work.
You can see how a colleague and I used the concept of systems in our math and science unit
below.
(AMLE, 2015)

INSTRUCTION AS MANAGEMENT
To help with management in the classroom I will use motivation as a teaching strategy.
Students will be given choices in which they will decide what they will do or they will use
their specified interests to complete an assignment. This will get the students interested in
what they are going to complete, use higher order thinking, and connect what they are
learning to their lives. There are different types of learning strategies that allow for
students to be interested in what they are doing.
1. Interest Groups- students choose based on what they are interested in and complete
the given assignment that deals with that specific topic.
2. The Profiler- gears activities toward several of the multiples intelligences
3. RAFT- students will take a Role to address a specified Audience in an appropriate
Format about a particular Topic.
These three strategies target students in their favorite way to learn and what they enjoy
most.
This gets the students actively involved and interested in what we are doing, but also
allows for me to manage them behind the scenes. If students are interested, they will be
focused. Students are more likely to engage with information that interests them rather
than everyone having to do the same thing each day.
(Doubet &Hockett, 2016)