Ch. 4

"Create time for students to pursue particular areas of interest within your topic or content area-- move beyond the idea that all students must study the same thing at the same time."
I feel that as a teacher this concept will be very difficult for me. I fear that if every student was working on a different topic and a different type of project it would be impossible to grade their work accurately. What kind of rubric would cover an oral report, an essay, and a group project? The purpose of having students study different things concerns me also. In my AP English class we often divided into groups and each group would read a different book from the AP list. Then each group would summarize the book and discuss the main themes in the hopes that the rest of the class would learn enough about the book to use it on the AP test. However, merely listening to a summary and oral review of the book is not enough to actually learn the book. If students each work on their own projects, what is the end goal? Will the rest of the class learn about each others' projects? Will all students be expected to learn something from all projects or is it more on an individual basis? If this concept will work, I think it must be very strategically planned and specific guidelines set up so as to ensure each student is learning a particular standard or concept. 
"Help kids understand that arriving at insights as a result of struggle is worthwhile."
Another dimension to understanding I was unsure about was the idea that you must struggle to acquire true understanding. I agree with this idea, but how can we convince our students of this? Some students are simply not motivated to learn, and asking them to struggle over a particular concept will most likely deter them from even trying. I suppose if the content is something the student is interested in they will be more willing to struggle over it, but otherwise it can be difficult to teach someone self-motivation.