The two learning activities from this course that I will continue to use daily are Metacognitive Interview and Think Aloud. The one question that lingers in my mind is whether or not there are metacognitive strategies for teaching math. The easiest part of this course for me was using the Metacognition Strategies and Explicit Teaching Strategies. The most difficult or time consuming was learning the new language and vocabulary for expressing what you were trying to do. I was amazed at the amount of research and information that went into this course and how friendly and interactive it became. On a scale from 1-10, I would give this course a perfect 10+++++. I do not have any recommendations for changes to the Learning Bridge Team of Educators; however, I would like to compliment you on putting together an excellent course. As a Special Educator, I am forever changed and my belief system about learning has been reaffirmed. (Special Education teacher)

The class was great! I learned a lot and was affirmed by the way I already teach as well. Thank you for the opportunity to take my first online course. I would do it again in a heart beat!

I just wanted to let you know that I am using what I learned in Vocab. Strategies every day. I have used it to teach my kids the "question words," more math terms, and a variety of other things. I just wanted to thank you for providing me with such meaningful feedback and continuous support during my learning process. Thank you!!! Judy (Kindergarten teacher)

The folks who took the vocab strategies class last time couldn't say enough about how impressed they were with the class. The staff members who took the class presented to our whole staff.........explaining about the class and why they thought it was so beneficial. They gave 3 examples of how they used the vocab strategies they had learned. They made a graphic for the 5 steps to teaching vocab from the class, and we are all trying to use this method throughout the school. I even used the method to work on a diversity concept with the staff for our diversity goal. Lee (Principal)

I thought I was doing a conscientious job of defining new terms, and vocabulary, but after taking the course and seeing how to use multiple approaches to teaching vocabulary I am doing a better job. Students are immediately involved when explaining, illustrating terms, and they remember them better. The course offered something that could be put to practical and immediate use in the classroom, as well as a review (for us older teachers) of the multiple intelligences and their importance when teaching. (1st grade teacher)

I really enjoyed taking the course during the school year, because I was able to apply the things I was learning right away in my classroom. I also liked the fact that I was able to work at my own pace. I thought it was very helpful to have the meetings with other staff to discuss the lessons as well as what successes other people had implementing what we were learning. We were able to work together and help each other out. Unfortunately, there isn't always time to collaborate with other teachers and help each other improve our effectiveness of our instruction; this course required us to make the time. Overall, I had a very positive experience. I would definitely be interested in taking another course and would suggest it to other teachers. (Middle School teacher)

We put the vocabulary class to immediate use in a 6th grade World Religions unit, part of the social studies curriculum. This is a very difficult unit, and spending the time with the Learning Bridges' model for teaching vocabulary has proved very beneficial in the minds of those of us teaching the unit. The model very directly engages students. Specifically, they became very involved in acting out (30-45 seconds) words such as nirvana, enlightenment, polytheism, faith, sacred, etc., etc. The time spent on vocabulary at the beginning of this unit is now paying off as students prepare their PowerPoint presentations on major world religions. Thank you. (Media Specialist)

Last year as a new teacher in the district, I taught science to sixth graders for the very first time. The second Foss science unit, Levers and Pulleys, was a "bear" for me to teach and for the students to learn. The unit was very technical with many new scientific concepts and vocabulary terms. This school year, I experienced 180 degrees in turn-a-round with respect to teaching the Levers and Pulleys unit. The main reason for this improvement was due to my recent completion of the Learning Bridges course, Vocabulary Strategies. This online training equipped me with new perspectives in teaching vocabulary, the building block for all subject areas. I now use the brain-based research methods in all of the subject areas that I teach. The techniques help make my job easier, but most importantly, the students comprehend and retain memory at higher levels. (6th grade teacher)

I really liked the class, and, in fact have adapted the 5-step process to teaching letter sounds. For tougher sounds like "Y', I write the letter, draw my own non-linguistic representation (incidentally, the kids know and use that vocab.). Then they practice writing both upper and lower case letters, and on the back of their sheet draw a non-linguistic representation. for the sound. Today they did Y, and some of their pictures were; yellow, yoyo. yucky, yummy. yucky yams, yes, Yugio. etc., etc. I still use and love the process. I would say that I do something with it several times a week. In the past many years of teaching, I have not learned one thing that has impacted my teaching more. (Kindergarten teacher)

I really enjoyed LB. I thought it was a lot of work, but not so much that I couldn't manage to do it. I wouldn't want to have less work or it wouldn't seem like a serious worthwhile course. I really enjoyed taking a class on the computer. I also liked that the district was supporting professional development so strongly. I really like the idea of board credit. I use the techniques I learned in the class almost everyday. The research that we read and learned about to backup the activities refreshed what I learned in teacher school. I also learned some new things that I was able to share with my students and other teachers. I did like that we had a cohort of people here.

It's hard to schedule everything in, but it's worth it! (6th grade teacher)

I really appreciated the opportunity to take a class on-line, at my own pace. It is nice to be able to do professional development without having to fit my schedule around a class, but rather have the class fit into my schedule.

I took the Classroom Management course, which provided interesting ideas on how to run a classroom that eliminates most discipline problems before they occur (through environment and lesson planning and understanding why students act out). (High School Chemistry teacher)

I was invited to sit in on a teacher who took the vocabulary strategies class. She was excited about what she learned and could not wait to use the things she learned in her class. As I sat in her class watching her use one of the strategies, I was encouraged by how receptive students were to what she was doing. Students were drawing words and seemed to get a better understanding of the meaning of the words after they could visually see it on paper as a drawing and not just letters on a piece of paper. (Principal)

I am still new with the Management course. However, I really like the online format. I also enjoy reading what other teachers have written in the learning log and conference room sections. We are always asking for staff development time to talk about teaching. Well this type of course really meets that need! Not only am I learning from a course and an instructor, but also from my district colleagues at all different levels and buildings. Thank you for this opportunity to learn and advance on the scale. (3rd grade teacher)

I wanted to let you know I found the learning bridges class extremely valuable. I have always understood the importance of vocabulary for kids in their learning however this provided the research behind the belief. I am constantly referring back to Marzano's five steps for Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention for use in all subject areas. (6th grade teacher)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an excellent workshop on differentiation in the regular ed. classroom. It was interesting to see how much of Diane Heacox's presentation related to the materials I learned about in Learning Bridges. I am finding that the information I learned from Learning Bridges has impacted me and my teaching on a daily basis. I am grateful that District 623 has provided the opportunity for educators to be exposed to such valuable, interesting and pertinent teaching and learning information. It has been worth my time and efforts - my class has benefited! (1st grade teacher)

I really appreciated the opportunity to take Vocabulary Strategies. The information from the class was immediately useable in the classroom. Because in ELL, new vocabulary is a huge portion of the student's learning, I found the information in the class had an immediate impact on my teaching and I continue to use the methods taught in the class. (ESL)

I wanted to let you know I found the learning bridges class extremely valuable. I have always understood the importance of vocabulary for kids in their learning however this provided the research behind the belief. I am constantly referring back to Marzano's five steps for Vocabulary Acquisition and Retention for use in all subject areas. (6th grade teacher)

All of the vocabulary words were very meaningful and valuable to me. I especially enjoyed learning about literacy study skills, pre-reading tools, activating prior knowledge and content tools. The easiest part of the class for me was completing the Learning Log assignments. i especially enjoyed the assignments relating to the use of the various types of graphic organizers. I approached this course as one where I would have an opportunity to learn about the latest research on teaching reading and writing. I expected to learn strategies that I could use with my students to improve their ability to read and write. Those expectations were met. (High School teacher)

I found the questionnaire interesting. It allowed me an opportunity to think about the kind of instruction that I provide for my students. It made me feel good to know that I am on the right track with providing my students the kind of education that they need to be successful in society. The vocabulary words always gave me something that I can use to help in understanding how to teach reading. This course was much more challenging than Part 1. I found it just as interesting, but the assignments were very thought provoking. I spend much more time reading about brain research than anything else. The assignments on Best Practices were very challenging also. It made me feel good to know that I am on the right track with providing my students the kind of education that they need to be successful in society. The vocabulary words always gave me something that I can use to help in understanding how to teach reading. This course was much more challenging than Part 1. I found it just as interesting, but the assignments were very thought provoking. I spend much more time reading about brain research than anything else. The assignments on Best Practices were very challenging also. I feel that I am really getting a much better understanding of teaching reading and writing. (High School teacher)

I will use the Metacognition and Multiple Intelligence activities in my classroom. I do not have any lingering questions about Metacognition at this time. I really enjoyed tracing the literacy journey. It had been a long time since I thought about how my love for reading came about. Completing the assignment on strategies that proficient readers do was easy and very beneficial. The most challenging part of the class was the development of the lesson plan. The lesson plan was much more challenging than I thought it would be. I really had to "think" about what I wanted to teach and how I would teach it. The information that was presented was very valuable and something that I could use the next day with my students. I really liked that! (High School teacher)

I found the powerpoint presentation on activating prior knowledge, very helpful. Each category was explained in great detail and I was able to use the information in my instruction. Activities on Multiple Intelligences were also very interesting. Because of the diversity in learning styles in my classroom, I am always interested in learning more about how to effectively plan and teach lessons where all my children learn. *Part I and Part II have provided me with a great deal of information on activating prior knowledge and using the text structure strategy. I continued to learn more about how to properly provide reading instruction to my students. That's exactly what I wanted to learn. (High School teacher)

I enjoyed the activities on the kinds of questions. Knowing how to find answers in a text is a big plus for students. My students take a state standardized test at the end of each year, and they need strategies on answering questions. The test is a timed test, so they need to know that some answers are "right here, others require some searching and finding, while others depend on your ability to make inferences and use prior knowledge. The three parts of this course have enabled me to get a very good understanding of the Metacognition Strategy. All of the information that I needed, to be able to complete the assignments were in the tutorial section of the course, making it easy to complete. I enjoyed the relationship that I was able to establish with the instructor. She provided feedback on my assignments that made me think about my responses. She communicated with me regularly and was very supportive and understanding. The instructor did an outstanding job! (Middle School teacher)

The class, "Tools for Teaching" is an excellent class. I learned so much as a teacher and how to become a better teacher as well. I am excited about using the strategies I have learned about this spring semester. Thank You! (Elementary teacher)

The most meaningful or valuable parts of this class on classroom management and discipline to me were the terminology, learning states, and learning about the self-system and metacognition. I found these areas to be extremely helpful to me and my current classroom instruction practices. I was able after learning about these areas go and reconstruct some of my teaching practices and improve them. I was able to comprehend majority of the lesson because of the friendly user format it was presented in. The information was easy to comprehend and retain. I did not experience any part of the classes that were difficult for me to comprehend. However, I was extremely busy throughout the time span of the class. Once I committed my time to this class and realized how interesting it was and how I could use the information to help me become a better teacher, I was able to go through the class pretty quickly. According to my own experiences, the research is correct. I am still quite busy and nothing has really changed since the beginning of this class and the end, however, once my "self-system" recognized the value of this class, my metacognition immediately began to set goals for me to complete this class successfully. (smile) I have really enjoyed the class and all that I have learned. In particular, the information has helped me to help one of my students, "my favorite student", more than I realized I could help him in the beginning. This online class met my expectations for learning. I was able to learn at my pace and convenience, without being penalized for it. The only recommendations I have is to keep up the excellent work. Michelle, you are a great instructor.

I remember several times given my students vocabulary words and on Friday it appeared as if they never looked at the words. I was amazed to learn all of the techniques that I could apply that may make a difference in the amount of vocabulary my students could learn and retain. For so many years, it was thought that brain development stopped after a critical period in the first years of life. After reviewing the materials in this section, it appears that scientists are finding that though there are benefits of children being read to in infancy, for those whose brains are not stimulated in such a manner, there is still hope. Our brains are able to adapt and still receive new information, all while processing the information are remarkably fast speeds. Though new neurons are not growing after this critical period, the brain is able to grow new pathways amongst their existing neurons that allow individuals to learn lots of new information. Just learning this new information has changed the perceptions that I have had concerning some of my students. (Special Education teacher)

The tutorials were excellent. After reading the tutorials I was able to comprehend a lot as well as determine how to handle future situations. The assignments were easy because I could use the tutorial as a guide. I liked this class because it gave me a lot of information but, I was able to finish at my own pace. (Elementary teacher)

The three most important things I learned were: a) education can be enhanced when it is embedded in ordinary experiences. Hands-on learning is important. b) learning engages the entire physiology. Movement and exercise, water, stress management are important to learning and 3) graphic organizers can increase learning by as much as 40%. (Elementary teacher)

By completing the Multiple Intelligence Survey, I found out my strengths /weaknesses - now I want to think of how to apply that to my teaching. I learned the three phases that students go through as they develop skills in phonics learning and what they develop in each phase. I am going to add more pictures and words of items around my room (labeling items). There wasn't any part of the class that was easy. I did learn from this class, will incorporate ideas into my lessons and I found the class interesting and informative. (Elementary teacher)

Some important things I came away with are: the sense that I'm on the right track with my class, but need to focus more on the declarative knowledge piece. The learning phases the children go through to become fluent readers are clearly defined and understandable. The fact that this phonemic awareness is not likely to go away is comforting to me. I think it is a useful and appropriate way to teach young children to become readers. What was easy: the learning log and conference center were ways for me to share ideas that I thought were appropriate. I spent more than the specified time, and worked very hard to use the skills in my classroom as I gained knowledge. My requirements are simple: Can I use something from the class TOMORROW? I can say this was an extremely successful course. I use my new knowledge daily! As a bonus, I am a bit more computer-smart. (Elementary teacher)

I'm not sure that there were only three ideas that I thought were valuable in this course. I gained a lot from the terminology section. I have been teaching phonics applications in my class since last year with the help of a co-teacher. I was confused with the terminology until I actually taught some lessons. To be honest I still have to take a minute when someone asks me to explain it. I learned how teaching in this way works with the brain to create meaning for the learner in all different styles. This course gave me the background information to reinforce to myself, parents and colleagues that this is a successful way to teach reading and the primary level. I did gain useful information and as always when I learn new things it makes things worth it. Thanks! (Elementary teacher)

I felt reviewing this terminology and seeing it all in one place was very helpful. I liked learning about the three phases of learning and feel I am better able to put together quality lessons as a result. I enjoyed learning about the multiple intelligences as we were able to apply it to ourselves. This lesson was easy and very enlightening. The most difficult part of the course was thinking of a lesson that I felt covered all the components of a good phonics application format and lesson. Once I had my ideas and activities in place, I found the lesson format provided by the course quite helpful and effective. My expectations were met by this on-line course I feel I have learned something as a result to take back to my classroom. Thanks for the course! (Elementary teacher)

Overall, I really enjoyed this class. I really did learn a lot. The two learning activities from this course I plan to use daily are the think aloud and the metacognitive stems. I really liked all the other ideas that this course gave me so I do plan to use them sometime this year.

The easiest part of the class for me to learn was when I had to apply it in a lesson. Even though I know how to study and pick up the important parts, when I had to use it in a lesson I found out what works for me and my student and what did not. If I did not have to use it in the lesson, I would have thought that I would be able to teach this any time. I now know that I need to practice teaching these skills so that when I have kids in front of me it will go smoothly.

This is a pretty user friendly course. I thought the information in the course was good. It was very interesting and very well written. The websites links at the end and in the lesson was very helpful. I used these very much! Thanks a lot (Elementary teacher)

I believe this class taught me many strategies that I can use in class. It also reminded me of strategies that I haven't done in awhile. It will make me take a fresh look at my teaching and how I can better help the students learn. (Middle School teacher)

I really want to remember to use the thinking aloud even more often than I have in the past. I tend to do it a lot; however, I think it helps the learner that is not as visual as he/she might be auditory in style. You can reach more learners in a sense. Why not use as many ways to illustrate a concept as your can. The other activity I will utilize is to really spend the time on prior knowledge. It is easy to feel like I need to go ahead with teaching the task without being patient enough to let them tell me as much as they can about what they know (Elementary teacher)

I will use the Coding in the Margins and Think Alouds on a more regular basis. I will also make the effort to incorporate activities that focus on more than one of the multiple intelligences. As I wrote and taught my lesson, I also realized that becoming more aware of what I am doing as a reader and being more conscious of the words I use with my students improves my delivery of the material and lesson and helps with my student's understanding. I found that I was interested in the reading, reflected more on my planning and teaching, and became more aware of my effectiveness (or sometimes my ineffectiveness) as a teacher. I think that as more teachers from one school take a course, it continues to become easier. We are sharing more information and helping each other through it. Thank You!! (Middle School teacher)

Since I made my first entry in the Learning Log, both my student teacher and I have been role playing the spelling words with the students. There has been an increase in accuracy on all the spelling tests. Water breaks, fun with movement (more oxygen to the brain), peanut snacks (no allergies this year) all are going well in our classroom. More bathroom breaks of course, all students handling themselves well. Have had a few comments from parents about what we are doing a little differently and the students tell their parents that they are enjoying the new or expanded routines in the room. Fun to have the students share with their families. Fun to get the positive feedback as a facilitator. (Elementary teacher)

I appreciated the brain research and how I can use it to influence my instructional practices. I think it s a good idea for me to engage in stating my prior knowledge or understanding of terms and then reading the tutorials and restating my understanding. I do believe I have completed all the requirements for this course. It did meet my expectations but I do believe it is essential for the teachers at my school to have frequent and on going conversations about how we are implementing the decoding through clues strategies in our classroom. (Elementary teacher)

I learned that I need to consciously teach critical thinking skills vocabulary. I also learned to use more graphic organizers in my teaching. I have never been comfortable with such items, and I now realize why they are important. I still would like to have more research about English language learners and poverty along with the teaching of critical thinking skills. The first thing I am going to do with all five grade levels I instruct is use graphic organizers. (Title I teacher)

Three things I will take back to my classroom are: Journals can be used for almost any lesson and the emphasis is on content. I have already begun this in my classroom and I am receiving more student work and at a higher quality, although the emphasis is on content and not much else. I will remember that journaling is a good metacognitive strategy. For me the weakness of my lessons has been the closing and getting students to think about what they learned. I can just have students write a sentence or two and include it in part of their daily journaling points. Finally I will remember that their are a variety of ways for students to analyze writing, the one I liked the best was having students analyze a line from a reading or novel throughout the novel. Students will then see how their thinking changes throughout the novel. This course met my expectations. It even slightly exceeded them because it has already begun enhancing my teaching (Elementary teacher)

I have a special education classroom. The students need to be actively and emotionally involved in learning. They need to be able to retrieve prior knowledge and build on what they know. I believe using manipulatives helps them do this. The students seem to enjoy hands on activities much more than other types of activities. Manipulatives makes learning easier and more enjoyable for them and me. (Special Education teacher)

The most valuable aspects of this class were the information on memory and the brain. I knew very little about this. Upon starting the class I didn't know the difference between Taxon memory and Locale Memory. Knowing this now will be useful for me as an educator. The more I know about how children learn, the better I will be able to meet their needs. (High School teacher)

The most valuable part of the course was the tutorial in lesson 6. It was a very nice summary and provided great examples. The most challenging part was learning the vocabulary, because most of it was new to me. Examples provided in the vocabulary were a great help in making sense of the words and remembering meanings. (Elementary teacher)

It was interesting to hear that list making and note taking have a high impact on learning. Also that making a chart can increase learning by as much as 43%. By making a chart, my students will be able to see the relationships of the numbers. (Middle School teacher)

Most valuable were the examples, because they were concrete and therefore more meaningful. Also, the application we had to do forced me to think of more effective ways to address different learning styles and be more creative about how to make my lessons more authentic. Especially, the one about the mime bringing in a real apple. We've struggled to make our mime more authentic this year. This was actually more useful than I thought it would be. I am glad I chose this topic because now I see that I really needed it, and painful as it is, my teaching wasn't growing as it now will. (High School teacher)