Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

This chapter focuses on teaching tough academic content to your students. When you are able to apply a respectable, safe environment in the classroom and teach tough content then your classroom is like a well oiled machine. Some major things that stood out to me in this chapter on teaching tough content were to find out what students already know, ask questions to make the students really think about what it is that they're learning. To challenge students assumptions, and to not use the textbook all of the time. One thing that stood out to me the most in this chapter was the line "It's always easier to learn complicated concepts by doing things, not just by having someone talk about the ideas" (p. 129). Letting the students do activities in order to learn the tough content is one of the best ways for them to be able to get it.

Teaching the tough content area is one thing that I worry about when it comes to teaching. However, after spending some time in the classroom in the past 3 weeks I have come to realize that the tough content is the least of my worries. There are so many things that happen throughout the day in the classroom that you could never predict. The content is just the stuff that goes along with it. However, I definitely think that this chapter does a good job with talking about how to handle the teaching kids the stuff that's going to be hard to them. It also makes you realize that what might be tough to one student might be very easy to another. Creating groups and learning activities for each of the students is a good way for them each to learn at their own pace.