Elizabeth+Israel

 I really like the interactive features of using Wikispaces. I liked how we could post a comment and receive immediate feedback, or visit chatrooms to develop ideas. I am already planning ways to use this in my classroom. It would be nice if the documents were Google documents, though; Lauren and I had to merge some copies when we were doing edits and Google documents would have edited everything without the merge.

I enjoyed writing the case studies since I am a huge athletic fan but I definitely believe student-athletes must be successful in the classroom. I am also glad we did not have to provide answers for our case study, just a situation, because I am not sure what the best solution is for our scenario. I enjoyed working with my groupmates - Rob is very original, Edwina really incorporated her counseling perspective, and Lauren really pushed us to use action verbs.

One of the most difficult things about teaching is finding the balance between what will be most helpful for others, and what you can and cannot do. For example, in our scenario, Derrick will probably work hard on the basketball court, and if he avoids injury and plays well, might play for the NBA - BUT he will never learn to read well if his dyslexia is not diagnosed. From an educational perspective, Derrick needed to receive supplemental education services far earlier than his senior year. Our scenario highlights something that is all too common in inner-city schools: both the preferential treatment received by student athletes, and the effects of having low academic expectations. Is academic success truly the **most** important thing? That is a question that must be answered by every teacher individually.