YOU are IMPORTANT, what you DO matters, and I want you to know that you are IMPORTANT to ME.

~Because you matter, the teacher says to the student, and because learning matters to you, I will do my best to, 

-Make sure I teach you and you learn what is genuinely of value in a subject:

-Pique your curiosity about what we explore, capture your interest, and help you see daily that learning in inherently satisfying;

-Call on you consistently to help you become more than you thought you could become through dedicated work; and 

-Be you partner, coach, mentor, and taskmaster all along your learning journey in this class. 

There are some GREAT examples in the book that show teachers that make their students feel important, as well as making whatever they do feel important.  Some of the things we can do to make our tasks worthwhile and important are, link the content to real life, use meaningful audiences, and help students discover how ideas and skills are useful in the world.  I would like to share an example where one of my professors shared that she used to do with her class.

Every year before christmas, the class would be learning about perimeter, area, volume, etc.  This professor would have her class build gingerbread houses on the last class before Christmas break.  But, before the class could build their gingerbread houses, they would have to plan out exactly what they were going to build, and how they were going to build it.  Everyone has built a gingerbread house before, and that is something that everyone in the class could relate to.  The class had to measure and figure out the size of the graham crackers that they were going to use, what type of candy they would use and how it would fit onto their gingerbread house, they did so much math related concepts in order to figure out what they would need, and they had to come up with a complete drawn out plan that was accurate before they were able to build their gingerbread house.  I think this activity is a perfect example of a teacher that gave her class something important to do, and those students learned so much by doing this.  

HERE are some other examples of important tasks that the book gave, 

* A high school history class continually integrated interviews with their reading, lectures, and discussions.--The direct link between history and lives of real people made the issues and principles behind their study dynamic and important to the students

*A school math class studied a construction site near the school that seemed to be creating a potential for traffic accidents.--While students participated in direct instruction on key computation skills they studied the construction site, and ultimately they made recommendations to the construction company and town council.  Most of what they recommended was implemented. 

THESE are the types of things that we need to get our students doing.  These are the things that students think are IMPORTANT and will remember for the rest of their lives.  CHOOSE IMPORTANT activities and assignments for your students to do.