Creating High Performance Learning Environments

For this activity we had to watch three videos with different strategies to create high expectations in the classroom and achieve them.

The first video, "Roller coaster Physics: STEM in action" shows how students from fifth and sixth grade create a roller coaster. The project last 3 weeks and include all the stages; design, trial and use. The students share their ideas for the design and collaborate. The second part of the activity, is to make sure the roller coaster is safe, and finally he get their final project.

The teacher set the objectives she expected for the lesson and it seems that students understand them since they know exactly what they have to do, which indicates that rules and procedures are set and everyone is aware of them.

As a student and future teacher, I think that this is the best way to teach a lesson. Learning by doing is proved to be the most successful teaching technique, it might be because children don't have to memorize any list or process without really understand why them happen. It easy to remember at the same time that usually you enjoy. This strategy also encourage some skills like critical thinking and collaboration, both of them very important in the learning process of a student.

The second video,"3rd Grade Chinese Math " shows how time tables are taught in China. China's teaching method is very different from the American, at least in math. It's similar to the Spanish system (which doesn't have the same results that the Chinese has). The classes consist in repeating the time tables until the students remember all the results. They memorize the time tables. As a student who learned to multiply by this method, I really hated it, but I still remembering all the time tables after 20 years, so this technique that can seem a bit hard for children is effective, since China has the best results for math.
I think that this lesson can be complemented with other teaching strategies to make it more attractive for students; some kind of multiplication drill competition could encourage students to make their best in order to win a symbolic prize.
In the second part of the lesson the teacher practice subtractions with the students. All of them try to participate and she tried to involve all the class in the process.
The students' behavior is excellent. Norms and procedures are properly design since the teachers have more prep hours than teaching ones. 
Personally, I prefer to teach math using worksheets or if it's possible, IXL, a math program with thousands of exercises that allows you to keep a record of your progress.

The third video  "Whole Brain Teaching" we can see how a teacher explains geography to 9th grade. She uses her hands and arms in order to help students to understand the concepts that she is explaining. After the teacher's explanation, students practice the same movements she did with peers, so they teach each other the same concept.
Norms and procedures are well defined for all. Students have to repeat teacher's directions, probably to make sure that all students know where or what they have to be doing.
I think this is a very nice way to make all the students participate in the classroom and follow directions without being extremely strict.