Thing #4

Blog Mining

I had found that one quote from Anne made me pause to think.
The quote was:

Blogs help learners to see knowledge as interconnected as opposed to a set of discrete facts.

Knowledge: 2 a (1): the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

As a Physics teacher, I try to continually tell the students that nothing is absolute. The scientific definition of law is still based on what is generally accepted. Students get to witness this first hand with blogging. Through discussion, they can all come to agree on what a concept means, thus expanding their knowledge.


After reading Dan's and Joyce's posts, my thoughts on the classroom are making a personal paradigm shift. Dan's article is about Homework, or lack there of. I agree that with good classroom management, the student can get enough practice. The challenge, which is also addressed, is how to keep students with varying achievement levels engagued for the class. The choice of regular, practice and challenge satisfies my level of the student trying the problems. As an incentive for studnets to do challenge over practice, offer a similar problem to the challenge problem as a bonus on tests.
Joyce's post inspires me to go to the stack of powerpoints I have now and retool them for more enguaging presentations that will keep the students attention. I have recently found myself taking up notes to try and force students to write something down with the thought that by writing it down, they have a better chance of retaining the information. I see the flaw in this now, twofold. First, they cant use their notes if I have them to grade, and second, I am asking the students to write notes and listen to me at the same time. They are either writing notes, or listening to me. I find that the students that ask the best questions are the ones that are not busy writing down my notes.

My concern is will students shut me out now that they have the information dropped in their lap. Thoughts?