http://crowdedheadcozybed.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/teaching-college-science-blogs-and-beyond/
“Teaching College Science: Blogs and Beyond,” is a great blog to read if you are a high school or college level science teacher. The author, Brian FCD (an appellate), is currently a biology student intending to be a science teacher. Because I am a secondary level science teacher, I am interested in learning to use blogs as a way to increase the interest level of my students, as a way to get them to spend a few minutes reflecting on their learning, and as a way to get the quiet students to become more involved. From reading this post, I learned there are issues regarding blogging (remember I have never blogged until this class). Some concerns that need to be addressed include the following: privacy is an issue; blogging takes time; student motivation may be a big hindrance to the process, and what should a teacher do with the blog after the course is over. (Hmmmm, that sounds like the same issues involved with any project –like a group project involving a poster for example, or a science fair project…). I certainly enjoyed reading the blog.
http://www.nucleuslearning.com/content/tutoring-gps
The blogspot is Nucleus Learning, and one can post anything related to learning. The website promotes educational games and products and services. I’m still trying to figure out if it is a commercial or an individual site or maybe both, most likely the latter.
The blog of interest is titled “Tutoring is like a GPS.” The author, Bogusia Gierus, and the audience is anyone interested in helping students make better grades. Probably, however, the audience is primarily parents. Being that I currently am serving as a professional tutor in the nationally known TriO program, Student Support Services, I was drawn to the blog because I have an interest in being a better tutor; I too want my students to benefit from my services -as shown by their improved grades. I am a veteran teacher, yet there is always so much room for improvement. As did the author, I too tend to correct students’ careless mistakes as they make them. I mean, what is the big deal, if a student is doing a complex college algebra problem correctly, why should I wait until they get to the end to fix a silly error? After all, we don’t have that much time together. Well, my new response… because they tend to continue making such mistakes on tests, and I won’t be there to help them. It seems that by correcting their mistakes early, the pain is not great enough for them to become diligent in their writing down the problem correctly, or distributing the negative sign, or making sure they don’t lose a negative and etc. Perhaps, as a result of my reading this blog, some of my students will improve their grades simply because they learn a little more about paying closer attention to detail (something I am not to good at myself).
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the blog; and even better, I gained some practical insights that will improve my tutoring.
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This is a comment about the first blog entry - "Teaching College Science: Blogs and Beyond"
ReplyDeleteHow do I say...what I am about to say...and be politically correct? There is too much sex referenced on the web page. It distracted me from the blog. It also gave me credibility issues. In one sentence the blogger talks about his excitement with teaching high school students, while several sex-related ads run in the margins.
Or am I misunderstanding the sex part? Please come to my rescue here.
I hope I'm wrong.
The second entry is excellent! I especially liked one of the pen-and-paper exercises (I liked it so much that I'm going to post it on my blog).
ReplyDeleteWhen you find an educational website that gives you so much good information, good examples, good lesson suggestions, you definately need to bookmark it.
To make math "visual" can be tricky. This website has quite a few visuals that help students understand what the numbers are "trying to do." Whenever you can get the lightbulb to turn on in the student's head, you've done your job : ) Linda S.
Linda, I appreciate your comments regarding the sex issues and references in the margins of the author's blogs. I too thought he was rather too open if he is planning to be a high school biology teacher. However, that had nothing to do with our assignment. My goal was to find an educational blog that was relevant to my using blogs in the classroom. I thought the author had excellent points. In my assessment of his blog, notice the intended audience, from my perspective, was high school and college level instructors. So just keep in mind, the information was not intended for students. I apologize if you were offended by the site I selected.
ReplyDeleteHello, Peggy.
ReplyDeleteThank you for noticing my little blog post, and for actually reading the points.
As for my blog and its contents:
Linda, Crowded Head is my personal blog. It is where I write about things that are important to me. One of those things is sexual repression inherent in our society. "Too open about sex" is one of the attitudes in our hysteria-prone society that I work against.
Had you taken the time to actually click the links in my sidebar instead of being "distracted" by mention of the S word, you'd have discovered that I am a contributing editor for a web site that advocates open intelligent conversation about issues of sexuality in society. The only "ad" in my sidebar is for a calendar for charity related to my advocacy.
Now that we've straightened out the character of my blog, let me back up and ask about your comment regarding being too open. I'm very interested in hearing why you seem to feel that high school teachers should be asexual.
It's an odd position for an educator to take, frankly.