stagnate learning. I find myself increasingly frustrated with the email process. I am currently taking an online course and do the reading, create the work, and email my mentor with the products required of the curriculum.
Sometimes the things that I create are awesome! I'd love to have others look at them and 
critique them. I imagine that my students might feel this way also. It feels like I am running into a brick wall. I start a process, build the excitement, am enthusiastic about it, email it to my mentor, and get an email saying that I didn't do it, have to resend it and wait for reaction. Now, that might be the case with a blog also. But, if there are people out there, reading my blog, I am publishing my ideas and getting more feedback from a variety of people. How many times have I made my students feel stagnate? I don't want to make them feel stagnate. Feeling stagnate is frustrating. I don't want to frustrate my students.
critique them. I imagine that my students might feel this way also. It feels like I am running into a brick wall. I start a process, build the excitement, am enthusiastic about it, email it to my mentor, and get an email saying that I didn't do it, have to resend it and wait for reaction. Now, that might be the case with a blog also. But, if there are people out there, reading my blog, I am publishing my ideas and getting more feedback from a variety of people. How many times have I made my students feel stagnate? I don't want to make them feel stagnate. Feeling stagnate is frustrating. I don't want to frustrate my students.I continue to read Will Richardson, trying to slowly learn the blogosphere. I can see how the use of blogs could be used with common curricular units or teams of teachers working together to create cross-curricular lessons. The blog is accessible to all and can comfortably provide a medium for students to access and read and make comments to.
3 comments:
I wonder if "stagnate learning is a reality. We all hit brick walls occasionally. Anyone who could embed those wonder locust video clips must be doing something right. It took me nearly 2 hours to figure out how to get a video on my blog - sorry, this isn't about me.
I think if you consider your teaching job from the perspective of a coach or facilitator, all you can do is provide guidance and feedback. The students construct their own learning/meaning - and the process of that construction is anything but inactive.
One of our salutatorians (we had two)made memorable remarks about the need to try new things. Don't worry that we might make mistakes, just take a risk, and move on. This is my take on these gruaduate courses. Learn something, try something, and move on.
Another momorable comment was that life could not be answered in the T/F; A,B,C,D paradigm. Maybe your mentor should revisit the chapter on online learning - there should be constructive feedback. Not a sermon, just a thought.
Wow, you raise a good point. So often, we get into our teaching never thinking what our students may feel about their learning or our teaching. I think getting feedback form our students is a good idea--whether it be with blogs or paper/pencil evaluations.
Cheryl H
Feedback is critical for all of us. We all make mistakes, my father-in- law once told me that the only ones who don't make mistakes don't do anything. I think life and growth are all about taking risks.
As or the brick wall, we've all hit it in one way or another - or we're getting ready to. The trick to learning is bouncing off so that you can keep going forward.
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