Almost forgot to do the blog this week! Glad to see the Browns won, finally! Ohio State as well. Indians finish the year 81-81, could have been better.
This past week I have spent a TON of time trying to work on and complete issue 2, the first group project of the year. This is the fourth group project that I have been involved in for an online class. Quite frankly, I do not like them at all. Most people, myself included are taking online classes for the flexibility they provide. Since most of us are working professionals, we have such busy schedules the chance to work on the school work at our time is a premium. Doing group work, my schedule may not match up with their schedule because of committments. Trying to communicate online is sometimes difficult as well.
Now, this has nothing to do with grades, because I have done well on the projects in the past. It also has nothing to do with the people I work with on these projects. It has more to do with the application of group work conflicting with the premise of online classes.
Just my thoughts on that topic.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Grading and Constructivism
This has been on my mind as well, in the last week, and that is grading as it relates to constructivism.
If the process is just as important as the final result, evaluating that process may be in certain terms a bit subjective. It would be hard for a teacher to evaluate all that goes on in the different groups, unless there is a record of it (wiki, group discussion). That may not be workable in a setting such as a school. If you had each student evaluate each other, that could be disastrous in that you will not get a true evaluation because of social issues.
I thought of this topic because I am concerned that I see teachers take off points in a student's grade if they misbehave, for forgetting the date, writing in pen instead of pencil, not formatting it correctly. I saw a student get a B+ on a paper, instead of an A- because they forgot to date the paper. To me it is not measuring their congnitive abilities and the teacher could find a better way to take care of that problem. It is something that just bugs me.
If the process is just as important as the final result, evaluating that process may be in certain terms a bit subjective. It would be hard for a teacher to evaluate all that goes on in the different groups, unless there is a record of it (wiki, group discussion). That may not be workable in a setting such as a school. If you had each student evaluate each other, that could be disastrous in that you will not get a true evaluation because of social issues.
I thought of this topic because I am concerned that I see teachers take off points in a student's grade if they misbehave, for forgetting the date, writing in pen instead of pencil, not formatting it correctly. I saw a student get a B+ on a paper, instead of an A- because they forgot to date the paper. To me it is not measuring their congnitive abilities and the teacher could find a better way to take care of that problem. It is something that just bugs me.
Monday, September 15, 2008
ETA and Constructivism
Time for my second post. First, what a bad weekend for being an Ohio Sports fan. The Indians get pounded by the lowly Royals. The OSU Buckeyes get embarrassed by USC. Finally, The Browns lay an egg versus the Steelers. Ho-hum, such is life as an Ohio sports fan! I am able to post now because school was cancelled today from all of the power outages.
Now back to the topic. It has been bugging me for over a week since Constructivism was introduced as a topic in this class. It bugged me because it seemed SO familiar from my undergraduate at KSU. I FINALLY remembered it and it is similar to the "Ecological Task Analysis" which is an approach used in teaching Physical Education classes. Here is a link to the book and it just gives a brief description of the ETA. I took a few classes from Dr. Davis at KSU.
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showproduct.cfm?isbn=9780736051859
Now, the definitions may be a bit different between Constuctivism and the ETA approach, but the application of each is very similar. Students find their own way to meet the goal. Hence, the process is just as important as the end result. I found this very unique and have drawn comparisons between the two. I actually feel comfortable with Constructivism because I have been involved in it previously.
Now back to the topic. It has been bugging me for over a week since Constructivism was introduced as a topic in this class. It bugged me because it seemed SO familiar from my undergraduate at KSU. I FINALLY remembered it and it is similar to the "Ecological Task Analysis" which is an approach used in teaching Physical Education classes. Here is a link to the book and it just gives a brief description of the ETA. I took a few classes from Dr. Davis at KSU.
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showproduct.cfm?isbn=9780736051859
Now, the definitions may be a bit different between Constuctivism and the ETA approach, but the application of each is very similar. Students find their own way to meet the goal. Hence, the process is just as important as the end result. I found this very unique and have drawn comparisons between the two. I actually feel comfortable with Constructivism because I have been involved in it previously.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Ok....this is my first blog post. I have created this blog as part of my class for "Current Issues in Instructional Technology". Today we are discussing Constructivism. Interesting because this is a type of philosophy of learning. To me it is giving students open ended problems with a variety of possible answers. Communication and working together to solve the problem is a huge factor involved in this. A lot of hands on learning.
Since this is my first blog posting, I will keep it short and sweet.
Since this is my first blog posting, I will keep it short and sweet.
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