Teaching to reach every single student

In my previous post, I shared what has been happening in the first couple of weeks of having my 7th and 8th grade science students posting assignments and responding to one anothers’ work on my class blog. This has been really exciting and a bit vertigo inducing.

At the same time, I have been going public (at least in my district) with what I have been doing with blogs, wikis, podcasts, and the like.

Last week, during one of our Superintendent’s Conference Days, I was invited to give a workshop for other teachers on using these tools in the classroom. About 15 teachers and administrators participated. It was, of course, an honor to be asked to do this workshop. And it was really good to lay out what I was doing and what I saw as possible to such a large chunk of other partners/colleagues/companions. This part was a relief, frankly, to finally have others participating with me — to expand this community beyond one (namely, me).

As a result of that, I have been asked to do a presentation for the district’s administrators and another for the parents at an upcoming PTA meeting.

I just wanted to make my students more engaged, honest.

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I cannot believe I haven’t posted anything new is such a while, but have barely had time to poke my head up as well.

It has been an amazing 2 weeks with my 7th and 8th
graders on the blog. As a group, and as individuals, there work has
really gotten better. Some students have improved dramatically, even
over the traditional paper versions of the assignments that they used
to hand in to me (in those old, old days of last month). Some of them
have really jumped into their responses to the science articles they
are reading, which has always been the point of the assignment.

They are also posting comments to other students’ work as well. There
is still much work to do here. Many comments have been good and
constructive (even if critical). Some are still in IM/text message
speak. I have tried to do little moderating to give them a chance to
connect with each other in this new venue, but this is clearly a place
where I need to add some instruction.

I hadn’t anticipated all of the changes in my thinking and my practice
that this has necessitated. How much (if at all) do I participate in
the conversation? How do I administer the grading? Since the students’
work is anonymous, I could post the grades to the blog directly, but
wasn’t prepared to do this.

I am very interested to hear others are doing.

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