What matters
This post defintitely goes to the top of my list of noteworthy posts. “The Kind of Evaluation that Matters” It sums up so eloquently these educational blogging communities where students have choices over their learning. This post gets to the heart of what is so special about blogging with students. It is putting the writing and learning squarely in the hands of the students and they are responding (and teaching us as they go! It’s the journey and the learning and the unknown paths you end up traveling. It is a community like none other. Konrad really hones in on the issue of giving up control and letting students have choices on what they write and learn. Konrad discusses how this shift in having students primarily create the course< content has had a profound effect on him as a teacher and on his classroom. I have had similar feelings. Konrad points out how it is not easy to move away from set curriculums and standardized tests because it means (to some extent) relinquishing control. He talks about a community of writers and learners where students discuss and share their work. He says that to the students, the best kind of evaluation was in the form of discussions with peers or comments written by others about their work. I've said it in round about ways. I call it the process, the dialogue, the conversations,the voices, the dynamics of learning together that is unique to blogging. Konrad puts it into words so precisely and so effectively. Konrad says that Linda Rief said it best and I have to agree ….
“Through their portfolios of writing and reading, I know all my students. They are articulate learners because they continually practice discussing what they know and how they know it: by sharing with me, their peers, the community, and other grade levels. Learning to make meaning in writing and reading is not objective, as our evaluation systems would seem to indicate. We must become more flexible in our assessment of students’ work. When kids are given choices in what they read and what they write, and time to think about what they are doing, their writing and reading get better. When we trust them to set goals and to evaluate their learning in progress, we will begin to realize that they know much more than we allow them to tell us through our set curriculums, our standardized tests, our writing samples.”
(Source: D. H. Graves, and Sunstein, B. S. (Eds.), Portfolio Portraits.)
If you don’t have the blog of proximal development on your list of blogs to read, add it today. It is outstanding.
July 18th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
Nice post. I agree with the sentiment, but have not reconciled the sentiment with the mechanical requirements for participating in a traditionally defined literate society.
Students blogging seems fine as a vehicle for learning to expression something. But how does a student efficiently and reliably learn content to express by blogging?
Bob Heiny
July 18th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Nice post. I agree with the sentiment, but have not reconciled the sentiment with the mechanical requirements for participating in a traditionally defined literate society.
Students blogging seems fine as a vehicle for learning to expression something. But how does a student efficiently and reliably learn content to express by blogging?
Bob Heiny
July 18th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Nice post. I agree with the sentiment, but have not reconciled the sentiment with the mechanical requirements for participating in a traditionally defined literate society.
Students blogging seems fine as a vehicle for learning to expression something. But how does a student efficiently and reliably learn content to express by blogging?
Bob Heiny
July 18th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
Sorry for the dups. Don’t know how that happened. Bob