The looks of the blog alone are enough to capture your attention and draw you in. The purple beach sunset, the chill vibes, the elaborate pictures; they all make you want to find out what this blog is about. Let's talk about the picture you see here; that's a picture that belongs to the post I was instructed to comment on. Just what was this post about? Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware. Then they were instructed to write a persuasive paper on the point of view from two women during this time period; Molly Pitcher: Why Women Belong on the Battlefield or Abigail Adams: Why Women Deserve Suffrage. Followed by a inspiring paragraph by Abigail Adams. You can read it by clicking on the link in the first paragraph.
Comment #1:
When I was preparing for my my comment, I was skimming his page to find more about himself and his blog. During my search I discovered his About Me tab. Contained in this tab was a multitude of recognition, speeches and presentations, all by/for Mr. William Chamberlain. Here are some examples: "I presented a session at METC in February 2011 on Comments4Kids, a blog and hash tag on Twitter that promotes the leaving comments on students and teacher blog posts." (Sound Familiar?). Or here's another one, "I have been a guest on several BAM Radio education podcasts." Very Cool!
I started out with the usual introductory sentence than proceeded to leave my comment. I didn't waste any time explaining Comments 4 Teachers because I already knew he was involved in Comments 4 Kids. I let him know first thing how much this blog has already inspired me. He is incorporating technology and learning so fluently and effortlessly. I was honored to have his blog. In my comment, I told him that this post was special because it gave instructions to an assignment, while also being informative; informative enough to where I was able to learn something new from this post also, not just from people in the class!
There was a certain sentence in Mrs. Adam's words to her husband that caught my attention, and I discussed this in my comment. The sentence was, "Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could." This topic is very interesting to me because feminism is still a broadly noticed topic in today's society. I left a story in the comment about an interesting story I had once in a Western Civ. 2 class.
Comment #2:
The second comment for C4T #3 is posted on the Mr. Chamberlains latest post. On this post Mr. Chamberlain is discussing his latest insight. While commenting on another blog, he had an "epiphany" of some sort. When I looked at the blog he was talking about, I understood why he had his epiphany. I am not going to say much about that blog but I am going to leave you the blog title in case you want to check it out yourself. I highly recommend it, it was very interesting. The title was "Student Achievement is Not The Same as Student Learning." (http://ideasandthoughts.org/2013/10/21/student-achievement-is-not-the-same-as-learning/)
He talks about how the hard fact of assessment is when you have to show it to a third party such as a parent or guardian. He pointed out that the education system does not have completely accurate ways of determining what our students have learned; that students only allow us to know what they want us to know and only show us what they want to show us. He said that assessments can be incompetent and do not show all of what the student has actually learned. He told the audience that they best way to assess what a student has learned and obtained is by having an actually conversation with them, and it involves sitting them down and just having a casual conversation.
Mr. Chamerblain said he just had a parent/teacher conference at his school last week and began to wonder why they did not have regular meetings with the student, their parent/guardian, and of course the teacher. Hmmm, good question...why doesn't the education system do a lot of things?
Well, for my comment I attempted to empathize and join in on the insight of the post. I started off by telling him that he poses a very interesting question. Assessments and grades really do only go so far when dealing with how much students actually learn. Because after all, students really have the power to keep their intelligence hidden, and that is a major fallacy in assessing students. I told him Dr. Strange, my EDM 310 professor, always tells us he wants to do away with grades completely. Instead you would observe students work and assess whether they are progressing and advancing in whatever subject area it may be.
I told him therefore I think it is a great idea. With this the students can show what they know under less pressure. You lesson plans would be more efficient, you may be able to find common ground among the students, and it's a great way to gain insight about what your students feelings are about the lessons.
However there may be a fallacy in this because you know how nervous children get around their parents, but if the students were accustomed to this pattern, maybe it would not be so difficult to open up to parents about grades and to get them involved. I told him I don't see why school have not already tried this and that it could not be that difficult to get approved and worked into a schedule, and that each class could personalize their own Student-Parent-Teacher Meetings. What do you think?
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