em Blog 643

Reflection on Class Last week in class, we discussed book clubs and the socratic seminar. We learned that successful book clubs are flexible for the people involved, and should not be focused around yourself. The members of the book club should feel welcome to share their opinions and should not be led to answers that the faciliatator believes is correct. Questions should not lead to specific answers and be carefully worded to allow for multiple opinions. Additionally, we talked about how book clubs can have an online component. We also practiced the socratic seminar through our discussion of an online article explaining why physical books are outdated and that Universities should adopt all online textbooks. Despite the article not being satire, it came across that way and made me believe more strongly in the idea that physical books are necessary. We have a long way to go and we will need to carefully consider the environment, database, and online experience of textbooks before rem...

Last week in class, we discussed how students learn and complete a new (to me) exercise to help analyze an online article, called LEOs. The exercise asks students to take on a specific role, like archaeologist or connector, the latter of which was my role. I was asked to connect specific quotes or aspects of the article to other classes, learning experiences, work, or anything that might help to further the explain the article. Hearing from my classmates, allowed for multiple perspectives into concerns that may not have been brought up if not for their role in the group. We also discussed transfer and appreciated hearing from my classmates about online tutoring. We discussed how context or the environment the student-tutor are in, influence the way they teach students.  Marc Prensky, advocates for colleges to shift from physical books to electronic books, a move away from ancient outdated tools better left in museums. While some students may enjoy reading physical books mo...

Last week in class, we discussed assessment, specifically looking at the formative and summative evaluations of students and teachers. In addition to talking about the differences, we spoke about how current technology, or software, integrates these types of assessments in their platform. Turnitin, a site for checking plagiarism, commonly used by high schools and colleges, helps teachers and students by identifying areas of the paper that may not be original. However, one pitfall of this software is that the assessment it returns is summative, meaning students are not being evaluated as they progress through their paper. Rather, the students find out about how they did at the very end of the process, often too late to learn from mistakes or even correct them. While Turnitin may do a poor job of formative assessment, software like Grammarly might be doing a better job. Grammarly continuously updates its results (ie grammar, spelling, and plagiarism check) as the student or user type...