 |
| Wafting Around the Blogosphere |
This, so you know, is a reflection on blogging. It takes the form of, how would I have used blogs in some of the classes I have developed or taught.
Introductory Statistics - it would be great to see students blogging on how they "found" statistical concepts in the media they come across. Except for "mean." That's everywhere. Can students "'see" the concept of standard deviation in a documentary on human characteristics? Variance in a news story on killer citrus beetles? Mode, in a program about coral reefs?
I would be looking for not only their understanding of terms and concepts, but an increasing comprehension of why things are measured statistically and, therefore, why statistics is a good thing and its good that they are taking it.
Geology 1000 - Pick a "rock of the week" from somewhere in your environment. Write a blog post on why that rock, mineral or whatever is interesting to you.It's geologic history? Chemical make up? How it is used?
College Success Strategies - Some background on this one. While working/teaching at Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit college, I was working on yet another graduate degree in theology. I got the harebrained idea to teach this class based on the Augustinian idea of the "perfect traveler" - that one is not expected to be perfect, but to develop habits that would lead you to perfection. Basically, I taught habit development, with students identifying the habits they needed to in order to be a perfect traveler.
Blogging for this class I see as a pretty straight forward journalling of how students respond to a situation.
- What do you need to do - for example, take good class notes
- What behaviors or thoughts will you do that will make it likely that you will take good notes?
- How successful was it?
- If not successful, why not?
- What will you do next time?
Ballet - Three kind of posts that I can think of now:
- Name a movement you've seen in nature, like a cat slinking or a horse galloping. List a sequence of five or more steps that would mimic that movement.
- Name a scene short in a movie. Describe how, in steps and mime, you would turn that scene into a ballet.
- Name a step or sequence that you have learned recently. List three ways you could use that step to express a thing, an emotion or an action.
Your turn
I'd love comments on what kind of blog starter questions you might use in a class you are designing, or have taught.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Judith! What a great idea for a post! I currently teach information literacy classes, and if I assigned students a blog assignment, I would probably have them address the following:
ReplyDelete-Discuss a time you exercised confirmation bias
-How do you think you can avoid "filter bubbles" when online??
I also teach students basic intros to using academic libraries and would love to have students create their own memes or gifs about what they think of when they hear the word "library" as a way to understand and subvert their expectations!
Judith - I once took a class for my Undergraduate English Literature degree at Florida State University that required us to post blogs on the Victoria Literature we read. It was an excellent way to learn! Instead of having question / prompts - we are also tasked to create a "Wiki page" for our particular Victoria Literature, character, prompt, topic, etc. It was excellent and I learned so much in that collaborative setting. Just food for thought.
ReplyDeleteI love this idea! Blogging could be very useful in beginner English classes teaching creative writing, poetry, or rhetoric. I remember for one paper my freshman year of undergrad that I was asked to write a paper with "snapshots" or moments in time that where particularly meaningful. This would have been great as a series of blog post.
ReplyDeleteMulticultural Film is another class I would imagine blogging would be useful. In that class we were asked to watch a variety of films and comment on certain cinematic and muliticultural elements found in the movie.
I also remember a print media projects that I completed for a Women in Literature class that would have been a blast to complete online in blog format. The premise of the project was to take one of the novels read in the class and bring it into the 21st century. I chose Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I likened the book to a the paparazzi and tabloid magazines - following Orlando throughout their life. For the project, I created at tabloid cover with rumor-mill articles. With celebrity rumor hubs all over the internet, I could imagine an awesome product had blogging been an option.