Thursday, April 4, 2013

Chapter X



For my journal entry I chose to respond to "Robert's 'This I Believe' Essay Lesson." The story focuses on a teacher trying to assist students who desperately need help with their writing skills. Robert concocts the idea to give them an essay assignment pertaining to core values and personal philosophies -- based off a famous radio show from the 1950s. He hopes that by letting the students choose their topic that he will light their interests towards writing as a whole. The response question reads: how would you propose Robert integrate technology into the "This I Believe" essay project in ways that will promote learning success for all students?

First off, I think it's a loaded question. It would be nice to think that there would be any way to promote learning success for all students through any median, including technology. But I daresay say it's impossible to try and bridge every gap. There are no perfect teachers -- nor perfect students for that matter.

Now, considering his resources  I would have the students write the essays on the computers he has access to. Once they are done they are to save them and find a partner that they can evaluate. In this peer evaluation the students will critique each other. During this time Robert should be walking around and keeping a watchful eye on students. Then, using the projector Robert will choose a few students' essays to show to the entire class and then ask the class what they think needs improving. Robert will guide them along the way and make suggestions, but never flat out tell them what's wrong. Instead, he'll let the students figure it out.

Hopefully this lesson will teach the students as a whole and will save a lot of time. The idea is that Robert will use students to teach themselves. Although, I find this a good way to learn writing, it's important to keep in mind that the students will not have these types of resources on the test (most likely). Maybe some good old-fashioned simple essay writing would also be needed to help the students prepare.

Resources:

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O,RE, Edwards, S. A. & Woolf, B. P. (2010) Transforming Learning With New Technologies. Allyn & Bacon.

1 comment:

  1. I think Robert's goal was more to ignite a different/increased level of motivation and even self-confidence in writing with personalization. Perhaps, considering the DI/UDL in this chapter, the use of podcasts and/or video creation to lead into writing would work, as well.

    Here are a couple of other web 2.0 oriented sites that might be useful for such a project:
    http://www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter
    http://www.youareyourwords.com/
    and then there's http://oneword.com/ to keep students in the 'brainstorm' stage of writing.

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