Reflections, Part 1

The semester is over for my students (I have more grading to finish but have decided to take a break for Christmas ) I find myself reflecting on the semester even though the final numbers aren’t in. Today I read the latest entries in a blog I sometimes read: Blog of Proximal Development and was downright jealous to see that he is getting real community going with his bloggers. After reading the entries about getting readers to respond in a readerly (not nit-picking) way to other writers, I thought “Ahh, a teacher doing good peer response–how it warms my heart!” But the entries about the students growing dependent on their blogs and the comments and connections around content–even printing them to study for a test– I was perplexed. How did he do that?? I must study futher…
Using the blogs in 2 ways this semester helped me to see the flexibility of the tool. The research blogs had a slow start, but in the end, many students said they finally figured out they were useful and not busy work. Several said they would use this tool when doing research in the future. Those involved 2 important parts: the link to the source they were reading and a reflection about what they were learning and how (or if) they might use the source and what they would do next. I did occassionally comment in order to inspire or redirect, but not often enough.
The second one, the group blog, was meant to help them process what we were doing in class. Again, it took pressure from me to get them to participate, including a schedule assigning responsibility for the primary post. Comment posts were rare on this blog. And they certainly didn’t use it as I had hoped they would, to reflect on the class after each meeting. BUT: students noticed that when they were responsible for posting, they saw the class in a new light and picked up more detail. It is not a class where I lecture. Most classes consist of an activity and a circle discussion. One student said toward the end of the semester “I have finally figured out that we are supposed to apply what we do in class to the writing projects we are working on outside of class.” I think they learn things and get ideas from their time in class that they do apply in their writing, but they rarely do it in a conscious way. I just see the insights from class discussions work their way into new drafts of papers. So next time, I think I will have a primary post which summarizes class, and then 2 or 3 assigned “commenters” who will answer the question: How can I apply what we did today to the writing project I am working on?
That is an insight I would not have gotten if I hadn’t been working with blogs in this class.