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Thomas Petra's Page
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- Location
- Guam, USA
- About Me
- Originally from Minnesota, I have spent the past 16 years on Guam. I teach math to grades 4-8 at a small private school. I am finishing up my master's degree in secondary education with an emphasis on Instructional Technology at the University of Guam this May.
My Master's project is designing a website that uses Google Earth as a tool to teach math topics. As such, I am currently wrestling with how to teach content, how to teach process, and how to teach thinking; specifically as it relates to math education. I am interested in shaking the tree of education and seeing what we can all come up with.
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Your comment in response to my post got me thinking. (I would have responded in the forum, but I'm hoping that if I don't write too much there other people will come and write.)
So, here's what I was thinking about. Are there ever any times when teachers should not want their students to engage in dialogue about ideas under study? I would think from a professional perspective, probably not. Discussion means engagement and we all want our students to be engaged.
Despite this common desire, many of us, including myself at times, are afraid that if we open our teaching up to student ideas we'll have problems with classroom management. Linda McNeil wrote a very interesting article on this called "Defensive Teaching." So, your comment prompted me to think about blogs, wikis, and podcasts in a slightly new way. These tools can be used to facilitate dialogue even when teachers might be afraid to promote such dialogue in their real classrooms. After all, teachers are not going to lose control of their classes if students are writing on Web 2.0.
Now, I guess the question that I'm considering is how can teachers promote this type of discussion on wikis? What specific questions and prompts could students use to engage Web 2.0 discussion. I guess the questions and prompts would vary from case to case but are there any general rules?
I hope it's Ok that I'm responding in this way.
Thanks,
Andy
Thanks for joining. I'd love to learn more about your master's project. I'm likely going to be developing some Google Earth mash-ups related to social studies in the next few months. If you need to run ideas by anybody, I'd love to collaborate.
On a day like today, in Michigan with a temperature of about zero, I'm very jealous of somebody who lives in a warm region. What's the temperature by you, 90?
Andy