Week 4 Is Here

We're beginning week four of our course! I just finished reading your reflections and Moodle posts, and once again, you have some wonderful insights into what's happening.

Many of you highlighted the part of Blended English that I most enjoy - the smaller class discussions. I predicted this would be a benefit of blended learning, but I did not realize what a difference the smaller class sizes would make in terms of the quality of discussions and my own enjoyment of them. I was very gratified to read that others feel the same way.

I also enjoyed the discussion on busy work in the open forum on Moodle. Many people pointed out examples of what they perceive to be "busy work." The most common alternative people suggested was more discussion. I agree that discussions can be fruitful. However, I often find the students benefit from scaffolding activities (taxonomies, maps, paraphrasing) that prepare them to more thoughtfully discuss. I also have trouble with assessing discussion. Sometimes I need an assignment, besides a test or a paper, that I can put into the grade book.

While we may not totally agree on what constitutes busy work, I hope we can agree that the collaborative nature of the blended course is positive. I have never had a teaching experience quite like this one - where the input and reactions from students are so instrumental in the creation of the course content and instructional methods. I love hearing your opinions!

Per your suggestions this week, we'll discuss clearer grading criteria on Wednesday. There will also be an open-forum again on Moodle. And Michael, my email address, which is available both on Edline and on the Edina High School homepage is katwest@edina.k12.mn.us.

Have a great week!

Heading Into Week Three

Today for the F2F (that's how I'm writing face-to-face now - cool, right?!) session, we had a seminar about gender roles in Ibo culture. Many people had interesting thoughts on this. During the discussions, I kept track of who was participating. I was pleased to note that we were able to get 100% participation in each class, and I want to continue to find ways to do this. Tyler suggested in his weekly reflection that I continue to use the "Wednesday Friends" technique, and maybe incorporate something similar on optional days. I do feel a responsibility to build community, and things like Wednesday Friends kind of help, I think.

During one of the seminars (4th hour, I think), people had questions about the clothing of the Ibo people. I found this great link, but we didn't have time to discuss it.

Many people noted in their weekly reflections that they enjoyed recording their podcasts on Audacity. Today, Mr. Walker and I got together to publish the final products. He and I had a misunderstanding about the format of the segments - I thought we were putting them together in one file, and he thought I wanted to publish them individually as episodes. In the end, I think having them individually is kind of nice, and I think the third graders might enjoy clicking on them one-by-one. There are a few groups that need to publish, still - another benefit of this format is that I can just add them to the feed and they'll appear.

Click here for Fresh Press segments. Click here for iMPRESS. And click here for Hot Paper.

I'm excited about tomorrow's optional session on folktales. I disagreed with Erik's thought (which he posted on Moodle) that Achebe's novel lacks deep meaning. I think the character of Okonkwo is very well developed and extremely complex. I also really like the dispassionate tone and how the impacts of colonialism are left to the reader to "judge." I'm interested to hear people's final opinions on Thursday and Friday.

Another idea I'm thinking through is the concept of "busy work." I always try to avoid what I think of as "busy work" in my classes, blended or not. To me, busy work is work that doesn't require any thought or that is redundant. Brainstorming topics and themes, writing PIEs about complex questions, and responding thoughtfully to others' comments would not qualify as busy work in my mind. Michael, Max, and Alma (and I think one other person in 5th hour?) suggested that they're doing too much busy work. What does busy work mean to you guys? What could you do instead of the things I've assigned to show your deep thinking and understanding about course content? I'm really curious to get more feedback on this.

I also heard from Justin and Erik that they wanted the forums un-grouped so they could interact with other classes. Noted! And fixed for this week!

Wednesday Friends!

Today, during our whole-class discussion I tried to counteract the isolation that can occur in a blended environment by assigning "Wednesday Friends." Together, Wednesday friends worked on vocabulary, discussed the text, and brainstormed topics and ideas in Things Fall Apart in an A to Z taxonomy.

Later, I'll add photos of the taxonomy to this post.

This morning, ER brought me a copy of an interview with Chinua Achebe in the NYT Sunday Magazine. I found the article online here. Check it out! I thought it was interesting how Achebe's voice in the interview is similar to the narrator's voice in the novel.

What did you think about that?

Grades Posted for Week 1

Well, our first week is behind us, and this morning I uploaded grade reports to Edline. I'm happy to report that the vast majority of students have As and Bs at this point. If you are earning less than 70% for any reason, however, please plan to attend both Thursday and Friday this week. This will give us a chance to talk privately about what's happening.

In the reflections, many people had great suggestions. Based on these suggestions, I've added a forum to Moodle for student-led discussion about the text, posted a link to Moodle on Edline, and figured out how to make the weekly schedule more prominent on the Moodle page (although I haven't yet had time implement that last change).

Fresa brought up an interesting concern about not branching out or socializing with new groups in a blended format. I think we'll have to be mindful of this, especially on our whole-group days. Another interesting concern was Anne's. She wonders if some of the "busy work" (I hate that term becuase I feel it's overused and oftentimes the work is misunderstood, but still...) will get transferred to the online environment. She cited the commenting requirement as an example of busy work.

My favorite thing so far about the blended format is the quality and interactivity in literature discussions. I think 10-15 is a much more manageable size for a literature discussion than 25-30. Most people agreed with this; however, Tyler said he missed hearing more opinions in the small group sessions.

The quiz scores were pretty high, with an average of about 13.5/16, which I thought was great.

Study Tip

We had a great 2nd half discussion today with those who stayed. Our focus was characters. We made a tree map of Okonkwo's immediate family and also reviewed the minor characters. Then, we divided up and made bubble maps for major characters. These are posted outside the room for all to see.

Jeff and Danielle made a great point about the character of Nwoye during 5rd hour, which was that they didn't know if we could trust the decriptions of Nwoye in the text because they were all given from Okonkwo's perspective.

Many students talked about how much they disliked Okonkwo. In 6th hour, Kari said it was hard for her to even read the book because she was so angry with him. Thomas suggested it might be easier for guys to read the character. My opinion is that Achebe wants us to understand Okonkwo's motivations, even if we don't like him.

I'm finding that I really like the smaller groups for discussions. I'm interested to see how the mandatory discussion will go tomorrow. I have some ideas to keep things flowing.

A study tip for Thursday/Friday's quiz: Make bubble maps for the major characters if you weren't here for the optional session on Wed. You may also consider flow-mapping the major events in each chapter. People who were here may want to make a bubble map for Unoka, in addition to the characters we covered in class.

3rd Podcast Topic

This time our topic is related to the other two, and in fact, kind of combines the other two.

We're going to explore the "right to read around the world." Here's my rationale: First, our focus is on world cultures this quarter. We begin with what is now Nigeria. Next, we'll read about an Indian family that has recently immigrated to the United States. After that, you'll have a choice of novels to read. And finally, we'll finish with a text about the Iranian Revolution. My second reason for choosing this podcast topic is that the third graders are thinking about what it means to have a "right" to read, and issues regarding literacy and the law.

Our common text will be Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortenson.

By Friday, you'll need to post an idea for your podcast script and citations for the sources you're using on Moodle. I'll demonstrate in class how we're going to use SIRS as a jumping off point for our research this time.

Day One!

We're here at kick-off. Today in class we took care of the nitty gritty details - lanyards, hole punches in ID cards, and looking at the Moodle.

You should log into Moodle ASAP. To get in, go here. Sign in with the username and password you use in the EHS computer labs. Your access code is based on your class. If you can't remember your access code, send me a quick email and I'll give it to you. (I don't want to post them here where everyone in the universe can see them.)

Be sure to review the weekly schedule and check in at the beginning of each class period, regardless of whether you'll be attending class that day.