At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Stewart announced the blog assignment, describing it as "the easiest 100 points you can earn." Although the assignment itself (write eight short blog posts and twenty short comments) is fairly simple, the imposed timing restrictions (max of two posts/comments a week) make it a test of the student's time management. On one hand, this encourages blogging throughout the semester so as to not have all the posts pop up on the last week. On the other hand, it punishes students with poorer time management by not allowing them to earn credit for their work if it's not evenly spread out. On the assignment sheet, the purpose is described as such:
(1) to help students who would like to review key subjects from class; (2)to give students an opportunity to share their learning process with the wider world and (3) to promotedigital literacy in our increasingly digital lives.
(1) to help students who would like to review key subjects from class; (2)to give students an opportunity to share their learning process with the wider world and (3) to promotedigital literacy in our increasingly digital lives.
Do you think the blog assignment fairly assesses those skills? Do you think it could do the same without the timing restrictions?
I don't think students could review subjects effectively if the majority of the class posted about the same topics in the days before a test or the end of the semester. The assignment helps students learn to do small tasks over long periods of time. An important life lesson we all have to learn is to get our work done in increments of longer periods of time. There will on day come a project that you will not be able to finish in an all-nighter. If you don't believe me, I dare you to write your 90-page college senior thesis in one night; it can barely be done over four days (See https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator/transcript?language=en). The assignment penalizes students who don't do the work consistently over the course of the semester because it forces us to develop good work habits. And most of the time, the posts relate to historical events, so it helps to review.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point. In my opinion I believe that the blog does help, while also not being as effective. I myself use the blog for the points, I don't tend to view the blog everyday to "review" subjects from class. Considering that you can blog about anything, it makes a great outlet for discussions that may take up valuable time from class. I'm sure that the time restrictions are used so that Mr. Stuart is not stuck having to assess a ton of blogs at the last minute. I know that I myself procrastinated the blog assignment. I still believe that if I can grind out 8 blogs in one night they should be graded. The blog assignment has taught me to write anything for points.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the blog does give us a strong perspective on topics that we may not necessarily cover very in-depth in class -- it allows us to branch out and try new things.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matthew, it does make us write about whatever topic we would like. It is also great to see others perspective on topics.
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