So I just read a few examples of blogs from teachers who have really embraced this blog stuff and have amassed quite a following of educators from all over. For the most part, what I saw were teachers sharing their own stories of professional growth that were brought on by the use of new technology or instructional practices.
dy/dan, the first blog I came across, was particularly inspiring. The first post,
Why I Don't Assign Homework took me a bit by surprise. The old-school in me says, "No Way, I'd just be reinforcing my students' habits of doing nothing outside of school to keep their minds on what's going on in school!" The author, however, makes some very valid points that I cannot ignore. After reading his post, and the comments left by fellow educators from who-knows-where, I got to self-reflecting a bit on how time is managed over the 80-minute blocks that I plan for. I'm not saying that homework will go the way of the Dodo for the classes I teach, but I will give extra consideration to the
value of the minutes I allocate in the classroom for various activities as I try to improve my teaching. At this point, WAY too much time is spent going over the homework assignments. I need to trim that down and recover some minutes of every block.
