C4T 1

     For comments for teachers, the blog I was given was title "Quantum Progress".  In the first blog post I covered, "Best Class Ever - when I leave the room" for my teacher John Burke, he had posted a video of his students, who were filming themselves solving a problem.  The trick to this was that he was not in the room, he was away at a meeting.  He had given them a difficult question  The video showed how the students worked together and could learn by working together in a large collaboration.  The students seemed to flow as one, working together to think of ideas and challenge each other to solve the problem.  When Burke came back, an interesting shift occurred.  Students no longer spoke aloud and seemed more nervous. I think this was due to the teacher being in the room and the fear of being wrong in front of them creeping into their minds.  Burke was astounded by how well his students worked together on the problem when he was out of the room however.
     In the second post, "Back to blogging with my best class ever", Burke had videoed a discussion among his honors physics class.  The group worked together in an open discussion about what do to solve the particular problem.  Burke proceeds to join the discussion only to ask questions that further the thinking of his students.  They ask questions that are intelligent.  Even when Burke explains that they are wrong, they begin turning out new ideas and come to some interesting conclusions.  Burke comments on how this task is draining mentally to the students and how at the end he is doing a lot of the meaning.  He hopes that he will eventually have it where he turns more of the responsibility over to the students.
     My comments for both the blog posts were similar.  Burke's method of teaching in my mind is something that should be looked into further.  I commented on how the idea of students discussing with one another can lead to a further understanding of the material.  With a teacher present, their is the fear of absolutism, in a sense that if a student doesn't give the correct answer than they are completely wrong.  Because they are working with fellow classmates this fear isn't as prevalent as it would be if a teacher were in the room.  I also said how the blog showed that students have the ability to reach certain conclusions and answers on their own and with the help of a teacher's guiding hand, it can further deepen their understandings.  I believe that what Burke is onto with his open classroom discussions and teaching methods are wonderful ways of instructing students.

For a further look into Burke's blog follow this link.  https://quantumprogress.wordpress.com/