Looking at the list of Edubloggers had me a bit downhearted . . . where are all the science-themed blogs?! But I managed to check out a couple: Jody Bowie's, A teacher's adventures in cyberspace, and the NSTA Blog.
I really liked Jody's approach to her blog; it isn't entirely science themed. It has more of a cross-curriculum feel to it, where she talks about issues that span the breadth of high school classrooms and even advocates for portfolio-based assessment to combat our current "era of grade inflation." And it doesn't take long to catch the underlying gist to all her posts: life-long learning. She mentions the continual process of evaluating individual students and shaping each year's instruction to meet their needs and she alludes to a naive time in which she thought her teacher education was complete. Overall, I'd label this one a "thinking" blog; she explores problem-based learning, constructivism and instructivism, always comparing theories with her personal experiences and desires for her classroom and wrapping up her thoughts with allusions to physics. I like it.
The other two blogs were fun, too. Cyberspace provided a ton of online tools for science teachers, like RAFTs, which allow you to search for project ideas by subject and grade, and YouTube for School. I encourage you to check out these sites! Last of all, the NSTA blog was completely different than the first two blogs, containing everything from science teacher tidbits to researchers blogging from the field to posts commemorating the legendary Sally Ride, an inspiration to women in science and math everywhere.
I've bookmarked these and a few others, might even add them to my new Google Reader. I must say that this has been a worthy endeavor. Edublogging, who knew?!
Glad the exercise had some merit! I find that a carefully curated set of edubloggers can, in five minutes a day, do an extraordinary job of building either your ambient understanding ("Huh, I see a lot of people are talking about Higgs boson. Not my interest now, but I know where I can backtrack if it becomes important to me") or your practice.
ReplyDeletebecarrie, I'm glad you found some interesting science blogs. I can understand your desire to find sites for your content area. I also think you raise an important point, though, that we can all keep in mind: that we can learn from good teaching even if it isn't in our content area.
ReplyDeleteYou mention the particular blog that has the underlying theme of life-long learning as an example. I thought of sources we've looked at in our coursework; for example, even though I'm not a math teacher, I ordred Lampert's book because I thought it was fascinating to read how she thinks through second-by-second decision-making in the classroom. It gets me thinking — much like the label you give Jody Bowie's blog: a "thinking" blog. Who knew, indeed!
I also like your point about learning from teachers in a different content area. Maybe the lack of science EduBlogs is an opening for you. You could fill the need if you keep up with blogging! I found some great ones too, and most were English related but I also found some cool history and social studies blogs. I enjoy reading your blog and I enjoy the thoughtfulness of your words.
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