C4T- Tom Schimmer

The first post Mr.Schimmer talks about how teachers use homework as a means of practice, but if it really considered practice then why do we grade them on it? He makes a very good point. This was a very informative post to read. He believes that homework should be for practice and used formatively rather than being used as part of a summative reporting process. I have to agree. This was my reply to his post,

Mr. Schimmer, I am Rachel Hinton an EDM 310 student at the University of South Alabama majoring in Elementary Education. This semester in EDM we have learned so much about 21st century learning and ow helpful if can be in making our students excited about learning. Before this class I would have probably went into teaching thinking the same way most teachers do about homework, that the students need to do it to learn or that it has to be required but there are so many different things that can be used besides homework, especially if it is going to be graded. I find this blog post very interesting. I agree with you 100% that homework should be only for practice and formative assessment. If the students are only worried about gettting it finished to earn the points many times they will not really be learning anything anyway. Thank you for a great post can’t wait to read more!

The second post I read was about students being curious. He says that we should ask ourselves as we are planning our lessons if this will strike the curiosity of our students or if it will just bore them. He tells us to start with questions and ask them what they are curious about before we even begin class. He encourages teachers to foster the kids curiosity and soon it will become easier and easier. My reply to this post was:

Hi, I am Rachel Hinton. I commented on one of your more recent post for my EDM 310 class. I really enjoyed this post. It is very helpful especially for future teachers like me. This is something that I will keep in mind when I begin teaching in the future. Hopefully if I were to start out with things like this it will be easy to maintain throughout my years of teaching. I have really enjoyed your blog. Thank you for all your great post and I can’t wait to read future post. Rachel