This week I just have a few things to comment on about the reading from the Kist book.
On page 98, Kist talks about how one of the teachers involved in the Facebook group logged on solely to act as a "devil's advocate." Personally, I think this is a great way to teach students how to not only form their own opinion, but to be able to defend it. It's one thing to make a statement, but to defend it against sound, opposing logic is an entirely different thing.
On page 99, Kist talks about how the students were more motivated to keep up with the Facebook group "because they own this, they love it." I guess I can say that I feel a bit of that for this blog. Though I'm not a huge fan of blogging (mostly because of a lack of time), I still feel that this is, in a way, a representation of me, and I want it to be an adequate one.
Telecommuting also came up in the chapter. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. In college, I would love to have this sort of set up. It would save me a 15 minute drive and a gallon or two of gas while allowing me to more or less create my own schedule. I'd love for that to happen at the college level.
However, I don't know if I would trust it to work at the high school level. I just have trouble thinking that high schoolers would have the dedication to keep on task. I know that personally, if I were given the option to telecommute in high school, I would have jumped on it solely because I wanted to sleep in more. Being a pretty lazy student in high school, I doubt that I would have kept on track. Now that I'm at the college level and I care much more about school, I don't think it would be a problem. Kist reports that the program has been a success though, so I'm just not entirely sure what to think at this point.
Your comment about playing devils' advocate is intriguing. This certainly would cause the students to defend, support and even follow up on their posts. There's a work by Mikhail Bahkin who suggests that we can't completely stand up for one view unless we compare it to an opposing view. Not that you have time now, but if you ever wanted to read about it...it's quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that you can't fully support an argument unless there's some sort of opposition. While I haven't seen this much in my English courses (other than Comp & Rhet), I have seen this quite a bit in my Philosophy courses.
ReplyDeleteDr. Sparrow of the Philosophy Dept. does an excellent job of playing devil's advocate. While some students find it frustrating, I found it to be hepful. It pushed me to be more articulate with my thoughts and also to anticipate what the other side might say before they even had the chance to say it.