Blog Post #3

How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback to Your Peers?

I think that it is very important when giving feedback not to be too picky. The entire point of feedback is to help the student or colleague exceed in that specific skill. You have to be very careful not to hurt feelings, but if the truth hurts there is no light way to say it. With this being said, I have critiqued my three classmates' blog posts and would like to share with you what I have found.

I believe our blog posts are a very important tool in our teaching careers. By offering feedback, we are enabling our students to have a good portfolio for their future employers. I have learned to be more serious when writing when writing things that are posted on the internet. I realize that these writings are a personal reflection of me and can be accessed by anyone.

 

Alyssa Sherman:

One thing that I noticed in this Alyssa's blog was that she starts each paragraph with the words "first, second," and so on.   This does not strike me as a formal way of writing. 

Ex: "First and most importantly how can students learn new information..."

Ex: "A second flaw of the flipping system, as mentioned in the video..."

Overall this student has a very good grammar structure to her blog, and I believe she identified the main thesis of her argument. She also clearly stated her position in the argument.

 

Katy Mehrer:

While reading Katy's blog I could not help but notice that she needs to write more formal instead of writing like she is texting or talking to a friend. She always needs to be aware that she writes a lot of simple sentences that do not expound on the main idea of the topic. A lot of her sentences are almost pointless with no meaning.

Ex:  I don’t believe that to be completely true; however, I do feel like it is important for children to learn about computers and how to use them.

*It should sound like this:

I don't believe this to be completely true; however, I do feel that it is...

 

Simple Sentences:

Ex: Teaching in the 21^st century is a lot like it was in the 20^th century.

Ex:When I was in school, we still had computer labs, and different things to do with computers.

Ex: I know quite a few things about computers.

Ex:That is why we have computer classes in college.

(Individually these sentences do not tell the reader enough about the topic. Katy needs to be complex in her writing. )

I do not think that this blog post meets the requirements of a quality writing assignment.

 

Haley Marrs:

Haley has simple grammar mistakes regarding comma placement and a couple of run on sentences. She seems to have made her major points aware in these paragraphs and she has clearly stated her position in the argument.

 

Run on Sentence:

Vicki Davis is an outstanding IT director and teacher in rural Georgia who has used digital citizenship to teach her students about technology.

*She could have broken this into two sentences and it wouldn't have seemed so long.

Ex: Vicki Davis is an outstanding IT director and teacher in rural Georgia. She uses digital citizenship to teach her students about technology.

 

Run on sentence:

As stated in the video, Davis likes to call herself a “teacherprenuer,” because she customizes her curriculum according to the students she has in the classroom, based on their strengths and interests.

*This sentence could have been broken down.

Ex: As stated in the video, Davis like to call herself a "teacherprenuer". She chose this name because she customizes her own curriculum according to her students' strengths and interests