Mister McIntosh Says » collaborative learning http://mistermcintoshsays.org "“We must look for the opportunity in every difficulty instead of being paralyzed at the thought of the difficulty in every opportunity.”"~ Unknown Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:41:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 Thing 13 – Google Docs http://mistermcintoshsays.org/2009/01/05/thing-13-google-docs/ http://mistermcintoshsays.org/2009/01/05/thing-13-google-docs/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:13:29 +0000 Mister McIntosh http://mistermcintosh.edublogs.org/?p=21 Truly an awesome technology. I think it would be a hassle to set up and manage a classroom submission system. For me, as a math teacher in a country that seems to be falling behind other countries in student math achievement, I don’t see how to use it to help remedy our ills.

If we had the time for something like collaborative report on how to use the balancing method to solve equations, which resulted in a class of 34 students generating a total or 6 or 7 documents to evaluate, that might work. To be honest, I don’t think the time spent by the students would be as valuable as time spent  actually solving equations using the balancing method.

Maybe I’ll try something like that though, and see how it works. I’m open to the possibility that it might engage students and result in a better understanding. BUT, I’m not Jack Black pretending to be a substitute teacher who has studied under some school of “Experimental Education.” There is no evidence that any of this actually improves education. I will be thrilled if you can show me some.

NOTE: I do not consider survey data about what a bunch of people “think or believe to be true” to be legitimate education research.

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