Comments for Teachers Post 1

I was assigned to the blog "At the Teacher's Desk."  This blog has many contributers but both of the posts I responded to were posted by wmchamberlin.  The first post was entitled "Trying a New Spin on Current Events".  It was about current events and taking a new approach at teaching them.  Being a future history teacher this really intrigued me.  Mr. Chamberlin talked about a class he is currently teaching on Current Events.  He discussed how he is teaching them to be critical of their sources and to compare sources.  With all the media available to us in today's world we must be critical of the source of our information.  There are so many contrastng reports on many current events because of the political views of the reporter reporting the story or of the media outlet it is coming from.  Mr. Chamberlin is pointing out to his students how so much of our information comes from the large media oulets (such as the major television networks) that students often do not know how to find other sources.  He is putting a focus on the smaller media outlets such as local reporters as well as international sources. I really agree with Mr. Chamerlin that this is an essential skill to be teaching to students living in today's world.

The second post I responded to was also posted by Mr. Chamberlin.  It discussed, again, a different approach to teaching.  It was entitled "Can we Adopt a Master/Apprentice Approach to Learning?"  I was very interested in what he had to say here.  He discussed the history of the Master/Apprentice Approach.  This appraoch is very different from what is happening in the classroom today.  It puts a person who has mastered a skill and a person or small group of people who are looking to master this skill together.  The Master is able to extend his knowledge to the Apprentice.  In return for the Master teaching the Apprentice these skills the Apprentice works for the Master.  If this approch was applied to the classroom there would be less students assigned to each teacher.  The Master (teacher) would be teaching by example.  It is much more of a hands on approach than many approaches used in today's classrooms.  I am very intrigued by the questions that Mr. Chamberlin posts in this blog and I encourage everyone to keep up with this blog.