Blog Post C4T Comments for Teachers

C4T Post 1

For my first C4T assignment, I commented on Dr. John Strange's post entitled Facts. In this blogpost, Dr. Strange brings to light that facts are irrelevant. He begins his argument with an encounter he had with a member of the New Jersey State Board of Education who informed him the Board was insisting students learn important historical facts and dates. Dr. Strange then goes on to ask him questions about dates in our history that anyone could make his or her own argument about when they occurred. He then states his opinion about why facts such as these are unimportant, and why we should be skeptical of these so called facts and focus more on why these things in history happened. Dr. Strange really understands that many facts are not reliable and that educators should teach their students how to research for evidence regarding such questions.

In my reply to his post, I told Dr. Strange how I experienced learning different "facts" regarding some subjects throughout middle and high school. With each history class I took, I was told a different "fact" and that the "fact" the previous teacher taught me was completely wrong. Eventually, I just learned what the instructor wanted me to learn just to get a good grade on the test. I also commented that I don't remember the majority of the dates I had to learn while in those classes. Overall, I really enjoyed Dr. Strange's blogpost regarding facts, and it refreshing to know that an educator recognized the unreliability and irrelevance of some of the things students are being made learn.

C4T Post 2

For my second C4T assignment, I commented on Dr. John Strage's Competence and Accreditation blogpost. In this post, Dr. Strange talks about his recent experience with the SACS regarding his qualification of teaching EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. He had to gather his own materials that he viewed would meet the SACS standards to show he is qualified to teach. He attempted to submit all his documents electronically but was told he had to print them. Two days after approval, he was told he had to submit everything electronically. He goes on to state why this burden should not have been placed on him, and why his teaching qualifications should have been handled differently.

In my response to this post, I agreed with Dr. Strange with his complaints. The University should have been responsible for providing qualification documents since they are the ones who hired him. Also, it was pretty absurd to me that an individual needed to provide proof he's qualified to teach a course he invented. There is no one more qualified to teach the course than the inventor!