Whether you’re a techie who holds after-school Skype seminars or an old-school prof who demands stapled, hard copies on your desk by 5 PM sharp, you can use blogs to keep students engaged in and out of the classroom.

If you’re new to integrating blogging into your lesson plans, here’s a sample plan of action.

1. Decide which blogging platform to use

Blogging platforms like Tumblr, WordPress.com, Edublogs.org and Blogger.com provide free, easy ways to create blogs for your students — no technology knowledge needed!

Choose one platform and require every student to use it – no matter their personal preference. Even if students already maintain a personal blog, be sure they create a new blog solely for the purposes of class. Collect each student’s blog address and distribute the list to the class via email.

2. Start with an assignment that works as an old-fashioned English paper

God forbid that technology should actually detract from the goal of your classroom—which is to explore the art of written communication. Ease into incorporating blogs into the classroom by assigning a “traditional” English assignment, but requiring students to post their finished product on their blog.

Let’s say you’ve tasked your class with the following assignment.

Be sure to define the parameters for the assignment – their blog shouldn’t be an excuse for students to slack off! Clearly identify grading criteria, and make sure students understand that if you ask them to post the final draft of a paper on their blog, you will hold it to the same standards of grammar, style, and mechanics than you would a printed essay.

3. Get those comments rolling

Once students have taken the first step – posting their “traditional” English paper on their blogs – it’s time to exercise the full capacity of the blog genre.

Instruct students to read each others’ essays and post comments on, say, 6 or 7 of them. Indicate that you will check to make sure they make the required number of posts. Encourage students to offer both praise and constructive criticism of their peers’ work, and spell out your standards for respectful online interaction. When properly monitored, internet forums give even the quietest students a chance to enter class discussion.

Read all the posts and summarize the discussion threads in the classroom the next day, and open up the online discussions to the class.

You might also ask students to write a reflection post about the above activities, answering questions such as:

• What comments on your paper surprised you?
• How do you think you might have improved your argument?
• What did you learn about the writing or reading process with this assignment?
• Do you have any plans to expand your 2-page argument?

For the midterm or final paper (whether it’s a 5- or 15-pager), allow students to build upon their essay.  Have them blog about the process of expanding the paper – ask them to post their revised thesis on the blog, or to document their research questions. The key is to make students feel a sense of ownership over their work in the class.

4. Encourage discussions between assignments

After their first assignment, students will be more familiar with the workings of their blog — if they weren’t already. Instruct students to post questions (about classroom material) or writing/research challenges they are facing on their blogs. Offer extra credit to students who post helpful feedback on other students’ blogs; consider grading “blog participation” as a component of students’ class participation grades.

5. Reflect on the research process

If you incorporate any amount of research in the class, you may have students post about their research efforts—what’s working for them, what’s not and how they see their work evolving. Encourage students to use their blog to link to helpful resources they’ve found on the web.

6. Showcase creative talents

If you incorporate any amount of creative writing into your English class, blogs are a great way to help students “jump into” different characters. Students might post full stories or poems on their blogs – or they might post individual scenes, character descriptions, or “free-writes” to get their creative wheels turning. If creative writing is the main purpose of your students’ blogs, it might also work to create a single class blog, like the one above, where students can share their own work or inspirational excerpts from the work of published writers.

The advantage of the blog format here is that students who are usually paralyzed by the blank page may find it easier to write when publishing and feedback can happen more instantaneously.

7. Explore other assignments

Depending on the English class you’re teaching, you may have the opportunity to incorporate “top ten” lists, opinion articles, and “how-to” essays into your syllabus. These assignments lend themselves well to being published on blogs. If you’re teaching a “specialty” class like Journalism (see below), a class blog might also be a helpful resource.

American math teachers frequently complain about the mastery level of their incoming students. College professors are frustrated because they find themselves having to teach high school level material. High school teachers are frustrated because they have to teach middle school material. Middle school teachers are frustrated because they have to teach elementary school material.

Evidence backs up their collective lament. According to multiple international assessments, American high school students rank in the bottom half of industrialized countries when it comes to math achievement. Numerous East Asian countries boast much better test scores and content retention even though countries like China, Japan, and South Korea spend less per student and often have larger class sizes.

So what are teachers in East Asia doing that helps students retain what they learn? Turns out, there is a key difference in pedagogy that Western teachers can emulate.

Lesson Structure in the U.S.

In the United States, a typical math lesson looks something like this:

1. Teacher introduces and explains a new concept
2. Teacher demonstrates several sample uses
3. Teacher gives students related problems to solve in class
4. Students complete homework and eventually take a quiz, both of which contain similar problems to the ones in class

A lesson on exponents, for example, would begin with the teacher writing 2^3 on the board,  telling everyone that it signifies 2 × 2 × 2, and then giving more examples. The second half of the lesson would be arithmetic problems where students compute 3^3, 5^3, and so on and so forth.

A general rule of communication is that what you end with is what you emphasize. Therefore, in the lesson structure described above, the emphasis is on problem solving, not on the actual mathematical concept. The implicit and often explicit lesson to students is:

“Don’t worry about understanding the math: just try to get the questions right.”

It turns out that this method may be less than optimal, both for learning math and also for acing standardized tests.

Lesson Structure in Japan

Japanese classrooms, by contrast, use the exact opposite structure. A typical math lesson in Japan looks something like this:

1. Teacher presents a problem
2. Students attempt to solve this problem using their existing understanding.
3. The teacher works with the class, using the process to help students deduce a new concept.

For example, in Japan, instead of just explaining the rules for exponents and then spending forty minutes on practice problems, the teacher will start by showing students 2^3 = 8 and 3^2 = 9 and focus on getting students to see the pattern and deduce what operation leads to these results.

By “proving” the mathematical concepts and making them the focus of the lesson, East Asian teachers can significantly improve long-term retention of content.

Takeaway

The goal in all teaching is to leave students with the feeling “I have this new skill / understanding that I did not have at the start of class!” instead of “Great, now I may do a little better on my standardized tests.” The latter sentiment motivates only the high-achievers and sends the message that what you are teaching lacks intrinsic value.

Though this lesson structure is particularly applicable to math, it can be applied to almost any subject. Making an effort to ensure students understand the concepts involved rather than just demanding rote memorization will pay off in the end.

If you’re a teacher looking for new ways to engage your students, try it out!