Teach 180: Hello, Anyone Out There? (Day 167)

At the end of February, twenty faculty members signed up to be a member of the google classroom "Grading Smarter, Not Harder".  I was excited by the possibility of sharing ideas with my colleagues around a topic that really interests me - assessment.  My initial post said, "This is a virtual book group that is open to all upper school faculty. Discussion prompts will be based on the book "Grading Smarter, Not Harder" by Myron Dueck. Reading the book is not required to participate. Prompts will be posted weekly or bi-weekly."  I have created prompts on each of the chapters for the past two months.  However, only nine posts have been made since the beginning of March and six of them were made by me.  If a post happens in a discussion forum and no one responds to it, did the post happen?  

I know that my blog is essentially me talking to myself and I feel like that in the google classroom, too.  But the purpose of a google classroom forum is to have interaction with other participants.  Being a part of communities like #MTBoS, the Global Math Department and the 2018 AP Statistics Reader Facebook Group help me to grow as a math teacher.  However, I want to have discussions about more general education topics that all teachers face.  We don't have those conversations at lunch or in the faculty room.  Discussions tend to focus on trying to understand the bell schedule, when grades are due, what to watch on Netflix and rating the school coffee.  Conversations like this are a nice diversion.  However, I want to learn from my math and non-math colleagues and grow in my profession.  Setting up face-to-face meetings during lunch did not work last year (only 2 or 3 people attended).  So, I thought this might work, because it would give teachers more flexibility with participation.  But with 2/3 of the posts being written by me, it appears I am mostly talking to myself. Hello, anyone out there?

Here is the post I did today about Chapter 4 - ReTesting.  Maybe someone out there will read it and comment on it.