WEEK 6: ENGAGING STUDENTS

Large classes and Interactive Power Point.

Hello friends,

Really Teaching in large classes is a custom in my job, so that, I have always looking for resources to help me in order to teach to my students and get the effectively and efficiently.

Obviously, the technology tool skills come to give to teachers the light in electronically to web-based assignments before the class. In this process, it was interesting have had the opportunity to analyze the quoted “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself”. (John Dewey). Because when the people always study in order to learn more and more, they become successful.

I have always had clear that aim of teaching is not only transmitting information. Our labor as teacher is to share academic knowledge and help to our students to be humanistic, reflective, critical and active constructors of their own scenario.

Now, I have learnt that in large classes must impose techniques to keep students interested in the learning process it is necessary to have present the (Schneider for an extensive discussion of theories). About the cognitive theories who describes the three phases of the learning process:

1. - we decide what to attend to, If we want students to learn, we need to capture their attention.

2. - We organize what we observe into a coherent mental pattern or structure, Students must decide how to organize this information in their own minds (and notes).

3. - This gives new information meaning beyond the particular learning occasion, and makes it easier to retrieve. This final phase of learning begins in the classroom, with review and application, and continues out of the classroom.

Based in this Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.” for that reason I like very much to work with PBL, because we can involve our students directly with the real materials, real activities like web-quest.

I have always used PPT in my classes, now I only need to add the link with internet in my teaching learning process, and we use the specific knowledge we need our students learn. In this way, the teaching is appropriate for visual, kinesthetic musical, etc and different learners’ ages. Thanks Robert, It is important to refresh our knowledge, and to improve our capacities as a good professional; and the most important, Get the successful in our students.

Week 5: Assessment, Rubrics and PBL

My nice and beautiful expiriences about Rubrics and PBL

In this week, the level of my knowledge has grown during this course, because I have never had clear the idea about rubrics and assessment, however nowadays I understand that they help us to know what our students learnt. It is important to emphasize that sometimes teachers do not give the importance to this topics which facilitate us to understand our activities in this difficult educational labor, because we are forming new professionals for a new society.

Sometimes, we teach in a quickly way, and we do not think, what happens with the learners about their feelings, thoughts and goals which they have for the futures. Obviously, we used to attend many seminars, but they do not have this kind of topics, I do not know why, but I suppose because it is a complex topic at the beginning and take a lot time to understand it.

to be clear, neither rubrics is better than the other and both (holistic and analytic rubrics) have a place in authentic assessment, depending of many aspects like, the person who is teaching, and the kind of learners, because sometimes, there is less detail to analyze in the holistic rubric, younger students may be able to integrate them into their schema better than the analytic rubric. Teachers must score the product and they have different ideas about what are acceptable criteria which help us to get an extra detail in the analytic rubric with multiple grades about the same criteria.

In Project Based Learning (PBL), students have a long process in answer to a complex question, problem, or challenge. Projects help students learn contents that requires the modern society with knowledge such as collaboration, communication and critical thinking.

Students get a deeper understanding about the necessity to learn according globalized world. Projects develop skills and habits of learning and can allow students to know community issues, interact through technology, and work with others as if they are in a classroom. Students have the opportunity to focus their learning using debate, forum or solving problems. They create a need to know essential content and skills. Because they learn firstly the knowledge and then, once learned, they have the opportunity to apply them creating a context and reason to learn and understand the information and concepts.


Thanks Robert for these new knowledge.



WEEK 4: TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LESSON PLAN

This week, I have understood that sometimes we assist to a seminar, but they are unfocussed with the expectative in the teaching learning process.

Actually, the area of the website for teaching English is new for me, but planning the lesson is common in our activities, however I have learnt a new form to do it and I have liked it a lot. The best experience in the websites techniques and the most widely implemented methods of helping all students to learn more successfully it is amazing.

The description of the teaching and learning strategies, in order to improve in the teaching learning process with the websites, and other resources has been interesting. It is important to recognize that while these strategies are useful, little will be accomplished in implementing them unless there is ongoing documentation of their results.

Learn to use this new technique, it a new for to teach with efficiently, it depends of us and the interested of our students.

Week 3: Oral/Aural Skills

At first time, I was a bit confused about Oral/Aural skills. Really, I did not have clear what were the differences about the meaning for each word. I had to read a lot. Then I found this “aural” refers to language as we hear it and “Oral” is the language we talk in order to get the communication”.

Teachers have to have the goals and different strategies appropriate to reach students comprehension, in order to develop the oral and aural skills. These are going to be together, because both have specific purpose in a communication such as: they develop receptive and productive skills, which involve different processes. But all are based on the view that we use language for communication, in other words, we use them to give and receive messages of different kinds, with different purposes in communication.

It is important to be clear that teachers and students want to use a language (English) in their higher level education and in their work. For them, the ability to give and receive information in English will be extremely important when they are learning.

Additionally, most learners of a language want to manage the socializing function of language. Expressing likes and dislikes, wants and needs, has been given greater importance in each new knowledge, according the science advance and the technology, where navigate in the websites is the most common activity for students.

Now, we can incorporate into an Oral/Aural class. Learners will demonstrate that they can understand without a lot of problems. Actually, correct the pronunciation could be difficult, because sometimes students could feel embarrassed, when they are learning. For that, it is important to be careful to do it in strong way. It is recommended to do it in group or using other resources such as: interactive videos, CDs etc.

¡Week 3! It was very very interesting.

THE ABCD OBJECTIVES

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The ABCD method is interesting because it helps us to have a clear idea about the purpose of the class, among the basic elements in a lesson plan such as: categories, principles and general knowledge and finally, theories, models, and grammar structures.

When the behavior is demonstrate in the class, we need to check if the objective setting at the beginning were reached, if the skills were developed, and then we have the opportunity to use the appropriate procedures in order to give the cognitive knowledge in general.