Dear All,
One more demanding and instructive week have passed since we started our online course. This week’s topics were about interactive teaching in large classes and ways of using interactive power point and preparing interactive PPT. On Nicenet, there was again very fruitful discussion ongoing same as the previous weeks. Besides, for our projects tasks, we are required to find a partner for peer reviews. My partner is Zlatka and I am very happy to work with her .
This week it dawned on me the fact that interactive lecture is strikingly different from the traditional teaching. The latter is concerned with the teacher being the controller of the learning environment. In contrast, in interactive teaching all of the students participate in an activity and students are in control of their learning. Moreover, I noticed that what is generally forgotten in second language classrooms is to give a reason for doing a task. This point is also highly important in NLP theory. If learners know why they should be involved in a particular task, this can increase self- awareness and motivation, too. It is a fact that if you have a real purpose for something, you are more willing to spend time on and make effort for it, which can eventually result in success. At that point Interactive lectures are very successful at giving students a purpose for learning. Interactive activities such as think-pair share, concept test or the question of the day are good examples which help students develop thinking skills since they give students opportunity to organize their thoughts and engage them in learning process.
However, while teaching large classes, I couldn’t avoid being a traditional teacher because I always found it hard to keep students interest or I had no idea how to involve students in their own learning but thanks to videos and readings of this week, I have much knowledge about how to handle large classes.
What I liked most about this week was preparing an interactive PPT. I always thought that I am skilled at preparing PPT because I usually deliver my lessons through PPT; however, this week I am quite surprised because it was the first time I’ve heard “interactive PPT”. After watching the videos and reading about creating interactive PPT presentations, I was ready to create one. For the first time, I spent considerable amount of time but my second trial was much better. I am thinking of using my jeopardy game for my literature class.
I’d like to end my sentences here. I am again looking forward to writing my reflection for next week.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
3 Multiple Intelligence and Technology
Hi Everybody,
This week our topic was incorporating technology to different types of student learning style. To be honest, multiple intelligence theory and learning styles were not new to me. Last year, one of the assignments from my methodology course was designing a lesson incorporating multiple intelligence theory. In that lesson I remember having included all eight multiple intelligences by using videos, music, pictures and power point slides, and games. By using technology, I tried to use variety of approaches to learning. Thus, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that technology can impact all forms of learning.
When I consider the basic principles of MI theory, they all give important ideas that should be incorporated into classroom teaching. The main point is that teachers need to add variety into their teaching practices and activities that address to every student as much as possible. MI theory also emphasizes that activities that require students move around the classroom and work with others are essential for meaningful learning.
This week I’ve gone through “Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching” by Montogomery and Groat. In the article there were many valuable ideas for student learning styles and reasons to incorporate an understanding of learning styles in our teaching. I agree with the idea that no teacher can expect to develop different ways of teaching for each individual. Rather as teachers we should strive to provide a variety of learning experiences, such that at one point or another each learning style is addressed.
This week on Nicenet we shared our ideas about ways that can help to provide a range of learning styles in the classroom. The discussions, as always, were very fruitful on my part. Many of my course mates suggested using word processors, video cameras, audio recorders, mobile phones, blogs, wikis, webquests, Twitter to provide a variety of learning experiences to address different types of learners. Moreover, I believe that if we make our students to become active learners who engage in their work and try out new ideas, then teachers surely will achieve addressing different types of learning. I personally believe that active learner students do not have one learning style instead they have multiple learning styles. Finally, teachers should find ways to enhance active learning through incorporating technology.
This week our topic was incorporating technology to different types of student learning style. To be honest, multiple intelligence theory and learning styles were not new to me. Last year, one of the assignments from my methodology course was designing a lesson incorporating multiple intelligence theory. In that lesson I remember having included all eight multiple intelligences by using videos, music, pictures and power point slides, and games. By using technology, I tried to use variety of approaches to learning. Thus, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that technology can impact all forms of learning.
When I consider the basic principles of MI theory, they all give important ideas that should be incorporated into classroom teaching. The main point is that teachers need to add variety into their teaching practices and activities that address to every student as much as possible. MI theory also emphasizes that activities that require students move around the classroom and work with others are essential for meaningful learning.
This week I’ve gone through “Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching” by Montogomery and Groat. In the article there were many valuable ideas for student learning styles and reasons to incorporate an understanding of learning styles in our teaching. I agree with the idea that no teacher can expect to develop different ways of teaching for each individual. Rather as teachers we should strive to provide a variety of learning experiences, such that at one point or another each learning style is addressed.
This week on Nicenet we shared our ideas about ways that can help to provide a range of learning styles in the classroom. The discussions, as always, were very fruitful on my part. Many of my course mates suggested using word processors, video cameras, audio recorders, mobile phones, blogs, wikis, webquests, Twitter to provide a variety of learning experiences to address different types of learners. Moreover, I believe that if we make our students to become active learners who engage in their work and try out new ideas, then teachers surely will achieve addressing different types of learning. I personally believe that active learner students do not have one learning style instead they have multiple learning styles. Finally, teachers should find ways to enhance active learning through incorporating technology.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
2 WebQuest and Project Based Learning
This week, as described by Nina, was another “demanding, eventful, challenging, and fruitful week.” To be honest, each week I feel myself very lucky to be involved in this learning process. It is true that various types of information are growing day by day on the Internet and the educational value of Internet based activities varies widely. This week I learned that one way to engage students in authentic instruction and assessment is through WebQuests, which are inquiry oriented activities that use Web resources to solve the problem. After reading about WebQuests, I realized that many terms like authentic assessment, meaningful learning, collaborative project, learner autonomy, higher critical thinking skills, and active learning strategies are all intermingled with each other. The question to be asked here is how WebQuests enhance critical thinking and learner autonomy and motivation. Meaningful learning requires learners’ actively engaging in a meaningful task. Active participation also can be provided with group work and when students learn to work in a collaborative environment, they become responsible for their own learning. From my experience of creating a WebQuest, I can undoubtedly say that WebQuests include all these terms. For example, in the Introduction of the WebQuest, students are placed in the role of different person within a complex situation and this requires students to use higher-order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
While creating my WebQuest, one of the most difficult things for me was to write the introduction part because from other examples I noticed that the problem offered students are open ended and real world, requiring working in groups and require exploring a variety of different perspectives to come up with a solution. This was hard for me. I think I need to work more on WebQuest.
This week’s another topic was project based learning. The project-based learning, an active learning strategy, is an approach that learners focus on developing a product or creation by learning. I think project based learning is an umbrella term which covers webquests and problem-based learning. I am not sure. I’ve gone through Susan Gaer’s article about project based learning. I agree with her when she says “less teaching and more learning”. In her article she gives some useful tips which are important while implementing project based learning. I think that teachers should take into these three elements into consideration before applying their projects. First one is “the project must be geared to the population”, and then comes “the students must see value in a project” and lastly “flexible timeliness is necessary”. Just like WebQuests, using a project based learning, helps motivate students to learn language for a purpose.
Finally, I believe these two important terms reach to success as long as teacher gives guidance and adequate instruction to the task or project. We cannot underestimate the importance of teacher’s role while creating WebQuests and project based learning.
While creating my WebQuest, one of the most difficult things for me was to write the introduction part because from other examples I noticed that the problem offered students are open ended and real world, requiring working in groups and require exploring a variety of different perspectives to come up with a solution. This was hard for me. I think I need to work more on WebQuest.
This week’s another topic was project based learning. The project-based learning, an active learning strategy, is an approach that learners focus on developing a product or creation by learning. I think project based learning is an umbrella term which covers webquests and problem-based learning. I am not sure. I’ve gone through Susan Gaer’s article about project based learning. I agree with her when she says “less teaching and more learning”. In her article she gives some useful tips which are important while implementing project based learning. I think that teachers should take into these three elements into consideration before applying their projects. First one is “the project must be geared to the population”, and then comes “the students must see value in a project” and lastly “flexible timeliness is necessary”. Just like WebQuests, using a project based learning, helps motivate students to learn language for a purpose.
Finally, I believe these two important terms reach to success as long as teacher gives guidance and adequate instruction to the task or project. We cannot underestimate the importance of teacher’s role while creating WebQuests and project based learning.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
1 Week 4
What a tough week! Days are passing really fast. We’ve already ended up the fourth week. I did many things this week. To start with, the spring term is starting on Monday so I had to arrange my class schedule, review my lessons and attend a very fruitful workshop about vocabulary teaching. Moreover, this week in my institution we hosted a very precious guest from İstanbul, Kristina Smith, who is a teacher trainer working for Longman Pearson. She gave us very useful information about vocabulary teaching. Then, at the beginning of the week I gave my students two writing assignments and told them to post their assignments by Saturday. Their first homework was using specific details they were supposed to write a paragraph continuing the action in the story, and the second homework was reading the story about Helen Keller they were to write a paragraph about what it would be like to go to school if you could not see nor hear? What would be their greatest challenges? Students started to post their homework dating from Wednesday. What I did was checking and giving feedback to all the papers they sent. 70 paragraphs…
Dealing with the things I mentioned above doesn’t mean that I neglected my assignments. On my part, I again learned many fruitful things from Sandra, Leslie and my course mates. Here would like to thank Leslie Opp Beckman once more for her invaluable contribution. The web-sites she gave in her new thread JUST FOR FUN was amazing. As Aleyda stated the web-sites such as Wacky Web Tales and Crazy Libs bring variety and creativity to the classroom. Even I have tried creating a story and it was fun…
This week on Nicenet, we had many topics to discuss and share. To be honest, I was a bit challenged about this week’s topic: creating a technology enhanced lesson plan. It took me a long time to think and create a lesson plan. However, after seeing nice comments from Sandra and my course mates, I felt very pleased thinking that I am on the right way.
I also noticed that that step by step we are progressing towards our project. Considering our classes and writing about some issues that technology might help with was a good start which helped me to think about my project in a deeper sense.
This week’s another topic was looking at technology enhanced lesson plan from University of Tennessee and comparing it to our lesson plan. Seeing the different lesson plans from different countries, I once again learned a lot from my course mates. It was interesting to see that none of my course mates used technology component lesson plans in their institutions.
Last but not least, this week I went through the reading texts and I’d like to comment on Krajka’s article “Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction”. In the article Krajka was quite successful at presenting the teaching of the different genres in the context of an on-line classroom. His suggestions on how to use the Internet in the classroom to enhance learning was also beneficial on my part. It is worth mentioning that not only he gave some concrete examples of incorporating technology to the curriculum but also he clarified some unclear points for me such as why one should incorporate on-line lessons, what the benefits of such a method are in comparison with traditional instruction, and how the Internet component fits into the syllabus.
That’s it for the time being.
Hope to hear your comments,
Gülsen
Dealing with the things I mentioned above doesn’t mean that I neglected my assignments. On my part, I again learned many fruitful things from Sandra, Leslie and my course mates. Here would like to thank Leslie Opp Beckman once more for her invaluable contribution. The web-sites she gave in her new thread JUST FOR FUN was amazing. As Aleyda stated the web-sites such as Wacky Web Tales and Crazy Libs bring variety and creativity to the classroom. Even I have tried creating a story and it was fun…
This week on Nicenet, we had many topics to discuss and share. To be honest, I was a bit challenged about this week’s topic: creating a technology enhanced lesson plan. It took me a long time to think and create a lesson plan. However, after seeing nice comments from Sandra and my course mates, I felt very pleased thinking that I am on the right way.
I also noticed that that step by step we are progressing towards our project. Considering our classes and writing about some issues that technology might help with was a good start which helped me to think about my project in a deeper sense.
This week’s another topic was looking at technology enhanced lesson plan from University of Tennessee and comparing it to our lesson plan. Seeing the different lesson plans from different countries, I once again learned a lot from my course mates. It was interesting to see that none of my course mates used technology component lesson plans in their institutions.
Last but not least, this week I went through the reading texts and I’d like to comment on Krajka’s article “Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction”. In the article Krajka was quite successful at presenting the teaching of the different genres in the context of an on-line classroom. His suggestions on how to use the Internet in the classroom to enhance learning was also beneficial on my part. It is worth mentioning that not only he gave some concrete examples of incorporating technology to the curriculum but also he clarified some unclear points for me such as why one should incorporate on-line lessons, what the benefits of such a method are in comparison with traditional instruction, and how the Internet component fits into the syllabus.
That’s it for the time being.
Hope to hear your comments,
Gülsen
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