Just a Minute Please: I have Something to Share with You!( Reflection: Week 6)

Dear All,

As usual, this week is also disappearing providing us some valuable gifts i.e. discussion, task reflection and comments. I would like to share what I did, what I learned and how I will implement into the class.

Discussion: Engaging Students:

Reading articles on using technology in teaching students in large classes, improving lecture with technology, I learned a lot about interactive power points and found that PowerPoint is the best way of engaging students in the class. There are so many ideas such as: Blackboard Assessments, Interactive Power Point, In-group exercises, Inter- group question, Problem-Based Learning, and are superb for engaging students in learning. The best idea I got from articles, especially from the article of Finnan and Shaw is “To teach is to engage students in learning.A teacher requires not only knowledge of subject matter but also knowledge of how students learn and how to transform them into active learners.The aim of teaching is to transform students from passive recipients of other people's knowledge into active constructors of their own  and others knowledge."This view in teaching is the most to bring change in our teaching; to shift the traditional paradigm of teacher centered teaching into the student centered.

With the knowledge I got from those articles, I will practice these techniques in my classroom. I will try my best to use interactive power point while teaching in campus level students and share the idea to my colleagues. I will try my best to use as many possible techniques as I can while teaching, facilitating training and presenting in conferences.

Task: Creating Interactive PowerPoint

The most interesting task of this week for me is to create Interactive PowerPoint. I created PowerPoint in area of storytelling: Father, son and donkey. It was a bit difficult at first as it is my first attempt but at last I got an idea. It’s funny to teach with them. I think students will enjoy reading/ listening interactively. The pictures presented simultaneously will give better concept of each event. For the first time I learned to create interactive PowerPoint that will help me to make my presentation/teaching better.

I am hurried to share this knowledge with my NELTA fellows and other teachers/ colleagues who are interested. From the next session I will try my best to create Interactive PowerPoint and teach to see the changes in students’ performance.

About Project Plan.

Regarding my project task, I have been working with it to refine with some changes in technology use. Before I only mentioned to make them use blog, internet and websites to read. But now I can use interactive PowerPoint Presentation, Blackboard Assessment and so on.
With Warm Greetings!
Harimaya

Week 5 Reflection: Project- Based Learning (PBL) as the Central Point
PBL is the Best

The central point of this week is PROJECT-BASED LEARNING (PBL). The articles, webpages and some URL given in the course were found rotating around PBL.From the learning resources I am clear that PBL is a method of teaching which assigns the learners some tasks, brings learner’s autonomy,develop their creativity and critical thinking ability.Moreover, I came to know that webQuest is an on-line inquiry tool to expand the horizon of knowledge by developing learners' autonomy.

Secondly,what I got from this week is that rubrics /alternative assessments are other tools to evaluate students’ performance. They help students to be clear about what they are expected to do. Students can evaluate their performance with the help of rubrics.

More importantly, I am enlighten with   Donna's wiki that every week she  gives us tasks, project works and alternative assessment criteria .As usual, she gave us two main tasks such as creating rubrics and webQuest along with discussion-assessment and sharing changes for this week.In fact, she involved us in PBL. This project work taught me to create rubrics in webpage whenever it is needed.

Second wonderful but  daunting task for me was to create webQuest. I had to try many times and ultimately I created a webQuest. I dedicated most of the time to create them. These are the evidences to prove “The Best Learning Comes from Experience.”

From the experience, I am encouraged to create webQuest and use PBL instead of giving oneway lectures in my class. Beside these,I will share this knowledge with my colleagues and encourage them use PBL with rubrics and WebQuest. From today I try my best to  use PBL techniques.Let's wrap up this week announcing the slogan
 “wherever we teach , we Won't get PBL  missed.”



WebQuest



Week 4 Reflection: My Journey with Ups and Downs

This is my reflection of experience earned fromweek 4. It include simply the tasks I permormed, things I learned and some ways to implement the knowledge: 

Tasks I Performed:

As first, with reference to discussion –reading, writing and vocabulary, I went through three articles namely ‘Using the Internet in ESL writing Instruction’ by Krajka, ‘Three Extensive Reading Activities for ESL/EFL students Using E-books ‘by Mei-Ya Liang and ‘Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension’ by Andreea I Constantinescu and gained sufficient knowledge about teaching reading, writing and vocabulary. Secondly, I entered into the multi-skill websites and got hundreds of activities and materials to teach language skill in integrative way.

I entered to the main gate of ESL Independent study Lab-Michael Krauss( URL: http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html) and let into different portals for listening, speaking, reading writing pronunciation, vocabulary grammar etc with hundreds of web pages ranging from beginners to intermediate levels. Similarly, there are vary useful video clips in Lauri’s ESL website (URL: http://fog.ccsf.edu/~lfried/writing/studentwriting.html) especially for beginners. There are portals for teaching listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary.

Moreover, I got so many very useful resourceful web pages and URL from the course and articles.

After I went through the articles and web pages I recommended the best for my students’ to develop reading and writing with ABCD objectives for each.

For project task: 3 I posted on Nicenet describing the class and students to remind the audience about the necessary context and shared possible concerns/ issues and problem in carrying out project work.

I prepared a technology enhanced lesson plan and posted on Nicenet and blogging and commenting are my another usual tasks during this course.

Things I learned

Having done these activities I learned that there are thousands of web pages that can  easily be used in classroom teaching.  I learned a model of  technology Enhanced Lesson Plan  as I prepared  and shared it with my e-friends. Most importantly, I realized that, technology has become the inevitable things in modern teaching classes. The teacher who do not have / use the knowledge of using technology: WEB SITES, E- MAIL AND WEB PUBLISHERS  will be regarded as date expired.

Ways to implement the knowledge Teaching:

 I will provide students web links and ask them go through and do the task

I will teach writing, reading pronunciation and other aspects of language through internet and E-books.

I will prepare technology- enhanced lesson plan and teach interactively.

Would you Listen to me Please? (Week -3  Reflection) 

Dear All,

I would like to share my experience during this week in the pattern of what I did? What I learned? And what I will do next? 

What I did

1.                    With reference to discussion thread- aural/oral skill building through CALL, I went through the articles          ‘Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials’ written by Miller, L., ‘New Perspectives              in      Teaching       Pronunciation’ by Busa, M.G. and ‘The Employment of CALL in Teaching in Second/Foreign Language Speaking Skills’ by Gong. Then, I selected the article entitled ‘Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials’ by Miller, L. as a basis for my discussion post.

2.       There were six websites: two for each skill consisting of activities and video clips, etc. to enhance listening, pronunciation and speaking skills provided. I went through them and preferred to select –http://www.esl-lab.com/ to develop listening skill. Then posted for discussion thread: Aural/oral skill building through CALL analyzing and reviewing them.

3.       After that, I quickly went through the list of project reports of our seniors and chose 200904_E-Teacher –Phyak_ Nepal, 200903_E-Teacher –Nicolici _Romania and 200903_E-Teacher_Zubel_Poland and did a survey of them. Then, I selected the project Report ‘2003903_E-Teacher-Nicolici_Romania and posted a comment on Nicenet.

4.       I went through the instructions and tips provided and created my Delicious page http://www.delicious.com/sharmaharimaya69 , added URL on Delicious page of Donna’s Wiki’s and publicized my URL on Nicenet.

5.       Then, I entered into the Blog world to find a new Blog with week-3 reflection. I got Nehier’s Blog and commented on it.

6.       Finally, I came to publish my Blog Post reflecting week-3.

What I learned?

First thing I learned is- how can we enhance students Listening, Speaking, Pronunciation and other skills and aspects of language through interactive web? There are so many search engines to find new ways and activities for the purpose. We can bring innovation in teaching using TV/Videos, CD-ROM, Radio and Computers. All are useful materials, however Videos can be better to use because they display non-linguistic features and real background environment along with voices of the speakers so that students can easily understand the message. Moreover, I got new web links from the course and discussion posts of my E-friends.

Next, new thing I got this week is ‘creating Delicious Page’. It is new for me. At first I went through the tips provided by the course and tried to create it. I signed up it and tried to include the bookmarks but got lost. At last I did it, however I am still confused to add taskbar on my page. From it what experience I got is ‘risk-taking’ plays very important role in learning.

From Sample Project Report, I got idea of what is expected from our term project. Moreover, I got idea what are the elements of the Project Report and the activities we have to accomplish to complete the Project for our course.

What I will do next?

At first, I will introduce my students what is CALL? Why it is very important in the field of language teaching and learning? Then, I will provide them some search engines and ask them to select at least one search engine or one page to develop and of language skills and come to class next day. When they come to the class next day, I will ask them to share their experience among the friends.

Finally, I will model a CALL Class of Aural/oral skills using video clips and discuss how they experienced, then encourage them to use CALL to develop language skills of their students because they are trainee-teachers.

That’s all for now!

Greetings

Harimaya

Week 2 - Reflection: Experience with New Search Engines and ABCD Model for Writing Objectives

Hi Everybody,

After saying farewell to week 1, I was waiting for week 2 expecting something new. It officially opened on Monday resting the load in front of me. Hurriedly, I opened it and made a glance for new gifts. The first gift was ‘web search’ and the second ‘writing behavioral objectives following ABCD model’. I have been said to go through them and posts on Nicenets. As I was supposed to do, I went through an article “Technology tip of the Month” by Debore h Healey and got basic idea about search engines from that. Then I sailed into the noodletools that consists of many search engines to explore new queries. I surfed into them and found something new in each. Similarly, I entered into the ABCD objectives world, and explored new ideas. I went through the article for writing objectives and learned what objectives really meant, what the rationale of the objectives in our class was and what things to be conducted while setting up objectives.

Things Learned from Search Engine Discussion

 The phrase ‘search engine’ was totally new for me although I have been using web for many years. I used to consult only Google and yahoo to search for all my queries. Really speaking I didn’t know there are so many search engines for different types of queries in difficult areas. Some of the search engines within noodletools are totally new for me. When I went through these search engines I came to know that there are so many resourceful, advanced and sophisticated search engines in web search world. And also each of these is for different sector of knowledge. Therefore, which search engine is to be used is determined by what is searched for.

Learned from ABCD model objectives

As a teacher of education campus, I have been teaching my students the meaning of objectives and also taught them to set up objectives for their daily lesson plan during the time of practice teaching. What I usually teach them to write, for example:

 On completion of this lesson, the students will be able to:

1.       Read the passage carefully, and

2.       Answer the comprehension questions related to the passage.

Now, I came to know that this objective is not complete in itself. It has condition (on completion of this lesson), the students (audience), behavioral objectives (read the passage and answer the comprehension questions related to passage) but it lacks degree (what percent mastery) is expected from students).  From the given objective, we are not sure whether the students can read the passage carefully. How ‘Carefully’ can be measured and also we cannot be sure that they can answer 100% correctly.

Therefore, ABCD model is the best model of objectives to teach our students. Moreover, I learned that there are mainly three classifications of objectives:

Cognitive domain: includes objectives related to information or knowledge. Here, the hierarchy of Bloom’s cognitive objectives is presented below:

Remembering the lowest level (requires low cognition)

Understanding

Applying (to implement (use) the information)

Analyzing (to break the information into component parts and describe the relationship)

Evaluating (to make judgment about materials or methods)

Creating (the highest level) (to generate new ideas, products and ways of viewing things)

Psycho-motor Domain:  It includes the objectives that require basic motor skills and physical movement such as kick, jump, etc.

Affective domain: It includes objectives related to attitudes, appreciations, values and emotions.

The teacher should follow ABCD model either she/he wants to meet objectives of any domain, because the objectives can be met after teaching or involving students in activities or giving them resources to read and so on. Then students will be expected to do some assignment or works according to the domain in some degree in a given time span.

How I will implement the knowledge in my classroom

In the classroom, I will provide students list of queries to search for and ask them to choose what they like, then, ask them to go through the search engines I provide. Here, students have to visit search engines and try to explore information. They can visit any search engine they like and should make the notes that they find. All the students will come together and discuss what they learned from it.

The third task that I did this week is making the introduction of the students and classroom setting. It is the necessary task under the project work that we participants have to carry out in this course. I participated in the nicenet discussions related to all these tasks I have described here.

Thank you

Harimaya