Learners Autonomy, One Computer Class & Project Task

This week, I realized how important the connection between student motivation and self-determination is to develop autonomy in the learners. Research made by Thanasoulas has shown that motivation is related to whether or not students have opportunities to be autonomous and to make important academic choices.

Having choices allows students to feel that they have control or ownership over their own learning. This, in turn, helps them develop a sense of responsibility and self-motivation. When students feel a sense of ownership, they want to engage in academic tasks and persist in learning. We teachers can offer them those appropriate choices to help them to be responsible and autonomous.

It was really impress to find out what research mentioned about how teachers are afraid to lose control over classroom management if they to give students more choice in their learning process. In fact if the teacher allows more choice to students the opposite happens. As long as the students understand their role as the one in control over their thinking, self esteem, learning behaviors, they are more likely to be responsible or being in charge of their learning.

And teachers need to learn how to help students develop the ability to make appropriate choices and take control over their own learning. When we keep students engaged with meaningful assignments the result is positive motivation without any disturbances or complains. Here is the point where the teacher gained their respect and concentration. I had a conversation about it with a colleague this week, she teaches Math and said to me “as long they see I am prepared to guide them, they are the best students.” For example, I like to set classroom rules; I have assigned rule watchers one or two per rule. Then at the end of the class they self evaluate their behavior to improve their learning experience. For example for the rule “everyone must participate” (sounds like a strong statement and it is for young learners in behalf on their learning) the rule watcher assigned stands up and ask the rest of the class: did we all followed this rule? And then, their answer is YES!!! There is always a moment where they reflect (how many times, what did you do? etc) about what they did to learn. This exercise helps them to develop class ownership and autonomy. Young learners are less willing to be acting up and more motivated to find out what they are going to learn during the class. Step by step they are developing a sense of responsibility and motivation that will transcend everything except their desire to learn.

About one computer class, well I’ve learned many different tips to use it effectively in the classroom. For example I loved the recommendation of using it as a journal and as learning center. I know how exited students go with the idea of being in front of it typing for a few minutes.

Also this article gave me more confidence to teach with just a single computer and take the most of it. It really expanded my horizons about the possibilities for usage. I was so used to teach adults inside of fancy computer labs in the company I used to work for that the lack of technology in a school setting was not letting me being creative about how to use a great resource with the little ones.

For my project task, I asked at the very last minute to some parents that are good with computers to stop by to help out the class. I was surprised to see two of them arriving to help. Children’s natural reaction was surprise too. They were not used to see parents during their classes. They enjoyed the interactive presentation so much. They were laughing hard when they hit the wrong answer at the end of the presentation. They were celebrating every good answer too. One child said: This was the best class ever! In my opinion, it was a little too much for my humility. It was really rewarding to hear that.

I am still working in having internet connection in the classroom to use more and more resources from the web! Also I am planning to have connected the computer with the TV soon.

Regarding to choose a peer to review my draft I just hope Mohini accepts my request.

Thank you for a great week 7.

Aida

Week Six and Project Task

Well there is no better way of starting the week that trying to implement something new. So I took my computer with me and I started to check the internet connection. I realized the WIFI signal was not as strong as I was expecting. The walls were blocking the signal. For a second I felt discouraged. However it did not take long for me to start thinking about other ways to use the Webquest.  I talked to the IT guy about what I was planning to do and he suggested me to use a signal repeater. A WiFi repeater is used to extend the coverage area of a WiFi network. It works by receiving the existing WiFi signal, amplifying it and then transmitting the boosted signal. With a WiFi repeater it id possible effectively double the coverage area of the WiFi network so reaching far corners of at home or office, different floors, or even extend the coverage to the yard.  I said to him “if the device is expensive I won’t get approval from the financial department”. At least I have a chance to change the situation. I went into the process to ask for it. And while I was waiting for the answer I decided to star downloading some of the resources from the WebQuest and try to get the videos from YouTube to get started with my students. The surprise was that I did not find the resources link activated on the WebQuest. The result I could not really work with it this week.  I tried during different days and I was not successful. I needed to work with plan B.

At least the week did not have a bad ending even if I did not accomplished what I originally was planning; the financial department approved the buy.

Do you know what an achievement is that?

Greetings

Aida

Week 6 Preparing an Interactive PowerPoint Lesson-Student Centered

Without a doubt, I got advice from the Duquesne University’s School of Education. This article mentioned how graduate students were learning, like me how to use available classroom technologies to teach. During this week number six, I could prepare an interactive Power Point lesson having the main focus “the  students”.  I was thinking about young students that barely can read on their native language. I started to concern a little bit about the amount of text I should be including on my presentation, and how to reach the class objective at the same time.

I knew that interactive lessons take the form of self-paced, student-controlled, individualized learning opportunities embedded with assessment events along the way, so I started to search in the web for extra materials (more examples) especially for children. I used Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator as my tools of choice for accessing the web. I included action buttons to assess student understanding. “By creating a simple question with several possible responses, PowerPoint transfers students either to new information (if correct), or to remedial information if additional instruction is necessary triggers a Hyperlink to advance to the feedback, and from there continue the lesson”. I could enable this interactive feedback using them in my presentation.  This and the use of hidden slides combined were ideal to produce an attractive and well executed effect with the sounds that needed to be played.  It would consider that I learned almost how to trick the usual sense of power point. To learn what power point was created for helped me to create a more attractive tool for my students.  I’ve used a summative (final) assessment while ensuring that students will complete the lesson, mastering all the learning objectives, and receiving some reward for their efforts.

“Once created using Kemp’s Model for Designing Effective Instruction, the presentation can be captured onto a” very light usage of memory and disk space, “1.44MB… unless there is an inordinate number of graphic images”.  Mine actually was a little bit heavier than that. I enjoyed learning an uncountable number of techniques to apply to interactive presentations using or not power point. Also I realize how this interactive presentation can be saved on show format and to be included in WebQuest too.

I found this video targeted to teachers (with only a basic knowledge of PowerPoint) who would like to use PowerPoint as an interactive tool in their classrooms. For example: To create multiple choice quizzes with automatic feedback based on which response is chosen. The URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUVbXCAqrs0&feature=related.  This template can be downloaded and adapted to our students’ needs.

All this interactive presentations reinforce our PBL, enhancing the engagement of our students. Take a look to this other example I found inspiring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9JoGXxUooA&feature=related .  This is a tutorial that shows how to use the Big Wheel PowerPoint game. With really no preparation required, teachers can just have a sheet of vocabulary or review questions in their hand. Simply students need to click "Spin the Wheel" and total up the points in the columns on the right. There is also a version called “Big Wheel Elementary” that is the same game except that it has smaller numbers on the wheel.

This week I learned how there are lots of interactive presentations ready to be used by us. Some of this donated by other teachers or experts on power point too. It is really amazing the amount of time they are dedicating to create them and then just letting others benefit from them. At the end, when using one of those templates, we should at least recognize the credit they deserve.

Best Regards

Aida

PBL and WebQuest Week 5

This week 5 I have learned that “the project-based learning approach creates a "constructivist" learning environment in which students construct their own knowledge. Whereas in the “old school" model the teacher was the task master -- in the "new school" model the teacher becomes the facilitator”.  Yes, I confirmed my theory!  I was navigating through the different websites and I found the information in the URL http://www.globalschoolnet.org/Web/pbl/whatis.htm .  I learned how all age students can develop more confidence in their ability to learn English incluiding the ones that can be resistant to learn it.

 We  need to convert the learning experience in something meaninful. We always are going to start form  our objective related with our student’s needs. I was very moved to read the story of Susan Gaer when she developed a PBL with their inmigrants students. She helped them to document traditonal recepies from their countries. She impacted a learning objective and a historic momentum. Why? Because I am sure that there where not documentation for the mayority of those recepies before of that project.

The usage of PBL has with it the opportunity to apply alternative assessment in to the classroom. That opened for me the oportunity to create  a rubric using an online tool.

Also, for the URL http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat015.shtml I learned that “A WebQuest is built around an engaging and doable task that elicits higher order thinking of some kind. It's about doing something with information. The thinking can be creative or critical, and involve problem solving, judgment, analysis, or synthesis. The task has to be more than simply answering questions or regurgitating what's on the screen. Ideally, the task is a scaled down version of something that adults do on the job, outside school walls.” Here is when a teacher need to find the task that is going to lead to thinking about the web content.

Our multidisciplinary touch can make the WebQuest a real display of cooperative learning strategies.

I learned that a great WebQuest is one that through creating situations or tasks can make students to develop a strong dependence on one another.

PBL, Alternative Assessments, Rubrics

There is no better way to strengthen our students’ confidence in their skills in L2 than providing them with the resources that are going to make them successful. This is one of the most powerful ways of motivation.  When using a rubric we are letting our students know what we are expecting from them at the end of an assigned task.  We are also teaching them how quality matters, and how they are going to be evaluated based on that.  As the URL http://health.usf.edu/publichealth/eta/Rubric_Tutorial/default.htm with the topic Creating a Rubric: Tutorial says, “Rubrics identify the specific elements an instructor uses to differentiate between the qualities of performances. i.e. it helps the student answer the question ‘why did I get a point taken off?’”

This is very common with the students.  Even I experienced that situation with low grades on my blog during the first two weeks. Fortunately, it did not take long for me to realize that I was missing something from the rubric to achieve five out of five on my posts.

Alternative assessments also provide learners the opportunities to reflect on both linguistic development and their learning process. The main point for students to learn language is communication for meaningful purposes. The students can demonstrate things learned and they take responsibility because they are self directed.  Alternative assessments either are in the form of a checklist or a rubric, providing students the opportunity to display progress to the school, community, and family members.

Reading, Writting and Becoming more Tech Skilled

This week 4 I’ve studied and analyzed several articles and websites to promote writing and reading skills. I’ve used many websites that develop multiple skills using attractive media and the amount of websites seems endless. Also, I researched about the ebooks and the way teachers can get the most of them while teaching a second language.

I’ve learned that cooperative learning promotes on our students effective instruction of thinking skills and also creativity.  From the authors Trokeloshvili and Jost in their article "The Internet and Foreign Language Instruction: Practice and Discussion "I’ve learned that we can create tasks and made our students participate in discussions via intranet system, and with the purpose of learning, those task are going to help them “use the internet for general research”. However everything should be based in student’s needs and in our goals. It was interesting for me to find how online writing instruction can use the same three stages that the formal reading, writing and listening I learned during the past weeks, Pre Stage, While-Stage and Post Stage.

While creating a Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan I’ve learned how the web shouldn’t be used all the time either just the web material during our classes. This lesson plans should be developed to achieve more than a core objective but as a technology one also. Furthermore, enriched lesson plans with the components from the web should deliver outstanding student’s outcomes.

When I was reading the project task from the other teachers, I realized that it was not easy just to focus on one issue. Educators are always dealing with all sorts of hard situations apart from teaching. Even if we have differences in our circumstances, we are so very similar in what we think and want to achieve. Most of us have to deal with populations that are not feeling the necessity to speak English outside of the classroom until they see that it can interfere with their future. The time the students or schools dedicate to learn or teach a L2 is not enough.  It is clear for us as teachers that students fall behind on making a connection between their English learning and their everyday lives. As professors, we see that students are afraid to make mistakes due to low confidence. This can easily be built by seeing their words published on a class website.

I can believe week 5 is almost here!

Thank you,

Aida