Week 10 - 10 exceptional weeks of building teaching web                   skills!

                  The course we are about to graduate has provided us with exceptional,  motivating online teaching resources which I am planning on further exploring with my adult students in the military. The course designers have delineated a gradual progression...

creating a reflective blog;

designing ABCD learning objectives framework and effectively  searching the web;

exploring oral/aural skill-building websites and bookmarks with Delicious;

experimenting reading/writing websites and technology-enhanced lesson plans;

working on Project-based learning, WebQuests, and rubrics;

expressing opinions on student-centered large classes; 

creating an interactive PowerPoint;

finding out more about learner autonomy, the one-computer classroom, and mobile devices;

testing students' learning styles;

developing a project using a new technology tool or technique.

I feel I have built and grown not only online teaching skill, but also invaluable (one of Ahmed's favourite words when describing excellence:)))) life skills.

  It has been win-win-win!

Thank you,

 Donna,

 Aysun, Nigora, Ahmed, Oksana, Yanira, Sumitra, Tatyana, Elizaveta, Jason, Ehouabolet, Mitra, Zahra, Abdelmajid, Karima, Chi, Audy, Evette, 

and last but not least Thalia!

Best of everything to you, 

Rolanda 

Romania

Week 9 - Art. Fires. Future.

Yellow group stands for the visually aware, auditory and                                        kinaesthetic teachers

I wish I got out of the multitasking habit. I'm not overreacting if I tell you that this week was a very challenging one for me. I have been busy working on the final plan report, completing the course readings, tasks and assignments. The job duties involving speaking evaluations to a lange group of candidates and the administrative issues at the end of a 16 week online course I have been moderating added to  this week's workload; not to mention, the final paper I am currently preparing for the graduation of a Master Degree in Sociology that  I am doing on Risk Groups and Social Support Services. 

This week's topic, exploring the students learning styles, has been very interesting. As I have already mentioned in the NICENET post, to be able to better address my students' learning needs, I always apply them an online questionnaire at the beginning of any course, either online or face-to-face.

One way of exploring the students VAK abilities is by encouraging them design their own digital stories. There was an article that I have read and some examples that I have recently accessed which  are very illustrative. 

As I am a visually aware teacher, I use class posters for decoration, teaching and learning purposes. If you like, download and add  the next 3 inspiring posters to your bank of visual materials.

 

Source: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/posters-download

Source: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/posters-download

Source: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/posters-download

Week 8 - Develop.Connect.Progress.

I have accidentally found a very interesting teaching methods list and I have thought you may also find it useful.

Source: http://www.homeworkmye.com/product/acct-567-entire-course

A very demanding week for all of us. I feel I have progressed a lot due to the course tutor's words of encouragement and to many of the course participants' support. We all, the Yellow group, have become more and more empathetic, more connected and have invested a lot of precious time and very positive feelings into the beginning of a beautiful virtual professional relationship. I am sincerely thankful to have met you all.

Designing the draft of my final plan was not an easy job for me as I as have been under a lot of time pressure. I have worked a lot, kept myself involved in it for long hours trying to fit ideas, links and classroom management aspects together.

Week 7 - Identify. Raise. Create. Improve. Support.

So much to do, so little time left until the peer evaluation!

This course  has been continusly offering me  the opportunity to look at, try and even design so many online tools that I must admit I have started feeling an active user of media resources and a confident designer, too.

In week 7, I have taken another step along the learning path and I have continued working on my final project. From the way things stand, by the end of week  8,  I will have probably become a video and audio specialist!

Week 6 - Explore. Build. Dominate.

Source: Dynamic PowerPoint Presentation

As I gain experience as a teacher, I increasingly find that I need to take care of my own professional and personal development. Using technology in my teaching is one of the specialist interest I am currently focused on and this online course, Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web,  is helping me a lot as it obviously strengthens and deepens my teaching abilities. 

My own impression is that the course content is getting more and more serious, sophisticated and the pressure of approaching the course project is here. Big responsibility on our shoulders! Correct me if I am wrong!

I could describe this week as a totally broadening experience...we have  had so much to experiment and to put into practice...I have found the optional reading resources particularly interesting and very, very resourceful. The choice of new online resources has been almost overwhelming for me. I have never thought PowerPoint has so many interesting interactive features: ConceptTests, QuickWrite, hyperlinks, blank slides, Jeopardy games / interactive stories.

Week 5 - Create. Connect. Learn.

Gary ANDERSON, Cambridge’s Senior International Teacher                                 Trainer, interacting with an English teacher from Romania         

Gary:       Which are the most difficult skills to practice?

Teacher: The productive ones, of course!

Gary:       Why?

Teacher:  Because cooking is more difficult than eating...

This week I paid close attention to a lot of compelling, both new and old teaching aspects, i.e. the roles of assessment, methods of effectively incorporating alternative assessment, based on checklists and rubrics, into the classroom activities, as well as developing inquiring-oriented activities through webquests and project-based ones.
I have deepened my understanding of measuring the quality of students' performance on the basis of established criteria by exploring various rubric generators, such as Rubistar, Digital Media Scoring Guides, Matrix Rubric with Points, PBL Checklists, Scholastic’s Rubric Maker, and Common Core Rubric Creator. 
The Blogging rubric I have found this week will serve as a good reference for my future posts.

Blogging rubric

Yet not enough explored in the classroom, PBL offers the means to help our students work collaboratively for an extended period of time to respond to set challenges  on their road to learning.

Source: © 2012 Buck Institute for Education

The 10-steps process to maximizing the benefits of project work have been particularly interesting and I am eager to apply it in the near future:

Step 1: Students and instructor agree on a theme for the project.
Step 2: Students and instructor determine the final outcome of the project.
Step3: Students and instructor structure the project.
Step 4: Instructor prepares students for the demands of information gathering.
Step 5: Students gather information.
Step 6: Instructor prepares students to compile and analyze data.
Step 7: Students compile and analyze information.
Step 8: Instructor prepares students for the language demands of the final activity.
Step 9: Students present the final product.
Step 10: Students evaluate the project.

Our course guide this week, Thalia Hadzigiannoglou, has provided us with insightful and inspiring teaching ideas  that encourage us, the English teachers, accept the challenge of shifting from typical teachers to the 21st century edutechteachers.

Diagram created by Alec Couros from the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina
as part of his doctoral thesis pucturing the ways teachers network in the 21st century.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/344832659/in/photostream/

Diagram created by Alec Couros from the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina 
as part of his doctoral thesis pucturing the ways teachers network in the 21st century.
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/354444154/in/photostream/

Good bye WEEK 5, welcome WEEK 6!

Rolanda
Romania

Week 4 - "Collect - Organise - Share. 
                 The possibilities are endless."
                                                                                               Diigo logo

                                                                Source: Social Media Categories, by Deciter Interactions
                                                                http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2735401175_fcdcd0da03.jpg?v=0


This week's readings introduced us to a lengthy list  of  social networks, EFL sites and blogs, all tackling the proper development of all four skills in the classroom in order to enable students become independent English users.

The course content this week was abundant in very useful information  and a brief listing of it is worth reviewing:

"the five finger method"

The sociocostuctivist view of education. Process writing involves a close, authentic social bonding betwen the writer and his readers.
Inside the classroom, the discourse genres need to serve the learners outside communicative needs.

The stages of the writing process the teacher should always consider when planning lessons: brainstorming, pre-writing,drafting, revising, asking for feedback and using assessment rubrics.

Students need to be exposed to written models in order to be able to identify the various features of different genres, i.e. persuasive, expository or narrative texts.

Blogs, wikis and podcasts are great instances of social networking which promote the process approach to writing in the classroom.

The English teacher's qualities: flexible, adaptable, practical, supportive and abread of the online latest developments.




See you all next week!
Rolanda
Romania