This week, we have done the following assignments:
i. Swapping first draft Project Reports with a peer for a review
ii. Discussing Learner Autonomy
iii. Creating a One-Computer Activity
1- Project Report:
This week, I swapped my project draft report with my partner's, Mana Al-Masri, for a peer review and comments. She kindly made some very useful comments and suggestions on my project, which will definitely be taken into consideration before I submit the final version of the report on June 6, 2010.
I think this activity, i.e. peer reviewing, is very important because when we write, we sometimes digress from the main subject or we do not get down immediately to the point, which makes our writings long-winded. A good peer review can help us refine our writings indeed. It is an indirect lesson to us that we should do this activity with our students as we now have a hands-on experience with it. Thanks Deborah for this great lesson!
2- Discussion: Learner Autonomy
Our discussion this week has been about how we could encourage greater autonomy in students, with and without technology. In my posts on Nicenet, I pointed out that both Dimitrios Thanasoulas’s article What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered, and Samuel Sheu’s article Learner Autonomy: Bird-in-the-hand or Bird-in-the-bush? emphasize the relationship between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy. In other words, in order for teachers to foster the learner autonomy, they need to learn how to be autonomous in developing their own teaching strategies.
To make my students more self-directed, I have recently begun to implement some strategies such as the use of blogs and task-based activities. I also suggested that we should expose students to authentic materials (in and outside the class) such as reading newspapers, magazines and listening to the BBC. Students should keep in mind that "a successful learner is a long life learner".
I also argued that the role of the teacher in a learner-centered approach should not be undermined because he or she will have crucial responsibilities such as guiding the students to the right direction and observing their progress.
3- Creating a One-Computer Activity:
After reading Susan Gaer and Donna Price-Machado’s article Teaching in a One Computer Classroom, I created a speaking activity benefiting from a map of the United States that has been grabbed off the Internet and will be shown through the overhead projector to the students in the class.
The behavioral objective: After studying the direction expressions and the Comparative (Condition) my General English university students (Audience) will be able to locate a certain state on the map of the United States that is shown through the overhead projector in the class, say in which part of the United States it is and compare it with two other states (Behavior) with 100% accuracy in grammar and pronunciation (Degree).
For example, the teacher will ask individual students "Where is Oregon?"
The expected answer will be something like "It is in the northeastern part of the United States. It is between Washington State and California. It is bigger than Iowa but smaller that Montana".
Yours,
Mohamed
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Week 7: Reflections
This week, we have done the following assignments:
i- PROJECT TASK: SUGGESTING A PARTNER TO REVIEW OUR PROJECT REPORT
ii- CREATING AN INTERACTIVE POWER POINT DOCUMENT
iii- DISCUSSION (1): INTERACTIVE POWER POINT
iv- DISCUSSION (2): TECHNOLOGY FOR INTERACTIVE CLASSES
1) PROJECT TASK: SUGGESTING A PARTNER TO REVIEW OUR PROJECT REPORT
On Wednesday next week, May 26, I have to submit my raw project report regarding the technology-related change in my class to a partner in the online course for review and suggestions. Maha Al-Masri, a classmate, has kindly accepted my suggestion that we swap our first draft reports next week for peer-review.
As for the project itself, I have continued implementing my technology-related change that I started last week. My technology change as you can remember is the introduction of blogs in my English 101 (Reading and Writing) course. Last week I asked my students to post their writing assignments (about the pressures of being a student) and this week, I have started discussing some opinion questions related to a reading passage about Information Technology that we have done in class.
Although the responses are good, I feel that it could have been better if I had introduced this project at the start of the course. So far, only six to seven students out of 22 have posted their comments on the blog. I know that that are at least six others who wish to participate but they don't know how to post a comment on a blog! I explained to them in class but it seems that they're still facing a problem.
2) CREATING AN INTERACTIVE POWER POINT DOCUMENT
For this task, I have created an interactive quick vocabulary quiz using the Power Point for my Business students. As you can see in the presentation below, there are ten slides, each of which has a question with three multiple-choice answers. If you click on the right answer, a "Correct Answer!!!" message appears, but if you get the wrong answer, an "Incorrect Answer, Please Try Again" message appears. I can divide the class into two groups and have the students compete with each other. I think this interactive exercise would bring some excitement to the lesson and break the routine.
3) DISCUSSION (1): INTERACTIVE POWER POINT
After reading the article Unleashing the Power of PowerPoint and viewing Deborah's presentation on Interactive Power Point, I came to know so many interesting things in the Power Point program, which could help English teachers to deliver their lectures more effectively. However, in order to make any success with the Power Point, teachers need to know how to use it interactively. For example:
• There should be as few words as possible in each slide.
• The number of slides should be kept to the minimum.
• The font of the text, its color and size should be appropriate.
• Use animation, hyperlinks, and action buttons in your PPP.
• Do not read from the slide as if you are reading a textbook.
• Do look at students 99% of the time.
• Make your argument is compelling to get the students' attention.
• Allow some time for students to see the slide before you discuss it.
4) DISCUSSION (2): TECHNOLOGY FOR INTERACTIVE CLASSES
In my post on NiceNet, I suggested a number of technology tools that I could use to make my classes interactive. One technique is the use of Interactive Power Point presentations with blank slides as a way of transition to class discussion, where students work in pairs or small groups to discuss concepts outlined in the PPT presentation. This technique, as Heather Macdonald puts it, "provide[s] feedback to the instructor on student understanding".
Other tools included a WebQuest or a Project-task based (benefiting from online materials) that contains interesting subjects to students and the Just-in-Time technique. For the latter, I could post questions related to the subject of the lesson on my blog and use the responses of students to tailor a lesson based on the students' needs. I think the Just-in-Time technique is a great way to engage students in deciding what the focus of the lecture will be and prepare them to the lecture very well. However, I think it will be an overwhelming task for my students and will need a lot of effort from my part to motivate students to post their opinions.
Yours,
Mohamed
i- PROJECT TASK: SUGGESTING A PARTNER TO REVIEW OUR PROJECT REPORT
ii- CREATING AN INTERACTIVE POWER POINT DOCUMENT
iii- DISCUSSION (1): INTERACTIVE POWER POINT
iv- DISCUSSION (2): TECHNOLOGY FOR INTERACTIVE CLASSES
1) PROJECT TASK: SUGGESTING A PARTNER TO REVIEW OUR PROJECT REPORT
On Wednesday next week, May 26, I have to submit my raw project report regarding the technology-related change in my class to a partner in the online course for review and suggestions. Maha Al-Masri, a classmate, has kindly accepted my suggestion that we swap our first draft reports next week for peer-review.
As for the project itself, I have continued implementing my technology-related change that I started last week. My technology change as you can remember is the introduction of blogs in my English 101 (Reading and Writing) course. Last week I asked my students to post their writing assignments (about the pressures of being a student) and this week, I have started discussing some opinion questions related to a reading passage about Information Technology that we have done in class.
Although the responses are good, I feel that it could have been better if I had introduced this project at the start of the course. So far, only six to seven students out of 22 have posted their comments on the blog. I know that that are at least six others who wish to participate but they don't know how to post a comment on a blog! I explained to them in class but it seems that they're still facing a problem.
2) CREATING AN INTERACTIVE POWER POINT DOCUMENT
For this task, I have created an interactive quick vocabulary quiz using the Power Point for my Business students. As you can see in the presentation below, there are ten slides, each of which has a question with three multiple-choice answers. If you click on the right answer, a "Correct Answer!!!" message appears, but if you get the wrong answer, an "Incorrect Answer, Please Try Again" message appears. I can divide the class into two groups and have the students compete with each other. I think this interactive exercise would bring some excitement to the lesson and break the routine.
3) DISCUSSION (1): INTERACTIVE POWER POINT
After reading the article Unleashing the Power of PowerPoint and viewing Deborah's presentation on Interactive Power Point, I came to know so many interesting things in the Power Point program, which could help English teachers to deliver their lectures more effectively. However, in order to make any success with the Power Point, teachers need to know how to use it interactively. For example:
• There should be as few words as possible in each slide.
• The number of slides should be kept to the minimum.
• The font of the text, its color and size should be appropriate.
• Use animation, hyperlinks, and action buttons in your PPP.
• Do not read from the slide as if you are reading a textbook.
• Do look at students 99% of the time.
• Make your argument is compelling to get the students' attention.
• Allow some time for students to see the slide before you discuss it.
4) DISCUSSION (2): TECHNOLOGY FOR INTERACTIVE CLASSES
In my post on NiceNet, I suggested a number of technology tools that I could use to make my classes interactive. One technique is the use of Interactive Power Point presentations with blank slides as a way of transition to class discussion, where students work in pairs or small groups to discuss concepts outlined in the PPT presentation. This technique, as Heather Macdonald puts it, "provide[s] feedback to the instructor on student understanding".
Other tools included a WebQuest or a Project-task based (benefiting from online materials) that contains interesting subjects to students and the Just-in-Time technique. For the latter, I could post questions related to the subject of the lesson on my blog and use the responses of students to tailor a lesson based on the students' needs. I think the Just-in-Time technique is a great way to engage students in deciding what the focus of the lecture will be and prepare them to the lecture very well. However, I think it will be an overwhelming task for my students and will need a lot of effort from my part to motivate students to post their opinions.
Yours,
Mohamed
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Week 6: Reflections
This week, we have discussed Learning styles, have created a Rubric for a lesson and begun implementing a Technology-Related change in one of our classes (Project Task). Please note that all discussions I refer to in my reflections below take place in our Online Class on Nicenet.
Learning Styles (Discussion 1):
After arguing that knowing the learning styles of students is equally important to knowing what learning styles are, I provided two links to learning style questionnaires that aim at identifying the learning styles of learners. The first questionnaire classifies students into Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learners. Teachers can print out this questionnaire and let their students complete it in class. It would give the teacher a good idea about how his or her students learn. The second learning style questionnaire tries to identify the learning styles found in Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman's article LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES. This would be good to use in a lab that has access to the Internet, where each student completes the questionnaire on his or her computer and then reports the result to the teacher.
In the same post above, I selected some technology-related ideas, which the reading of this week, Technology and Multiple Intelligences, suggests, to address different learning styles in my class. For example, I chose using Emails, Blogging and Chatting to cater for the needs of visual-linguistic learners, who enjoy writing and creating words, and the needs of Interpersonal learners, who like to get in touch and interact with other people. Other techniques included a WebQuest for Logical Learners; Pictures, Graphs, Tables for Visual-Spatial Learners, and the use of Computers in the class to do exercises for Bodily/Kinesthetic Learners.
Alternative Assessment (Discussion 2):
After reading the article Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw, I outlined how I would use the technology to enable some of the techniques suggested in the aforementioned article. For example, I would add Minute Papers to a Power Point show to ask students questions that aim at checking their understanding at the beginning and end of the lesson. At the start of the lesson, the questions would be related to the previous lesson. It is important to make a logical connection between what the students did and what they are going to do so that it makes sense to the students. On the other hand, the questions at the end of the lesson would investigate if the students are aware of the most important thing they learned in the lesson and what issues they haven't understood. That would determine if I need to reinforce some ideas in the next lesson.
For a Think-Pair-Share activity, I would download pictures from the Internet and use them to practice speaking in the class. I would give each pair of students a picture and ask them to think about what is going on in the pictures individually. Then I would ask the students to work in pairs and talk about the pictures before we discuss them as a class.
Creating a Rubric:
After reading about Rubrics and viewing some examples, we had to create a rubric for a lesson. My rubric has been created to assess a Five-Paragraph essay that my English Course 101 (Reading and Writing) are writing now.
A Log on the Technology-related Change in my class:
I have begun implementing the technology related-changed that I suggested in week 5, that's blogging. I have launched a blog, Enhance Your Writing on Our Blog, for my English Course 101. We have already stated our first activity, Writing a five-paragraph essay about the Pressures of Being a Student. The responses from my students are impressive! In just four days so far, the comments have reached 51 and expected to rise as not all students have posted their essays, yet.
As show in the link of our blog above, I have shared with the students the objective of the activity (in ABCD) and the rubric for the assessment. The purpose of this is to enable the students to know what they are required to do and how they will be assessed.
This activity will run for one week. The next activity will be posted on Tuesday next week. I will keep a log on the changes that I have witnessed in class in the coming days on this blog.
Yours,
Mohamed
Learning Styles (Discussion 1):
After arguing that knowing the learning styles of students is equally important to knowing what learning styles are, I provided two links to learning style questionnaires that aim at identifying the learning styles of learners. The first questionnaire classifies students into Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learners. Teachers can print out this questionnaire and let their students complete it in class. It would give the teacher a good idea about how his or her students learn. The second learning style questionnaire tries to identify the learning styles found in Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman's article LEARNING STYLES AND STRATEGIES. This would be good to use in a lab that has access to the Internet, where each student completes the questionnaire on his or her computer and then reports the result to the teacher.
In the same post above, I selected some technology-related ideas, which the reading of this week, Technology and Multiple Intelligences, suggests, to address different learning styles in my class. For example, I chose using Emails, Blogging and Chatting to cater for the needs of visual-linguistic learners, who enjoy writing and creating words, and the needs of Interpersonal learners, who like to get in touch and interact with other people. Other techniques included a WebQuest for Logical Learners; Pictures, Graphs, Tables for Visual-Spatial Learners, and the use of Computers in the class to do exercises for Bodily/Kinesthetic Learners.
Alternative Assessment (Discussion 2):
After reading the article Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw, I outlined how I would use the technology to enable some of the techniques suggested in the aforementioned article. For example, I would add Minute Papers to a Power Point show to ask students questions that aim at checking their understanding at the beginning and end of the lesson. At the start of the lesson, the questions would be related to the previous lesson. It is important to make a logical connection between what the students did and what they are going to do so that it makes sense to the students. On the other hand, the questions at the end of the lesson would investigate if the students are aware of the most important thing they learned in the lesson and what issues they haven't understood. That would determine if I need to reinforce some ideas in the next lesson.
For a Think-Pair-Share activity, I would download pictures from the Internet and use them to practice speaking in the class. I would give each pair of students a picture and ask them to think about what is going on in the pictures individually. Then I would ask the students to work in pairs and talk about the pictures before we discuss them as a class.
Creating a Rubric:
After reading about Rubrics and viewing some examples, we had to create a rubric for a lesson. My rubric has been created to assess a Five-Paragraph essay that my English Course 101 (Reading and Writing) are writing now.
A Log on the Technology-related Change in my class:
I have begun implementing the technology related-changed that I suggested in week 5, that's blogging. I have launched a blog, Enhance Your Writing on Our Blog, for my English Course 101. We have already stated our first activity, Writing a five-paragraph essay about the Pressures of Being a Student. The responses from my students are impressive! In just four days so far, the comments have reached 51 and expected to rise as not all students have posted their essays, yet.
As show in the link of our blog above, I have shared with the students the objective of the activity (in ABCD) and the rubric for the assessment. The purpose of this is to enable the students to know what they are required to do and how they will be assessed.
This activity will run for one week. The next activity will be posted on Tuesday next week. I will keep a log on the changes that I have witnessed in class in the coming days on this blog.
Yours,
Mohamed
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Week 5: Reflections
In addition to blogging, we have had three assignments this week:
1- Discussion: Project-based learning and WebQuests:
After reading Susan Gaer's article Less Teaching and More Learning, which supports project-based learning; reading about WebQuests, and viewing some examples of these, we discussed, on Nicenet, how could project-based learning (including WebQuests) help students become more autonomous learners. In addition, we also discussed how could project-based learning change the teacher-student relationship in class in general.
In my post in the Discussion section on Nicenet, I pointed out that project-based learning can help students to become more autonomous because it pushes towards a learner-based approach, where learners do most of the work. The teacher's role here is limited to facilitating learning and prompting students. In a teacher-based approach, on the other hand, the teacher dominates almost every aspect of learning, leaving little space of freedom to learners.
I think the learner-basted approach promotes creativity and independence among students. The opposite is true with the teacher-based approach, where the teacher spoon-feeds learners.
2- Task: Project-based learning and WebQuests:
In this task, we had to share a project-based lesson or the outline for a WebQuest that might work in one of our classes. We had to mention the target students to whom the lesson will be taught, the topic of the lesson, its objectives (in ABCD format), and why we think this lesson would work.
I actually wanted to create a WebQuest but because I have been quite busy with other things this week, I chose to design a project-based lesson. However, I definitely intend to create a WebQuest when time permits.
My project-based lesson, which is titled Analyzing a Short Story to Write a Five Paragraph Essay, targets my English Reading and Writing students and has the following objectives:
1- After reading the short story, The Diamond Necklace, and finding the MAIN theme of the story with three examples on it (Condition), Students in my English Course 101 (Audience) will write and re-write a five-paragraph essay on the story's MAIN theme, focusing on the three examples they found (Behavior) with 100% accuracy, in a period of two weeks (Degree).
2- After reading the short story, The Diamond Necklace (Condition) Students in my English Course 101 (Audience) will discuss on our blog one of the other themes in the story, such as, Envy, Content and Borrowing and Lending (Behavior) in at least one post and a comment on another person's participation (Degree).
In order for students to meet the above mentioned objectives, they have to go through eight steps as shown in the link of the project-based lesson plan above.
I think this lesson would work because it relates to what the students have studied in the previous weeks, i.e. studying all aspects relating to the five-paragraph essay. In addition, the short story is simple and interesting, and discusses a universal theme that can be found in any society in the world. Most importantly, students will probably welcome the idea of reading and searching online and discussing their opinions on a blog with the teacher and other peers.
3- Project Task:
Having written some issues with one of our classes last week, this week we have had to describe a technology-related change that could help to tackle these issues.
As I illustrated in my reflections last week, I have problems with motivating students to write in English. The technology-related change that I would like to implement is the use of a weblog. I hope that by seeing their writing products published, read and commented on by others, the students will get motivated to write more.
Note: please participate in the poll above.
Yours,
Mohamed
1- Discussion: Project-based learning and WebQuests:
After reading Susan Gaer's article Less Teaching and More Learning, which supports project-based learning; reading about WebQuests, and viewing some examples of these, we discussed, on Nicenet, how could project-based learning (including WebQuests) help students become more autonomous learners. In addition, we also discussed how could project-based learning change the teacher-student relationship in class in general.
In my post in the Discussion section on Nicenet, I pointed out that project-based learning can help students to become more autonomous because it pushes towards a learner-based approach, where learners do most of the work. The teacher's role here is limited to facilitating learning and prompting students. In a teacher-based approach, on the other hand, the teacher dominates almost every aspect of learning, leaving little space of freedom to learners.
I think the learner-basted approach promotes creativity and independence among students. The opposite is true with the teacher-based approach, where the teacher spoon-feeds learners.
2- Task: Project-based learning and WebQuests:
In this task, we had to share a project-based lesson or the outline for a WebQuest that might work in one of our classes. We had to mention the target students to whom the lesson will be taught, the topic of the lesson, its objectives (in ABCD format), and why we think this lesson would work.
I actually wanted to create a WebQuest but because I have been quite busy with other things this week, I chose to design a project-based lesson. However, I definitely intend to create a WebQuest when time permits.
My project-based lesson, which is titled Analyzing a Short Story to Write a Five Paragraph Essay, targets my English Reading and Writing students and has the following objectives:
1- After reading the short story, The Diamond Necklace, and finding the MAIN theme of the story with three examples on it (Condition), Students in my English Course 101 (Audience) will write and re-write a five-paragraph essay on the story's MAIN theme, focusing on the three examples they found (Behavior) with 100% accuracy, in a period of two weeks (Degree).
2- After reading the short story, The Diamond Necklace (Condition) Students in my English Course 101 (Audience) will discuss on our blog one of the other themes in the story, such as, Envy, Content and Borrowing and Lending (Behavior) in at least one post and a comment on another person's participation (Degree).
In order for students to meet the above mentioned objectives, they have to go through eight steps as shown in the link of the project-based lesson plan above.
I think this lesson would work because it relates to what the students have studied in the previous weeks, i.e. studying all aspects relating to the five-paragraph essay. In addition, the short story is simple and interesting, and discusses a universal theme that can be found in any society in the world. Most importantly, students will probably welcome the idea of reading and searching online and discussing their opinions on a blog with the teacher and other peers.
3- Project Task:
Having written some issues with one of our classes last week, this week we have had to describe a technology-related change that could help to tackle these issues.
As I illustrated in my reflections last week, I have problems with motivating students to write in English. The technology-related change that I would like to implement is the use of a weblog. I hope that by seeing their writing products published, read and commented on by others, the students will get motivated to write more.
Note: please participate in the poll above.
Yours,
Mohamed
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