Week 2: Reflections

This week, we have had four assignments:

1-Describing one of our classes that we think would benefit from making a technology-inspired change. In this task, we were required to describe our students and the classroom setting (see 1.1 & 1.2 below).

2-Sharing a behavioral objective of a class we are teaching right now, using the ABCD model, that's (Audience, Behavior, Condition, Degree), see 2.1 below.

3-Discussing the Web searching through reviewing different search engines on Noodletools. In this task, we had to mention which search engine we used, what we searched for, and whether or not we would recommend this search site (see 3.1 below).

4-Reflecting on what we did and what we learned this week by writing on our blogs (it is what you are reading right now). In addition, we are supposed to post at least one comment on another classmate's blog (preferably on a blog that has few or no comments from others).


1.1: Describing Students:
Writing the description of our students has been really a useful task this week. This activity allows the teacher to understand the characteristics of his or her students and how these could help in facilitating teaching. Things such as the gender of students, their nationalities and cultural background, their ages, their levels in English and their computer literacy are all valuable assets for the teacher.

- Gender and Culture:
If you have a class with 11 females and 9 males who come from a society such as mine, you won't probably ask the eleventh female to work with the ninth male when your activity requires pair work. Many students do not feel comfortable to do that in class. This is why you may sometimes end up having pairs and groups.

- Nationalities:
Different nationalities could also be a plus for teachers. For instance, one can design a pair-work activity that requires from the students to ask and answer questions about local foods or beautiful places to visit in their respective countries. This will arguably keep students in suspense to know more about each other's backgrounds and cultures, making it sound more authentic.

- Age:
Age is another factor that should be considered. Classes, especially those that run in the evening, may have students with different ages, with some being in their 18s and others in their 40s. It is important in this case that teachers choose activities that cater for all ages in the class.

- Students' levels in English:
Some students have a good English but others are struggling with their language. Hence, it's a good idea to put good students work with the weaker ones.
Good students may feel bored when the teacher focuses on the weaker students. Similarly, weak students may feel alienated when the teacher sees from the eyes of good students. Therefore, striking a balance is vital.

- Computer Literacy:
If all students and the teacher are familiar with computers and Internet, then it is a good idea to integrate technology to enhance teaching.

1.2 Describing the Class Setting:
The classroom setting is another important factor that could enrich the teaching and learning environment. First, is the temperature and lighting enough in the room? A room with no air-conditioning or a heating system, and/or poor lighting would not put students at ease. Second, is the room spacious? A tiny crowded room could restrict the movement of kinesthetic students who like to move around when learning. Third, is the class accommodated with technology? This would enable the teacher to play videos, use Power-point presentations, and hook up to the Internet.

2.1: Behavioral Objectives using the ABCD Method:
According to the article How to Write Clear Objectives that our professor, Dr Deborah, suggested, the rationale behind writing teaching objectives is to "define what you will have the students do" and to " provide a link between expectations, teaching and grading ".

Jones, 1997 (as observed in the above mentioned article) argues that "clear objectives can help the instructor design lessons that will be easier for the student to comprehend and the teacher to evaluate". I agree with this statement but the question is how these objectives will be determined and by whom? In my opinion, most objectives of teaching are decided by the teaching institution based on their assumptions of what the students need. However, it is not guaranteed that these needs correlate with the actual learner needs. I believe that learners should also be engaged in determining their own needs. This could be done through conducting recurrent needs analysis using questionnaires and personal interviews with a sample of the target students. This could ascertain the most pressing needs, on which curriculum developers could set the teaching and learning objectives.

- Behavioral objectives of my class:
Using the ABCD method, I tried to describe (on Nicenet) the behavioral objectives of one of my classes this semester (English 101 – Reading and Writing). At the beginning, I tried to write behavioral objectives for the whole course but due to the vagueness of the course syllabus, the objectives were unclear. In a later post, I came up with four behavioral objectives for a single lesson. These were:

Given a reading text of 350 words about Animal Talk (Condition) students in my English 101 (Audience) are expected to use the skills or skimming and scanning (Behavior) to answer 8 out of 10 comprehension questions in a period of 10 minutes (Degree).

Given a 130-word reading text about interesting places to visit in New York City (Condition) students in my English 101 (Audience) will be able to find and edit (Behavior) 10 punctuational mistakes out of 10 in a period of 5 minutes (Degree).

Given 10 topic sentences about Nuclear Power (Condition) students in my English 101 (Audience) are expected to underline the topic and circle the focus (Behavior) of at least 8 statements (Degree).

Given a paragraph about Superstitions that includes two unrelated sentences to the topic (Condition) students in my English 101 (Audience) will be able to eliminate (Behavior) both unrelated sentences (Degree).

- Bloom's Revised Taxonomy:
Bloom's Revised Taxonomy is a good way to classify objectives in a cognitive way that "follows thinking process". This taxonomy puts Remembering at the bottom of a pyramid, going upwards sequentially to Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, up to Creating at the top.

In each category of Bloom's Taxonomy, certain verbs are used to describe the behavioral objectives. More on which verbs to use in each category is found here.

3.1: Web Searching:
Honestly, I have never used any search engine other than Google since I knew what an internet was. For me, Web Searching was synonymous with Google. Having reviewed several search engines on Noodletools, I found that many of these engines have wonderful features that allow the researcher to get the best possible hits or results he or she looks for. One example is Clusty, which groups similar results under specific clusters, provides extra sources, and lets the user view the results according to the Internet address ending, like .com, .edu. , .org., etc.

One additional thing I have learned this week is that there is a science for searching. After reading Dr. Deborah's tips on Web Searching I understand now that I could have gotten better hits for my searching had I used these techniques before. For example, words like "the" or "a" should be avoided, the (+) sign should be used to limit the search, and the best results are in the first 20 hits. Previously, I would just write the things that I'd like to search for in a conversational way such as "The advantages and disadvantages of using technology in the classroom", and then go through the results one by one, reaching until the third page or further. But this is now something of the past.

Yours,
Mohamed