This blog has been created for the purpose of posting weekly reflections about what I have learned from a 10-week online course titled 'Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web' offered by the University of Oregon, USA. This course has now been running for less that a week but I have already learned some interesting new things and come to know many professional English teachers from all over the world. We discussed the rubrics - an assessment tool - for evaluating discussion in our course. It was agreed that the rubrics are sound and fair. The course teacher, Dr Deborah, has suggested that 50-75 words should be the target of any comment but students can still write up to 250 words. I haven't used rubrics in assessing students' work before and so familiarizing myself with such tool is vital.
The second interesting thing I have learned during this week was creating this blog. Our online class is now having a discussion (on Nicenet.com) on how to use a class blog. For me, reading about blogs and going through the easy steps of setting up my own blog makes me feel that my teaching will be interesting if such a strategy is incorporated in my lesson plan.
Finally, I have shared the address of my blog with the other classmates and encouraged them to come here and post their valuable comments.
Best Wishes,
Mohamed Hasan
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Hello, Mohamed!
ReplyDeleteNice to see you at blogger.com. I see that you have a great experience in education and teaching. Well done!
Thank you for sharing, see you at nicenet.org
Ruslana Shamanska
Ukraine
Hello Mohamed!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you - the nice and important things we have learned lately (so many things in such a short time). For all of us it is a new experience but the best thing is that we are (virtually) together, we cooperate and we share (experience, ideas, blogs).
All the best,
Nadina
Hello Ruslana and Nadinne,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting your comments and I am sorry for not getting back to you earlier; as you know teachers are always busy but this week has been unusually hectic (preparing for classes, having to write exams etc.).
Thanks Ruslana but I still consider myself as a beginner in teaching. I feel that I am learning new things day by day and I hope you and the others in this course won't hesitate to share their experiences with me.
I totally agree with you Nadinne. Being together for 10 weeks exchanging our thoughts and reflections on our experience is the most wonderful thing in this course.
Hi
ReplyDeleteWe regularly use rubrics. It is a great tool especially when teaching big groups.
Do you think you'll use a blog as part of your teaching style?
Regards
Juliet
Hello Jules,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. Yes, I definitely plan to use my blog as an aid to my teaching. How about you Jules? Have you used or plan to use blogs in your teaching?
Yours,
Mohamed
Hello Mohamed and all,
ReplyDeleteI've got a little remark I'd like to add here. Technology is a massive ocean from which you can get plenty of facilitating tools. I have managed to get some skills of using the web for educational purposes, but I alays discover that there are plenty of things I have to discover.
Please, de remember that we don't use technology per see, but of the big benefits it offers. we wouldn't use these technology to show that I am updated, but because we are aware of its advantages. That is the point I like most in your reflection when you taked about incorporating blogging in your lesson plan, and as teacher we all know a lesson plan is. It simply means we have clear objectives and we know how to achieve them using selected materials effectively.
Cheers
hamid
I loved your blog!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you when it comes to adding blogging as part of our lesson plans.
I think we can have ICT in one of the class aims and try different options so as to know what fits better in our language classrooms.