POWER TEACHING

Este video sobre el power teaching me fascinó tanto, que tengo que incluírlo en el blog. ¡Esto es atención total!

DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR

Today we learnt that disruptive behaviour is when a child is uncooperative and prevents themselves and other children in class from working.  A disruptive child also manages to grab a teacher’s attention and prevent the teacher from giving the other children attention.

There is an strategy called WIN-WIN, a discipline which teachers and students can win with, by Dr. Spencer Kagan:

TEACHING LITERATURE (6/12/12)

What is literature?

It is the art of written work and can, in some circumstances, refer exclusively to published sources. The wordliterature literally means "things made from letters".

Why should we teach literature?

• To inspire curiosity
• To insist that students take care with their approaches, words and responses.
• To give students a vocabulary for discussing things that are complex, which is ultimately about socializing them to talk, think, and feel in ways that allow them to be upwardly mobile.
• To offer students a break from the other demands on their lives: They wouldn't be reading if I didn't assign them the reading.

READING & WRITING (29/11/12)

In this session, Iñaki taught us the importance of Reading and Writing.

When students learn a 2nd language, listening is the main source, and reading the second one. Reading is an easy skill to keep up, because everything is written. There are different ways to approach the introduction of reading in a foreign language:

• Phonics
• Look and say (flashcards, say the word and point it)
• Whole sentence reading
• Language experience approach: the teacher writes a sentence for the child to read which is based on what the child has said.

If reading is done individually, we should let them read silently.

Reading a class story is another way to introduce reading skills to the class. Instead of reading from a book, we might want to use a class story.

Also, if we want them to read books, we should let them decide whether if they liked or not by crossing a smiley face or a sad face.

In conclusion, reading builds up confidence in the student and it is a good way to discuss what is going on in the story.

Regarding Writing, one of the most important things is to take into consideration on content rather that on grammar.

It is impossible for the students to think in English but to make them understand that from Spanish we can tranlate it into English, helps.

Many children take a long time to master the skill of writing. Errors can be gently corrected and re-written.

Writings have to be guided at the beggining in order to finish with a "free writing".

DOs and DONTs in teaching writing

                                                                             

DOs:

• Concentrate on content
• Spend a lot of time on pre-writing
• Make sure that  it springs naturally from other language work.
• Try to make sense of whatever the pupils have written and say something about it. 

DONTs:

• Announce the subject out of a context and expect pupils to be able to write about it.
• Set an exercise as homework without any preparation. 
• Correct all the mistakes you can find.
• Set work which is beyond the pupils language capability.

ASSESSMENT AND TESTING (22/11/12)

In this session, we have learnt about Assessment and Testing. We already know that the ways of teaching depend on the students. So it happens with the assessment, because the testing ways varies depending on the circumstances in which the student is involved.


Here we have some characteristics about the assessment and testing procedure:

It doesn't exist a standard way of assessment. 
Only the teacher can perform this task.
Tests vary any time now.
There are plenty of variables to take into consideration
Assessment has to be objective.

The teacher has to keep a close monitoring of the students' profiles in order to negotiate in the assessment about the grades. The teacher not only assesses concepts, but attitude, participation in class, ongoing effort...

And, before designing an exam, the teacher has to bear in mind some steps:

1. the level of the exercises (various levels)
2. A two page exam with a good spacing to let the students write without having to use an extra folio.
3. Don't discriminate. The grade reflects the mistakes.

INVESTIGATION, INNOVATION AND TICs II (19/11/12)

Today, we have learnt that the Blog is a good way to stimulate students in writing, interchanging ideas, working in group, designing and visualizing whatever they produce in an instant way.
It also offers teachers the possibility to make the students work on synthesis processes because they have to be precise and punctual when writing on Internet.
Interaction is the key, as well as the research and selection skills. It is an easy way to access to a bunch of information of any kind and the most important thing is that the student has an active role.

INVESTIGATION, INNOVATION AND TICs I (12/11/12)

We can't deny that the use of new technologies at school is a change, and every change can create a trauma due to the fact that it requires some effort, adaptation until we get used to it. Then, those changes become natural, a habit. We all have experienced a lot of changes regarding the Educational System in Spain, as well as in textbooks, which update every year.

So, new technologies allow us to extend the learning field (Facebook, web pages...). The next thing we have to take into consideration is the student; our students are creative because they 'create', share, etc. New technologies ease creating links between people and communication.

In my opinion, tehcnology is deeply important when teaching English, and not only with teenagers. Little children learn throughout Youtube links, films projections. Regarding Primary students love learning through songs with lyrics, powerpoint slides, online exercises and games at home, etc.
Nowadays, teenagers are used to communicate with each other through Social networks, Blogs and teachers have to take profit of it to make the learning more dynamic and interesting.

HOW DO TEACHERS CHOOSE THEIR TEXTBOOKS? (15/11/12)

Have you ever wondered what you have to bear in mind in order to choose the best textbook to use in your lessons? Well, I didn't know that this decision is one of the most important things when teaching and that there are a lot of different editorials with different textbooks.

Today we have learnt many important things regarding this election:

• Themes: students have to find the themes on the textbook interesting and adapted to their lifestyle.
• The resistance of the book is also important.
• Teachers have to take into consideration the complete set of skills (Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing)
• It is also important to meet up with other teachers in order to decide which textbook fits better.

I found the lesson very interesting due to the fact that I'm used to design Didactic Units for my students in my free time. It also helped me to realize that the diagramming, the illustrations and the written text are very important aspects to take into consideration when designing a Didactic Unit.

TEAM BUILDING (29/10/12)

...is the process of building teams; not merely putting students together, but turning them into a cooperative and caring team.

The members of the group have to respect each other. Nobody is better than anyone because the purpose is to create a good atmosphere within the group. It is better to maintain the same groups all over the month (for example), instead of changing the members in each activity. Children have to know each other and to get used to work with the other members.

The activity in group has to be designed in order to reach a goal. It is important to make them think about what they are doing, and to create bounds between them. What we want is to compensate the lack of abilities from others.

5 Specific aims of team building:

1. Getting acquainted (possitive team atmosphere)
2. Team Identity (sense of ownership, affiliation and solidarity)
3. Mutual support
4. Valuing differences (tolerance diversity)
5. Developing Synergy (together, everyone achieves more)

Why do team building?

To promote a positive tea and a classroom climate, and provide the student the skills to work with others.

Activities for Cooperative Learning:

• Find the Fib
• Formations
• Pairs compare
• RoundRobin
• Same-Different
• Team Projects (roles)

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES (22/10/12)

What is meant by intelligence?

After a brainstorming, we could say that the intelligence allows us to survive, to perceive, to retain knowledge about the world around us, to acquire skills, to find out solutions, to comunicate, to create and to take decisions wisely.

According to Howard Gardner, an American developmental psychologist who proposed the Theory of Multiple Intelligences in 1983, viewed intelligence as 'the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting' (Gardner & Hatch, 1989).
Gardner formulated a list of seven intelligences:

Linguistic

Logical-mathematical

Musical-Kinesthetic

Spatial

Interpersonal

Intrapersonal

People have a unique blend of intelligences. Howard Gardner argues that the big challenge facing the deployment of human resources 'is how to best take advantage of the uniqueness conferred on us as a species exhibiting several intelligences' (ibid.: 45).

So, regarding educational psychology, the teacher observation in class is notably important, as the students have a different more developed intelligence. The teacher has the task of designing activities in order to blend as many as possible intelligences, so students learn throughout this mixing. Spencer Kagan, creating a lot of exercises based on competences, reduced the number of academic failures. He proposes three stadiums:

1. Match: to conect our way to teach to the way students can learn.
2. Stretch: to extend the predominant intelligence to the other latent intelligences.
3. Celebrate multiple intelligences.

We, as teachers, have to get the students ready to understand and to work with diversity, because the lesson can't continue if a student doesn't understand anything. We have to manage enough strategies to "touch" our students.

 A+strategies+clever students

One of the most popular strategy is group-work. This methodology is based on cooperative learning. We turn from the individual to the group, and viceversa. Lets think about a concept that, at first instance, is unknown to us; we assimilate the concept as we get used to it and, finally, it becomes something natural, genetic, intrinsec to us.

Some ideas in teaching:

*Regarding correction, teachers have to limit correction. The main purpose is to understand and to communicate with each other. Children have to lose their fear of failure. Teachers cant pretend that children learn something that doesn't belong to their age.

New technologies help multiple intelligences (MI). Making the students to investigate improves their learning abilities and helps them deduce knowledge.

*Some exercises according to different intelligences:

-Linguistic: brainstorming, descriptive sentences, writing stories from brainstormings, RoundRobin, book reviews, newspaper activities...,
-Logical/mathematical: find the rule, simetry exercises... -Spatial/Visuall: maping ideas (colors, icons...)
-Musical/rythmic: songs, "close your eyes, listen to what you hear and write about it"...
-Kinesthetic: debates, plays, 'Baskenglish"(basketball games in English); the most difficult students are more motivable from the kinesthetic point of view.
-Naturalistic: experimentation with senses...

*Power teaching: the concept of calling students' attention:

Teacher yells: class?-----the students have to answer: yes.
Same with: teach?----ok *

Classrules:

...follow the instructions immediately.
...keep our teacher happy.
...raise our hand if we have something to say.
...don't stand up without permission.
...take decisions wisely