Bring on the learning Revolution! (Video)

 

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences.

Here is a link to watch a poignant, funny  talk by  Sir Ken Robinson; where he makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning -- creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish.

In this site you will also find excellent AFL resources.

Watch Video

Managing the Learning Process

There are key elements for managing the learning process, and different ways to achieve it. First, let’s see what the process involves:

1. determining the main teaching point of the lesson;
2. ensuring pupils know what is being asked of them;
3. determining the required teaching / learning strategies to be employed in the lesson (including pupil grouping);
4. .planning how the lesson will start and end;
5. planning how the change over in activities during the lesson will be managed,  including where and how apparatus will be situated and distributed and the structure of how pupils will  move around ;
6. providing differentiated activities / tasks;
7. ensuring that sufficient and appropriate resources are available;
8. checking in equipment used;
9. provision of opportunities for feedback;
10. undertaking the appropriate risk assessment;
11. considering follow up activities – including assessment and homework.

There are 5 factors  that should be present in every lesson you plan:  the 5 Es.

The 5Es are a way of looking at lesson planning that encourages inquiry based thinking. It will help you structure your class  successfully.  This means that in your lesson, you should give yourself and the children the chance to:

* Engage , get the pupils interested in what you are going to do. Warm ups and Starters are fantastic!.

* Explore,  pupils should spend time looking at, asking questions about, making predictions and or using instruments, manipulating, specimens, objects etc.

* Explain , this is a time of discussion; it may involve pupils with pupils, pupils with the teacher, pupils engaging with ICT/the internet, pupils writing,

* Elaborate , at this stage you want your pupils to take the information they have gained and use it in another way; they may create an illustration, a project, or a connection to self, the world, other subjects.

*  Evaluate, this can be done by the teacher with discussions, in test or quiz format, using rubrics to analyze understanding. There is a variety of non conventional but yet very effective ways to assess your pupils’learning. You may want to check some in this blog.

What is quality teaching?

All assessment and evaluation techniques contain implicit assumptions about the characteristics of quality teaching. These assumptions should be made explicit and should become part of the evaluation process itself in a manner that recognises our rights as teachers to be evaluated within the context of our own teaching philosophies and goals.

First and foremost then, “teaching is not right or wrong, good or bad, effective or ineffective in any absolute fixed or determined sense”.[1]

We teachers make emphasis on diferent domains of learning (cognitive, affective, psychomotor, etc) and employ different theories of education and teaching methodologies. We encourage learning in different environments ( classrooms, field trips, laboratories, computer rooms, etc). We use different strategies and formats, and we do this while recognising that students have diverse backgrounds and levels of preparation.In one situation, we will be acting as transmitters of factual information, and in other, we will be facilitators of discussion and promoters of critical thinking.

As diverse and variable quality teaching might be, generalizations may be made about its basic characteristics.

The criteria to evaluate our performance vary between disciplines and should take into consideration the course level, our objectives and style, and the teaching methodology employed. Nontheless, the primary criterion must  be improved student learning.

So, what does it imply to be a quality teacher ?

* to  establish a positive learning environment;

* to motivate  our students’ engagement in their own learning process;

* to provide appropriate and challenging activities;

* to be responsive to our students’needs, and

* to be fair when we evaluate their learning.

All this implies that we 

* choose our materials effectively;

* organise our subject matter and course;

*  communicate effectively;

*  know our subject and transmit enthusiasm while teaching it;

* are available for our students, and

* have responsiveness to our students’ concerns and opinions.

Some characteristics are more easily measured that others. Since we teachers are individuals and teaching styles are personal, it is all the more important to recognise that not all of us will display the same patterns and strengths.

Do you agree?

Lara

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(1) Mary Ellen Weimer (1990) Improving College Teaching

Motivational Lessons

 

The purpose of this article is to raise awareness of an approach to teaching which emphasizes acquisition through enjoyment. We need to implant delight within the planning process and to reflect on ways of increasing it in our evaluations and future teaching.

THINK  FUN!

We only need to remember our own 'best' teachers to realize that positive humour is an effective aid to learning. We should seek opportunities to use humour in daily classroom practice, but this is not always a common practice.

There are numerous reasons for this which include

(a) teacher tension in relation to behaviour and control, and

(b) that somehow this will lead to a 'dumbing-down' of the curriculum.

Teachers should try to fear less and rely more in being spontaneous as regards positive humour.

SURPRISE!

Introducing the unexpected is a simple method of engaging pupils. A polite class is not necessarily an engaged class and if we are to avoid passive-listening syndrome there is little that can improve the shock of the unexpected. Methods of achieving this fall into two particular modes...

1. Teacher doing the unexpected

2. Pupils being asked to do the unexpected - The answers are X, Y, Z. What are the questions?  

There are innumerable variations on the two examples given but in the latter a guiding principle would be to look for opportunities to invert the norm.

EXPERIMENT, USE THE “6 SENSES”

Basically, look for methods of 'doing' things that are not traditionally 'doing' activities. For example, when studying locational writing in narrative genre, how better to introduce this than to engage in some 'plain'-air writing.

Where we are already engaging in experiential activities we can also ask ourselves how best we can further expand opportunities. This approach is undoubtedly labour-intensive but the benefits are long-lived.

SHARE  ANECDOTES WITH YOUR CLASS

Pupils want their teachers to be 'real' people. Personal anecdotes are a powerful way of achieving this and in one sense they are a modelling tool i.e. they 'model' the relationship between what is occurring in the classroom and the world beyond it. This encourages empathy in the pupils who are more likely to make connections between what is occurring in the classroom and their own everyday existence.

KEEP A LIVELY PACE!

A  significant finding of the research project 'Effective Teachers of Literacy' was that '..the lessons of the effective teachers were all conducted at a brisk pace.'

This does NOT mean that the pupils have no time to think. In order to 'Think Brisk' the teacher needs refocusing strategies and a sense of dynamism within the lesson structure itself. Techniques such as 'deadlining' provide pupils with both a goal and a sense of purpose.

HIGH-LEVEL QUESTIONING.

There is a clear need for the application of reflective teaching methodology within the arena of questioning.

We need to consider the skills we are eliciting when asking questions of pupils. A teacher who mainly asks recall-type questions in a science lesson will mainly ask the same kind of questions in a Literacy Hour. Reflecting upon this skills-base and consciously increasing its breadth will engage a greater number of learners.

The other essential technique is pre-questioning. By asking questions before an activity or indeed the reading of a passage or text and then instructing pupils to listen/look for the answers during it, we give them a reason to listen / engage.

The Emotional-Social Context for Language Learning

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and the way he understands it.
-Soren, Kierkegaard (1848), “The Point of View for My Work as an Author”

Teachers at the beginning of a school year slave away in their classrooms  designing bulletin boards, desk layouts, and room décor, familiarizing themselves with technology resources, creating lesson plans, navigating relationships with fellow teachers and administration, and worrying endlessly.

The first week in the classroom is difficult for many teachers who struggle to find that balance between establishing structure and control while also cultivating relationships and community with students. It can be exhausting when some students are not as responsive as others to instructions.

Just as the physical arrangement of the classroom facilitates large-group, small-group, and individualised activities, a framework of rules and expectations sets the criteria for ongoing evaluation. Developing goals negociated by the teacher and the students for classroom behaviour, allows for the rights of the individual to be balanced with the needs of the group and the programmatic requirements of the teacher. The children are then equally responsible with the teacher for evaluating whether the rules are being observed and whether modifications are needed.

The emotional climate is tied to the social environment and cannot be judged independently. The teacher creates an environment and introduces those activity structures that best require students to make conscious decisions pertaining to their learning behaviour. Thus children are naturally  required to adhere to the agreed-upon social demands of general courtesy and to accept responsibility for their actions within the group.In this way, they begin to understand a system of rules tied to function and situation. Since the responsibility is in their power, they are answerable to the group and to themselves rather than the absolute authority of the teacher.

Teaching and evaluation should become a shared responsibility among students, family, teachers, even extending into the community through the participation of classroom volunteers who share their various talents and experiences. Traditional power roles are minimised. Power over curriculum, knowledge, and access to both is not hoarded by the teacher and rationed in small, unconnected pieces. Rather, the power  to learn is shared by students and teachers alike. Adults and children become both teachers and learners, and growth can be monitored within this more natural setting.

Lara Hache

Are you a trainee teacher?

You are on a journey as a teacher of English. But where do you want to go? What do you need to do to get there? What's the best pathway for you?

 

Trainee teacher involved in initial training

At this stage you will have some of these characteristics:

1. Studying for an initial teaching qualification

2. Intending to become a teacher of English, at primary, general secondary, vocational, higher school or in the private language school sector

3.With limited teaching experience so far – most of your experience of teaching has been as a learner of English

These are typical needs:

Help with course assignments

    Help with observing teachers

        Help with teaching practice

             Examples of good teaching

                 Help with confidence in your English as a teacher

                    Contact with peers

Where you start at this stage:

You have made a decision to begin a teacher training course to become a teacher of English as a foreign or second language.

You will have studied English to a successful level in secondary school and have qualified for further study.

You may have had some teaching experience on an unqualified basis.

How you progress at this stage

Typically, you progress by learning about the principles of effective teaching of English, about effective techniques for teaching particular aspects of the subject, by observing other teachers and by putting what you have learned into practice in the classroom on organised teaching practice.

You will be learning about principles and practice in these aspects of English language teaching:

planning lessons and courses

understanding learners

managing the lesson

evaluating and assessing learning

knowing the subject

managing professional development

Training available at this stage

Search for reliable websites with resources, training, forums and support for teachers of English worldwide.

Register with the website and subscribe to the newsletter to access its full range of resources.Send in your own questions to forums.

Some things you might find particularly useful:

Watch videos of teachers of English from round the world teaching real classes

Read Jeremy Harmer’s books “Practice of English Language Teaching” & “How to Teach English” as introductions to ELT.

Networking with other teachers of English at this stage

Check with your local English teachers’ association to see what activities they have for trainee teachers.

Observe and talk to experienced teachers of English.

Moving on to the next stage

You will pass your initial qualification successfully and begin work as practising teacher in an institution. You may then be required to complete a probationary period.

Planning your next steps

You will be starting a teaching job and facing the challenges of putting what you have learned on your course into practice with real learners. You will learn a lot about the realities of teaching in a school.

Keep a record of your impressions and learning points. This will help you identify areas where you would like to learn more and help you find workshops, training courses, articles and other resources and opportunities to help you progress as a teacher of English.

Also take a longer view – where do you see yourself as a teacher in a number of years. What experience will help you get there? What do you need to do?

You may want to keep all this information in a professional development portfolio that will help you track your progress in  your career.