on the road # 2

This is my last official post, of course I’ll follow posting from time to time, and it will be a pleasure if you can visit me, here or in real life, when you come to Mexico.

It is time to follow in the daily  activities,  (My mountain bike miss me a lot)

and some books are waiting for me... however, my dear friends:

I hope the contact follow and the collaboration too as well, and I learned a lot from all of you by your advices, blog post and comments. And more than one time I smile for the comments you post, it was an  incredible experience!

 Today I took some photos in my class, these  are (some) of my kiddos!

my wonderful kiddos, possing for the photo

here we are all in the classroom!

Ivan,Miguel and Maria talking of sports!

on the road

These intense ten weeks were a marvelous and incredible journey for me; my class tool box is now full of new teaching tools, now it is my duty to work with them, implementing some of them to improve my teaching, to help my kiddos, teaching them in different ways.

These tools are covered with a lot of words of experience from all of you, my partners in this journey through the highway of the information. This journey was guided by two incredible and patient Teachers: Jodi and Celeste, always giving us wise advices and encouraging words.

My favorite week was the brainstorm one, perhaps it was the best, because we exchange a lot of tips, and the most important: from the ones that teach every day and in very different contexts. The discussions and the blogging are my favorite parts of the course, however the tech tools are very good stuff too. The recommended sites are very useful.

The ABCD objectives and rubric site my favorites, and I am very into multiple intelligence theory right now.

 Then as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, my tool box is full with a lot of useful tools, that will help me in my adventure on this road  of education, thank you all folks!!

No surprises

Several thoughts are in me right now, I’ve finish reading (again) some of the material of this about to finish 9th week, I agree with Georgia, the work of the teacher is complex and it is getting more. But exiting as well!

I like the idea of multiple intelligences, some years ago I attend a related lecture, and in that time I didn’t understand the concepts as now I did, it was not of my interest at that moment (it was a medical congress, and I was not teacher then) it was on my medical side, now I’m glad to find this again now from a teacher’s view the light is different, as I mentioned before now I can understand why (apart from some context related issues) my students do not learn as I want , as I expect from them, it is on me not on them to change it, and maybe in the future they’ll understand and find their own way to study or to learn.

I took some of the surveys about the kind of learner I am and I get no surprised, (well not too much) I know myself, I know who  I am, I was lucky to have two wonderful parents to help me and support me when I was a kiddo, my dad never complained about this annoying eager asker, and he was always trying to satisfy my interest, until the day  I decided to fly by my own. but when I was taking these, I realize that my students need to know them better, they may not have the supportive parents, or the supportive brother, or nothing at all, that is why I am working on a Spanish version for them, (sorry folks but I want them to understand it very well) specially I’m going to translate the article: “learning styles and strategies” from Richard M.Felder and Barbara Solomon. Actually this is going to be for my non-English speaker partners, from my secondary school, as well as for my students. Georgia(again) was right I want my students to be better than themselves,  thanks  a lot.

Revolution Rock

This week we begin to read and to discuss about multiple intelligences and multiple learning styles, I like the idea of provide multi task material in order to engage all of my students, and after these readings, perhaps I’ll understand why they are not always interested in all my classes.

I think I’ll miss all this, all of my e-friends too,  all these stressing weeks are about to finish, I’ll do my best to apply all my recent knowledge in my future teaching.

Here in my country we’re almost finishing this course, I don’t know which grades I am going to teach in the future  but I am sure that I’ll implement a lot of new things.

The project make me feel nervous, which is rare because I am used to work under pressure, but for me was more less like my first project with my kiddos, and I was dealing with some issues in my school, in which I am the most “revolutionary” and annoying demanding teacher!  That’s how my coordinator defines me (He hates me) but I do not care.  my students deserve to use the computers, desreve better teachers,I did it for my kids, and I will follow for them, I want them to be better Mexicans than I am now, I just hope to encourage them well and right.

 

dream on

This week has been very busy for all, maybe is one of the most demanding  ones in the course , not to mention all the stress for the drafts, and the related issues, however all is walking as expected. This morning I attend my first webinar ever, I was expecting to see all my partners’ faces, but unfortunately it didn’t happen, but the experience was amazing!  I just can hear Maria, and chat with Georgia; perhaps in the future we can conference with the entire group. Interesting tools I think, sadly they’re not suitable for me, right now my school’s computer lab is not properly equipped to work with this tools, and I am afraid it is not going to be equipped soon, however it is good to know that such tools are available.  And even in the remote case that I could use this platforms my students are not prepared for this, it demands a proper compromise, a certain level of maturity, some basic internet and computer abilities that my students require,  they are indeed digital natives, but also digital homeless. Digital homeless because they have no computers at home and the time in my class is not enough, too much students, too few computers.

I like very much his weeks pages about the exercises and the online aids to do exercises, sometimes in the books there are not enough exercises, and here I found excellent options to help me with this, Hot potatoes my favorite, however I can’t stop thinking on ANVILL,  what a toy!, I mean a tool, but far I see the implementation here in my school , meanwhile all I can do is dream on a better computer lab, and work with the resources I got now. As a friend of mine says: “dreaming on a better future but working hard in the present”

Learning To Fly

When I teach I have one thing in mind:  to transmit my love for the knowledge more than to teach a certain lesson, looking to develop in them a critical mind, I want them to learn to think, to use their brains, I am always encouraging them to obtain more from the teachers as from themselves.  Because I experienced that when I was a student of secondary school, I was always tormenting my teachers with questions, in some aspects I was an autonomous learner, and when I went to the university I become in one, of course. That is why I am trying to wake up this ability on my students, they may be young, but we as teachers have the obligation to encourage them to learn with, or without us. My country suffers the lack of good researchers, and us the teachers and fathers are the ones to blame of this situation. Even when I give a lecture at the University level sadly, I find that the critical thinking is almost nonexistent, I f us the teachers,( and here I’m just talking of mi dear country, México) begin now to implement this kind of educational schemes,  maybe will figure in the future as a thinking and working nation, we have a very good  resource to work with; our young s are eager to know, to experiment, they just want to eat the whole world,  the only problem is that most of them do not know how to, or chose a bad way to achieve their goals,  we, the teachers need to work  on those aspects. To change the way they look the education, the life and the way they look at us the teachers, as I mentioned before, we have the need  of create or discover our potential  students and encourage them to go ahead  of  what we teach,  to look  more far and reach it, unfortunately  most of the old school teachers , dislike the smart students , because they represent more work for them and most of the times  represent a challenge in which they do not want to participate, especially in public schools,  and  take In count that most of the population can only access to the public education system on Mexico. This is sad, but it is true.  I want this to change, that’s why I teach my students to explore their potentials.

This week’s readings are very significant for me for the reasons I mentioned before, now I know the psychological and cognitive aspects of the learners autonomy, more tools to work with my kiddos, the cognitive strategies included on:  Dimitrios Thanasoulas’ article as the self evaluation tips , are something I’ll translate and share with my  old school partners here, maybe all the article

Just to let them know that we have to work on it right now, not when they get to the university,

Thus we have to encourage them to learn to fly instead of cut off their tinny wings…..

Working on a Dream...

All these weeks I have been thinking on what to work out as Project,   I want my students to get more involved on the English use, I want them to use it more than in my class only, they only practice it on my class, and they forget what are they learning for the next class, I told them about the rubric, and they like the idea, they are very receptive, I create a blog to show them other alternative tools to communicate by the web. I am testing them in order to shape my project. for the last month of class   I am telling them that the asses is going to be different, we are going to evaluate by rubric,  we are going to work in teams (4) I am going to give them some topics to work, the general idea is that they begin to work on something that make them work , think, use  and participate in English, as they are going to be working in teams, I want  to check (twice a week) how they deal with this task, the teams will make an exposition, they can chose a topic and the way they want to show it to the class, last week I  begin all this, for the next I hope to advance in the methodology, and to figure it out clearer than now,

My idea is to push them to work in teams, work on an exposition to the class, and to use a rubric to assess the exposition.  They can do a PP presentation or some other ways:  charts, theater. But I believe that PP is going to win, and as a collateral effect they are going to think more in English and of course work on English.

I hope you find this clear,  keep in mind two things, my students are 12-14 years old,  and not  very computer skilled, that is why  I do not want to overheat their minds (and mine on the way) with a lot of tasks or a complex project.

I am planting something, if it bonds, I may have better students for the next year (this scholar year is almost over in Mexico) or perhaps I am just working on a dream…….. Hope it come true!