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!

rookie tales

This sixth week begins the real challenge, to choose one problem to solve, to work on it, it may be fun, my students are experiencing all my training as I do, most of the changes are for good, they are experiencing some new activities: last week we tried  to work on a outdoor activity (amazing response) from my students, perhaps I just have to shape it a bit more, or on the road we are going to improve, but I love it (as my students) we take a tour (at first I was the  tourist guide) all over our school, (describing the places, the objects and related things) after that they try, to do the same as I did. I do not care of how, I loved the way some of them response, trying to speak, to gesture, to do as I did, (amazing) but some others just didn’t care, perhaps I’ll do some written activities to accomplish this kind of “adventures”  but I can tell I’ll repeat this! I don’t care if the others grades students look at us as from mars! (Partially true)

This is just an example of the changes my students are experiencing from my teaching , and that is why I tell

My students are experiencing my training with me, I am in the process of the implementation of the rubric, and they are less ok with it, (Jody was right; I was the only stressed about it!)

I have been reading a lot about the large classes,(my work area) for two reasons: I  give a bi-monthly lecture (biology, aesthetics in dentistry, biomaterials )  and  my classes are large, not as much as 250, but 35 or more.  Oh!  How can I forget when I gave my first lecture:  It was….Terrible!  I was recently unpacked from a foreign university residence, it was a mistake to give a lecture with no previous experience, I knew the topic exactly, I previously prepare a PP presentation, all ok, but to be with so many eyes on me! (For the first time) it was… shocking, fortunately I   engaged my audience good and quick enough. And only a few ones notice my initial “rookie” face!  After that all was easy as a pie.  

The readings revealed to me some facts that I already know for my previous experience, as a large class teacher. I loved specially:  “beating the number’s game” effective teaching in L.C. by Richard M. Felder.  He shares useful tips and assorted info to improve various aspects: assess retention and tips to engage your audience, totally recommended.

  

A hard brainstorm is going ot fall.

This fifth week that is almost over, was for me a refreshing exercise of knowledge, at first the readings about PBL , the web quests, and alternative assessments  show me that I can do more for my students, encouraging them to look after their own knowledge, I am afraid it could be a major task in ELT but not on Biology (in Spanish) I don’t know for sure  if next course I’ll be teaching in first grade again,  but what I know is that I will work more on this PBL methodology. Rubrics are used at advanced courses in Mexico and at the university, but the implementation on my level (secondary school) is not very clear at the moment, Jody is right, perhaps the only stressed about use this tool is me, next week I will talk about it with my students,  (they’re going to kill me) but the same thought came to me when I decided to read them some chosen poetry. And here I am alive and teaching!,(and they know Robert frost’s poetry, yeahh! ) I am skeptical but I won’t deny that this tool sooner or later are going to be a standard in education, and I have faith on my students, they can reach good positions, they can aspire to a better education, and if it is on me,  I’ll give them the tools I am learning to use. Web quests are interesting tools, I am going to work on one for my summer advanced course (Biology) but, who can tell?, maybe I change my mind and I use it on both, English and biology as well .

 I leave at the end the mention of the most interesting discussion at this moment on the course: the brainstorming about problems!  How many interesting tips, advices, and methods!! Thank you all.

And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street….

This new wave of PBL and IT or other computer based teaching is in the top of the wave right now, we work with digital natives, and then we have to explore new ways to teach. New ways to bring the knowledge to the real life context, make it worth, but sadly it doesn’t  work well in all context, and some  cultural environment that do not brings this learning from basic levels is condemned to fail , the humans in general are easy used to get the things easy, not to work for it, some educational context do just that, all the info, all the teachers holding the students hands , telling them it is ok,  “ if you don’t want to work I understand, do not worry” ,”I’ll explain you and tell you exactly how to do it as much times as you want” , “do as much as you can, the rest is on me”. But, yes worry. One day those students become adults and they’re going to be us!( By us I mean teachers, doctors, drivers, professionals). I wonder what kind of adults we’re forming. What are we going to expect from this generation? If we keep teaching as now, when they face the real world they’re going to fail, no matter if they become police officers or doctors, you name it, I agree that we have to encourage our students to work more in teams, more in their own research, assess must change, the rubric is a correct approach in this way, but unfortunately this becomes usually a one man’s battle in my context. Some one young teachers are in the same ship as I am, unfortunately not the most.  At the public schools the changes comes delayed, and when they arrive, we’re working on other techniques other methods, and the changes are just in some levels, (sometimes basic school, others in secondary school etc) new captain, new plans, and the captains changes   very soon here.   

with a little help of my friends...

This week is almost over and I am still running out to design my tech class, I think it is natural to hesitate about what I am doing because most of these things are new for me. ABCD method is easy, but requires practice, and I am not used to plan like this, whit tech components, sincerely my previous tech classes were…. Different, only using the computers for some vague purposes, now the things are clearer for me, the teacher, I hope they will be too for my students. Better planned classes become in a better learning. However some corrections must be done in what I am doing now.

The readings of the week were very interesting I recommend one (not listed, but mentioned)Gerald Fox’s “The Internet, making it work in the ESL classroom”  a mini guide of how he find and recommends  to the teacher how to use the web as allied in the ESL a must read for beginners.  I don’t know my partners but as the weeks go by, my resources and my class ideas are increasing strongly, via their  recommendations. At the moment I write this comes to my mind a video posted at Georgia’s blog, the tech is as simple to use that  we feel scared to broke something when we use it for the first time.

The websites recommended for this week become my favorites, the moment I visit them specially

Lauri’s one, simply and easy to use, a must in further poncho’s classes.

I think that write and read  are very  “brain fortifier” activities, and in my classes thus  the big amount of students and their shyness, we work more in these two abilities, however in my class is always forbidden to laugh about someone else’s pronunciation.

I love to read a lot, it is one of my favorite hobbies, and I share it with my students, trying to plant the seed of reading, (in Mexico the reading level is low:1.5  books per habitant/ year) so as you can imagine it is a hard task even in Spanish, forget about the English baby!

 I use audio-books and the written materials (combined) with my kiddos, some times I select a chapter or a poem and I fix a Power point for them to read for the class  but sometimes they just do not care. But I do not give up, and I am always looking for new and interesting ways to make them read and practice English reading skill, so this week’s links are very useful

Useful because I can select from a lot of web-sites to encourage my students to read and listen at the same time from an extensive (and actualized) collection in the web, also practice some writing. What else can I ask for? 

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