ninth blog

WHAT IS A TEACHER´S STYLE OF DELIVERY AND WHAT IS YOUR STYLE OF DELIVERY?

Every person in the world is unique and no one is the way you are. At schools there are different types of students and of course, different types of teachers. Every teacher has his own style of delivery.

I found four different teachers ´style of delivery; two of them are teacher-centered approaches and the others are student-centered models.

TEACHER-CENTERED APPROACHES.

1-Formal authority: The teacher feels responsible for providing and controlling the flow of the content and the student is expected to receive the content. One type of statement made by an instructor with this teaching style is "I am the flashlight for my students; I illuminate the content and materials so that my students can see the importance of the material." Teachers with this teaching style are not as concerned with building relationships with their students nor is it as important that their students form relationships with other students. This type of teacher doesn’t usually require much student participation in class.

2- Demonstrator model: This type of teacher acts as a role model by demonstrating skills and processes and then as a coach/guide in helping students to develop and apply these skills and knowledge. A teacher with this type of teaching style might comment: "I show my students how to properly do a task or work through a problem and then I'll help them master the task or problem solution. It’s important that my students can independently solve similar problems by using and adapting demonstrated methods." Instructors with this teaching style are interested in encouraging student participation and adapting their presentation to include various learning styles. Students are expected to take some responsibility for learning what they need to know and for asking for help when they don’t understand something.

STUDENT-CENTERED MODELS

1- Facilitator: These teachers tend to focus on activities. There is much more responsibility placed on the students to take the initiative for meeting the demands of various learning tasks. Teachers typically design group activities which necessitate active learning, student-to-student collaboration and problem solving. This type of teacher will often try to design learning situations and activities that require student processing and application of course content in creative and original ways. While course content is obviously essential, the facilitator does not make them the principal focus of the course goals. Rather, the goal is to learn how to use the content in a problem-solving way.

2- Delegator: Places much control and responsibility for learning on individuals or groups of students. This type of teacher will often give students a choice designing and implementing their own complex learning projects and will act in a consultative role. Students are often asked to work independently or in groups and must be able to maintain motivation and focus for complex projects.

We can notice that the first two approaches are student-centered while the others are teacher-centered. Each of them has advantages and disadvantages. Let´s take a look to each of them.

Pros of teacher-centered approaches are:	Cons of teacher-centered approaches are:
A large amount of information can be shared in a short amount of time The teacher has control of organization The teacher has control of pacing and content Accommodates large numbers of students Allows for quick and easy assessment methods	Knowledge controlled by the instructor One-way communication Not necessarily conducive to critical thinking Promotes passive learning Not an optimal way of learning for many students

Pros of a student-centered approach include:	Cons of a student-centered approach include:
Engages students in the learning process Encourages student ownership of knowledge Provides real life connections Promotes active learning Fosters critical thinking Addresses multiple learning styles Allows for varied assessment strategies	More difficult to implement with large numbers of students Can be more time consuming than lecturing Not effective in all subject areas Students may resist new approaches

After reading this information, I think I am a demonstrator model because I like to guide and help my students to develop and apply the four kinds of skills (writing, speaking, listening, and reading) and knowledge. As a conclusion I can say that the best I can do is to develop my own effective teaching style and I don’t necessarily try to mimic my favorite teachers from the past. I need to take into account my strengths and weaknesses. Develop an approaches that I am feel comfortable with and that maximize student engagement and learning in my classes. And by the way, I don´t have to forget the different students´ learning styles. So I have to take it into account when I develop my own teacher style of delivery.

eight blog

What are convergent and divergent questions? How can these types of questions help students initiate addressing reasoning as an active process?

We as future teachers must know the importance of classroom questions and also the differences between convergent and divergent question. Let´s definite each of them.

Convergent questions are the ones in which students just have to answer using a specific answer or just yes or no. For instance:

How many days are there in a week?

What color is this book?

How old are you?

Where is the post office?

As you can notice in these questions, there is just one correct answer, and there is no necessary that the student thinks a lot to answer the question.

Convergent questions are very common in Basic English because students are learning the language and they cannot provide more details or explanations in their answers.

Then we have divergent questions. They are the type of questions in which students need to think a lot and analyze the questions before provide an answer. For instance:

What is your favorite TV program and why?

Divergent questions encourage an open response of the learner. There is no single best answer. These types of questions are used in intermediate and advance English because in those levels students must provide larger answers with more details and deeper reflection.

Teachers should know the importance of questioning in the classroom and the differences between them. Teachers cannot expect a long answer in a basic level because they do not have the competences to do it but it is important that students get accustom to provide more complex answers and as a result to improve their speaking skills.

seventh blog

What are two ways classroom design has changed over the past twenty years?

Classroom design has changed over the past twenty years and we can mention some of these changes. Twenty years ago schools didn´t have all the technological tools we have nowadays and for that reason classroom design was entirely different.  In our country, elementary and junior high schools used to have small tables with small benches where 2 or more students used to sit. In fact, some schools still have those kind of furniture.  Furthermore, it is very important to mention that the way we arrange desks in the classroom because that will help us to have a good classroom management.

We need to keep in mind that school is our second home so we need to get our students feel comfortable. There are also other reasons why teacher must organize desks in different ways according to the activities we are going to develop. For example, when we need our students move or do some physical activities like warm-ups.

In the traditional way the students’ desks or chairs are organized with one behind the other. The teacher is in front of his students. One disadvantage of this way is that lazy students always sit at the back because they do not want to participate in the class.

The Nontraditional Classroom Design:

In this classroom design, the desks can be arranged in different way in which is most suitable for teachers and students. For instance, desks can be arranged in semi-circle or U shape. Teachers can arrange desks in the way they consider suitable for the activities they carry out.  Some of the activities we can apply with the nontraditional design are: collaborative exercises, storytelling, dramas, and so on.

sixth blog

What are three types of comprehension, and how do these differ from one another?

There are three types of comprehension. We as teachers need to have a clear idea of the different types of comprehension and how to use them in order to benefit our students and also to help us improve the way we learn and teach. Now, let´s define each of them.

·        Memory is the storing and then recalling and retrieving of thoughts and feelings.

·        Cognition is recognized as being lower level thinking.

·        Metacognition is recognized as being higher level thinking.

What is memory? Memory is the process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.

• Encoding or registration: receiving, processing and combining of received information
• Storage: creation of a permanent record of the encoded information
• Retrieval, recall or recognition: calling back the stored information in response to some cue for use in a process or activity

Cognition is a group of mental processes that includes attention, memory, producing and understanding language, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making.

Cognition is a faculty for the processing of information, applying knowledge, and changing preferences. Cognition, or cognitive processes, can be natural or artificial, conscious or unconscious.

Metacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing." It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving.

Now that we have defined each of them, we have a clear idea of the different types of comprehension and how to use them appropriately.

Teachers not only have to know how to teach but also how we learn.

fifth blog entry

FIFTH BLOG ENTRY

HOW CAN SOMEONE GIVE EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK TO HIS/HER STUDENTS?

The most important characteristic about feedback is to help students to improve their job. Feedback doesn´t mean to give a negative criticism to our student’s efforts. We as teachers should know the importance of feedback, how to use it and when to use it.

There are two main ways of giving feedback, written and oral. The most common is oral feedback because teachers use it all the time. The reason is because oral feedback is more practical than written. For instance, suppose that you are in the classroom and your students are performing an activity. You heard that your students made some mistakes. For you is easier to give oral feedback to your students.  Why? Because in that way your students do not have to wait for feedback, they can receive it immediately. Also, because if your students do not agree with you or they have some doubts, they can ask you for more explanation. In that situation you can notice that teacher can offer feedback at the moment of speaking of until your students finish what they are saying or doing.

When we use written feedback is important to confirm that students are on the right track, stimulates the correction of errors, avoid comparison with other students, provide opportunities for students to think things through for themselves and also, provides students with the opportunities to respond.

To summarize, the heart of feedback should be the individual student and what they need to do to become a better student of your subject.