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.

fourth blog entry

Fourth blog

What are the purposes of teacher´s classroom questions?

One of the purposes of questioning in the classroom is that teachers can realize how much students know about a specific topic before they begin the class (previous knowledge) and the students´ progress.

Questioning is a tool for both teaching and learning. So, teachers must use it wisely. Why? Because sometimes we have students that are very shy and don´t like to participate in the classroom; on the other hand, there are other kind of students that are very talkative. For that reason, teachers should use an appropriate technique that involves all kind of students and not only a part of them.

One technique is wait time.

Teachers must use questioning correctly. For instance, when teachers ask questions they expect an answer quickly but sometimes students don´t know how to answer. That´s why is important “wait time” and “think time”. So, if we give more time to our students their answers will be longer and with alternative explanations.

No hands is another technique we can use in our classes and it means that students are not allowed to raise their hand in answer to a question; they are expected to be prepared to offer an answer and if they cannot they must say they do not know. All students must participate in the questioning process. Also, this technique allows teachers measure progress and understanding of each student.

third blog

What´s your call on the following? Assessment in education must, first and foremost, serve the purpose of supporting learning.

I´m totally agree. Assessment must serve the purpose of supporting learning. The first thing that comes to people´s mind when they hear the word assessment is summative assessment. Teachers can not measure the students´ progress just through a test at the end of a chapter or a unit.

Teachers must keep in mind assessment as part of the lesson plan. In other words, assessment must be part of an effective lesson plan. Why? At the end of the class, teachers must assess how much the students have learned, how many of the objectives or goals have been accomplished.

 That information will help teachers to know if the topic or subject is easy or difficult to understand for the students. Teachers can also realize in what way or method or technique students learn more easily. Students can notice how much they have learned about the topic they are studying and work on it. So, students can identify their weaknesses and that will be important because students can develop the capacity for self-assessment. Then, teachers can help students to know how to improve and be better students.

Knowing our students ´weaknesses is very important because we as teachers can modify and change the way we teach in order to make our classes enjoyable, interesting, funny and easy to understand.

Another aspect that is important to study is that teachers must use different kind of evaluations in order to assess the four areas of learning:  listening, writing, speaking and reading.

second blog entry

University study requires students to take responsibility for their own learning, to be more self-directed, to make their own decisions about what they will focus on and how much time they will spend on learning both inside and outside the classroom. How can you get the students up to this point by the end of the course or the year?

The first task for teachers is to encourage their students to make an effort if they want to be successful students. Students need to have intrinsic motivation and they will figure out that they are responsible of their own learning.

The chapter 2 from the book Captivating your Class recommend us to provide the scaffolds for independent learning. So, teachers must provide basic information about the topic they are teaching and then let the students work independently. In other words, teachers provide the scaffolding or the base where the students are going to build their knowledge.

For instance, teachers can use the homework assignments as a technique to make their students work outside of the classroom.

Also teachers can use ICT (Information and Communication Technology) to support independent learning. For example, teachers can provide podcast or vodcast or any other resource to their students and they will have more information to take it into account in the research of information for an specific topic.   

first blog

How more interesting and innovative strategies can create a positive and challenging learning environment for your or someone’s students?

I remember that many years ago teachers used to talk and/or write on the board all the time and the students had to be on their desks quietly and writing down all the words that teachers said. Nowadays, we know that teachers must apply different techniques in their classes because each student is different. They have their own learning style and that´s the reason why teachers must use a variety of well-chosen techniques when they prepare their lesson plans. 

For instance, in the first chapter from the book I read that it is a vital aspect of an ‘A’ Level classroom students´ participation. In other words, teachers must challenge their students to participate actively in classes and talk as much as possible (but focus on the task). In this case we can notice that in the classroom there are students that are very talkative and they love participating in class but there are other students that are very shy and quiet and they hate talking in class, hence the real challenge for teachers is to adapt their lesson plans to their students´ needs.