Week 5 : Human rights WebQuest

I really enjoyed preparing my human rights webquest where I tried to make students shed light on international and local human rights issues in their research. Appealing and engaging as it is, some teachers can still prefer to avoid using webquests under the pretext that PBL requires a reasonable amount of digital literacy and might result in more distraction and time consumption. For me, PBL embodies the "learning through doing" theory and this is what makes students and teachers grow fond of it.
Link to my webquest  : http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=205955

Week 5 : Rubrics and learners autonomy

According to Heidi Andrade a rubric is by definition “a document that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria, or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor”.  

The thing is, the role of rubrics can’t be cut off the overall context as it is the extension of a teacher’s approach that depends on presenting (pre-stage), guiding/monitoring (while-stage) then evaluating (post-stage) with the teacher’s voice and stance not overwhelming students’  through all these stages.

Autonomy is a key facet in modern teaching because it simply triggers more self-confidence which on its turn leads to more motivation and total student involvement. However, teachers don’t possess  magic wands and can’t by consequence make their  students autonomous only by wishing so. Autonomy comes as a result of an exhaustive preparation and adjustment of the learning environment to fit the students’ prerequisites and expectations. We can’t for example talk about  autonomy of the learner when the latter is not clear enough about the course goals or skeptical about the relevance and/or adequacy of the course book and the tools being used to teach it.

I actually tried in my reading rubric (see course wiki) to cover the reading activity and the tasks related to it  from beginning to end. Not only that , I also provided room for learners out-of class experience and knowledge  (learners stance and voice) and evaluated the way it is successfully invested in the reading task.

To conclude with, I realize now that PBL together with rubrics  and alternative assessment are becoming a MUST because through my humble couple of experience in Drama and Debate projects, I have seen how PBL succeeds where other strategies and teaching methods fail.

Week 4 : Class room Connection

I am sure you have noticed how rich and constructive this week’s readings are, with enormous websites which cater to divers tastes and school levels. I almost got lost amidst the numerous web sites which provide downloadable videos, e-texts and lots of pictures to analyze and interpret to build writing and reading skills.  In fact, all those links are useful if implemented in the right context and in reasonable ‘doses’ . I guess every teacher chooses what suits him/her best and what responds the most to their students curiosity and tastes.

The  paper by Jarek Krajkaen was very interesting as it starts with a valuable summary of previous research which reflect the innovative points of view as to maximizing the presence of the digital dimensions in the classroom daily practices. A very stunning dimension among these is the new  role teachers have to assume in a wired classroom. It’s no longer sufficient for a teacher to be fluent speaker who masters the use of the language structures and functions. According to Jarek, and this I totally agree with, digital proficiency along with language mastery equal a good teacher today.

It goes without saying that the pal connection tool is so amazing and promising not only for being well-recognized among both CALL professionals and wired language teachers but for the peer evaluation culture it promotes as well. You can’t imagine the amount and quality of learning that occurs when students rely on their peers, a thing I came to believe in after the classroom connection experience I witnessed with one of my colleagues connecting through Skype an advanced Science class  with an American class (same age and same interests). Coordination between teachers on both sides takes place before hand, fix a date and a time for students to exchange queries on weather, culture, eating habits, free time activities and so forth.  Being afforded complete autonomy to make their voices heard, students do practice listening and speaking with the teacher interfering the least possible.                                     

Really a non-such experience we look forward to clone over and over and over. 

Week 4 : Computer based testing

Going like six or seven years backwards I remember having a student in my class who was kind of obssessed with listening activities. There were times when she would ask me : "why don't we have listening activities on daily basis ?" which came to me as a surprise because all other mates in her class didn't hesitate to show signs of dissatisfaction everytime I bring the tape recorder to the classroom. She was the only one with that unique zeal for listening tasks.

I came to know later from her that she failed her TOEFL test many times because of the listening section and ever since she was trying to improve that skill by exposing her ears to anything that sounds English, which I advised her to quit doing and to focus on native speaker instead if she were to do better in future listening tests.

Honestly, I didn't have much to help her with apart from a couple of pieces of advice because deep inside me I still believed she needed much time to manage to redress her ears to grasp a full native speaker's talk. I only wish I knew what I know today, then I would have recommended a list of website which help students get ready for computer based tests, for example:
-  http://www.learn4good.com/
-  http://toefl.jumbotests.com/
-  http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/index.php

I really believe that the way modern technology has become available and inexpensive will inevitably contribute to fixing the problem of listening especially for students who plan for higher studies abroad. One last thing to mention is that listening is believed to be among the hardest skills to develop because it demands longer period of times and regular exposure to native speakers.

In addition to this, there are language features that are known to native speakers instinctively like stress, tone, vibration, intonation, pitch patterns, accent and prosodic features and which affect the production and perception of much of the spoken discourse and help uderstand even even the mute or neutralized parts of it. As Maria Busa put it in her article :

" Individuals who start acquiring a language after early childhood rarely develop native-like speech patterns even after considerable exposure to a second language. In fact, in many cases second-language learners speak with a foreign accent"

Unfortunately non-native speakers aren't naturally endowed with the gift to distinguish these features instinctively as they are listening. That needs a pretty long way to go and a really intensive practice.

CALL

   Rich and innovative as it is, CALL is not a program meant to substitute face to face speaking activities. This program is designed to address - among other issues -  to  problems related to anxiety and psychological inconveniences which may occur to ‘some’ students during real classroom confrontation. To me, it’s therefore another instructive and constructive  tool that needs to be implemented to improve the quality and the way speaking is integrated in the curriculum.  

  I can’t deny that such applications as SLIM and ‘Conversation’ whose designers have apparently paid careful attention to minute details, do  open up learning horizons which definitely outnumber those created by teachers in classrooms. Nevertheless, people speak to people  not to machines in real life and this leads us to believe that CALL can solve teaching problems but it can be the biggest problem in case we rely solely on it.

Google et al

    Well, the first thing I would love to share with you dear coursemates in the beginning of week 2,  is my infinite enthusiasm attending  the lovely music festival which is held in my country, Morocco. It was really an exciting opportunity to see live performances of lots of Arab and American musicians and artists.

   There is no doubt that searching the net for useful and relevant information is one of the most pressing problems  students and educators have to face sometimes, not because the searching task is time consuming and tiresome – which in fact is true – but rather because they often have to sift for so long through the heaps of useless or vague information before they could find what they really need, which is regarded  as a major inconvenience given the demanding hours they spend at work or the straining moments they devote to homework.

   However, with Noodletools.Com, most if not all that burden is soothed particularly when you use these new engines systematically and purposefully. I have learnt that Google which has been enjoying the lion's share as a searching engine is not the only available tool. There are actually better ones with a more professionally trusted profile and academically powerful reputation like iSeek, and Intute. Maybe due to my laziness  or to Google's availability I little thought of trying something else beofre this week, but this   teaches me a lesson which implies that having something available doesn't mean that it's the only thing out there. Knowledge is just around, yet it doesn't come to us. We'd better look for it.

  Before I say ‘Good Bye’ , please allow me to share the link below which gathers a couple of privileged engines which I couldn’t find at the Noodletools.com list:http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/college-life/15-educational-search-engines/