Week 6: New tools and techniques!

Hi everybody,           

During this week we had a variety of techniques and tools of teaching. First, we had great opportunity to meet the Editors who are spending their time creating a new world of valuable pages (English Teaching FORUM) .

There were great reading and discussion on Engaging Students especially in large classes and the new and effective techniques are used for teaching them.

Next there was a very helpful article on creating Interactive PPT show and different techniques were explained on enhancing an Interactive class.

 Of course, after observing the information and techniques we read and discussed, we have to practice them all by creating an interactive PowerPoint show.

I found this week more effective than before. Frankly, each week become more useful than the former week. I felt too relaxed in doing the required task because it is more related to the student- centered more and more.

Thanks for making our lesson interactive and let us understand using technology as tool of letting the audience interact and learn.

Mariah

Week5: Rubistar!!! Great ! I can't believe it!

Hi teachers,
 

Wow! Great tool , great details about different skills. I found Rubistar a valuable website to create Rubrics easily.

The most important reason I will start using it that it saves my time and energy. Thus, starting from know I will not think a lot about the details I have to consider in creating a rubric. In addition, it saves my energy and let me think more in other creative methods of teaching and preparing visual aids or activities for my students.

GREAT TECHNOLOGY!  I won't go back to the old ways of setting rubrics.

Love,

Mariah

  

Week 5: PBL ??? What and How?

Hi all,

I have never heard about this strategy before, but I applied it a lot during the previous years. The reason lead me to apply it was that my students have the enthusiasm to do a project rather than write an assignment so that I asked them to prepare projects on the global issues or what interest them of the issues mentioned in their text books.

After reading the article titled " Less Teaching and More Learning" by Susan Gaer about Project-based Learning I understood the method I used and become more aware of the principles and procedures of this Strategy.

PBL is the powerful method of involving students in learning new visions more than set and listen to their teachers.

Finally one of the largest and influential website that apply PBL effectively is iEARN :  http://www.iearn.org/    visit it once and you will discover the importance of PBL in learning and improving student- centered environment.

Love,

Mariah

Week5: Still Correct Papers!!!

Hello everybody,


What is the acurrate tool you use to assess your students' performance?
Do they have to asnwer questions to pass the course or graduate?
After reading the article about Alternative Assessment I found that we can invoke real world applications to provide self assessment opportunities for students.


Students can show their real personality and experience through their performance. Teachers must judge the students' performance in different ways and don't believe in the answers on papers. Everybody can memorise and write down what he/ she studied but it is difficult to apply what you studied in the real performance.


I read about the experience of Telok Kurau Primary School in Singapore on using Alternative Assessment in assessing Math Test and Science Test and found it a remarkable experience that must be applied in our schools.
The website of the school is :  http://www.telokkuraupri.moe.edu.sg
follow the followings: (School programmes, Alternative Assessment Mode)

Best,
Mariah

Week 4 : Reflection

Hello Teachers,

I felt too happy doing the tasks because they were related to students and our efforts to be better teachers. What a great and rich week I had. First I read one of the loveliest article about how to use web sites as teaching aids and in teaching writing . It is a very useful article. I hope I find more articles about the same issue and in the proper and useful way of teaching other skills. Moreover, I had a great opportunity to search for useful web sites to enhance my lesson.

The second great opportunity I had during this week was writing a lesson plan with technology after reading a great piece of writing from the University of Tennessee on our course website. I found this task simple and refreshing because it's writing a lesson plan and this what we still do.

Finally, I identify a problem, concern and issue that could be addressed with the incorporation of a NEW technology. Frankly, the last task helped me have clear focus on what my students suffer of so I would do my best to help them solve it by applying the different strategies we studied so far.

I enjoyed this week a lot and hope you enjoyed it too.

Mariah

Week3- Reflection

Hello all,

This week is a little bit harder than before because of the different tasks we had to finish in such a short time as we have. Even though, I loved the experience I had this week more than the ones I had in the previous two weeks.

We started our week with great and delicious live by creating our delicious accounts. Wow! what a great link to have. I have never thought that I can keep my precious websites save and organised as I have them now in my delicious account. It's really declicious and you don't know how to stop adding your bookmarks! Wow!

The second lovely task I did was reading one of the articles, were published on WebSkills website,  about CALL for listening , speaking and pronunciation. Honestly, I couldn't  hold myself of  reading all the articles to get the experience of those who obtained the experience of others and summarizes in an interesting articles. In addition, To absorb the use of CALL in teaching we were asked have a look at the lesson attached to the article. I chose reading " New Perspectives in Teaching Pronunciation" written by Maria Grazia Buzá. I found it too helpful in presenting some of the useful tools and approaches in teaching Pronunciation. The link for Pronunciation Tips from the BBCl were too helpful in my classes (Remedial classes).

Finally, our teacher Donna gave us another gift of knowledge by presenting some of the Final projects were done by the teachers who enrolled this course last year. Frankly, I found it too interesting to examine and evaluate our plan for the final project based on the previous projects. I read the one about developing the writing skills and found it helpful for my final project.

Wish everyone got benefit and look forward for week 4 as I do,

Love ,

Mariah

My Reflection on Week 2

Dear all,
During this week Ifelt to happy to revise writing objectives  and searching the net for some of the useful websites for our project and to help our students improving their language and experiencing their words through the web.

Wish get more experience during the second half of the week,
MaRiAh