Project Fundatur Cognita

Not to sound cliché or anything, but PBL is the best of the techniques I know of yet. The coolest. The most practical and engaging and useful and entertaining. You can have your normal, traditional, boring class every day, add aside a fun project for your students they can learn interesting facts from by working on, and you automatically can get them committed to the subject. I mean, it’s not this easy of course, and there is no fixed formula, but that’s how useful these projects are. And don’t get me wrong here, because not any kind of project you know of works. If we go back during our education years, we’ve done them a lot. Head online, check a couple of links, copy some information, shuffle the paragraphs and voilà! A+.

PBL is much more than that, and by reading your good posts, I know you already know.

But I’d like to offer some retrospective for y’all, during the last year of my high school, on the subject of literature, where we were asked to do a project, more of a research work, about all the teachers of literature that worked on my high school since the beginning of times. We had to find life facts about them, the exact work years, and other details of their work we could find useful. We were divided into groups and had a whole semester to complete the project, to later present it as a whole class in a conference, that would come to the help of a book about the history of the school that was later o be published. During that experience I remember being so anxious, because there was nothing online, no books about it, and no instructions given by the teacher. All of the work had to be done by asking the elders, other teachers and getting information at the office of archives. And it was a massive work of us (read: me) having to do countless visits at that office and at the library, reading vast volumes of old registers, where some of the print would be unintelligible. Anyway long story short – even though it didn’t impact my learning in the subject, it certainly affected my problem solving skills, time efficiency, it helped me write a proper article, challenged my thinking, and improved me in a lot of other competences. Reflecting upon it, the project even helped me unearth things I didn’t know I enjoyed doing. It made everyone at the end of the project, feel like they contributed to something bigger, and what’s most important, appreciate what is authentic. Do you feel any kind of accomplishment when you send in a copy-pasted project? Because I don’t.

That said, us, the teachers, have the possibility to cultivate this sort of learning to our students. The example I gave may not be the best example, because it had a lot of drawbacks I’m not going to focus on, but imagine getting your students to work on a project that really interest them and they’re passionate about. It can work wonders with their learning abilities. It’s all about giving them a purpose and get them to think outside the box and beyond borders. It is how deep learning happens, utilizing the academic content in new context, in the real world, applicable especially in the subject English, where the project can be about ANYTHING in the world, except that in the English language xp. If there is anything more student-centered than this, I don’t know what is.

And it can be complex, yes, but it is in your hands not to make it stressful for your students, so be kind, because at the end of the day it’s just a project and they can lean in a million thousand other ways, so it’s best to be realistic and understanding that not everyone is cut for it.

Thassit! Thank you for reading, really. ♥

Flipped Classroom - Post no. 4

I feel like there is a miscorrelation between the flipped classroom and what we did last time in class, but at the moment I am not going to explain that.

I think it is VERY important for every student to experience the type of classroom environment we had, so that they are aware of the NECESSITY of an in-person teacher in class. There is a lot of wasted time, time usually filled with the air of confusion; "did I do the task well?", "what am I to do next?", "am I doing the right thing?", "am I running out of time?" and A LOT of other questions I cannot recall at the moment. The struggle is real. For it to work, the instructions should be given in great detail at the beginning and during the class, because the distance in space and time makes it difficult for the student to relay on their own understanding. There will always a bit of uncertainty and hesitation as long as the teacher is not there to confirm whether they're doing right or wrong. There is little or no correction at all, even though it depends in what you’re teaching. You will want to be there to explain. Let alone when there are internet issues or lack of technological tools. Not everyone owns a laptop or a good smartphone. Let’s not make our students feel less if we are not totally sure they’ve got it all set, or if we don’t offer the right gadgets for them. PLUS, there are huuuge distractions, especially if the students are young or not motivated to learn that way. Even though, if I were to describe describe a flipped classroom environment, all of the above would be reduced because the teacher would be there to help on all of the things mentioned. The only thing that would change would be the delivery of information, that would be while they're home, prior the beginning of class. I MEAN, there is a reason why a teacher is a teacher: to teach by instructing and explaining. If the students wanted to watch videos they would do it on their own, by themselves, or have the teacher suggest the videos or other materials as additional information or food for thought; not to serve as the lesson itself. I would be the laziest teacher if I were to do that on daily basis, UNLESS I made the videos myself and I was in them. I would love that in fact. If you missed the class, it is a great way to make sure you don't miss the lesson, or me. ☺

Yet, I would like to acknowledge that it does have a few other advantages like the fact that it is self-paced and as a student, if you’re not prepared you don’t have to be feel terrified because of the lack of knowledge in class like it would happen with a traditional class (even if the teacher itself is not terrifying, there are other reasons, like student sensibility etc.), and I do believe it promotes student-centered learning. I did pause and rewind the video we were asked to watch as much as I needed to, and others did too.

Anyway I am quite sceptic about what you can really acquire in a flipped classroom that at the end of the day, you cannot acquire in a normal classroom, because WOW, in a few years, the internet will no longer be cool.

P.S. no song of the day for today just because.

Constructivism

While teaching, I guess I might have been using constructivism, without realizing it. Because when trying to solve an exercise, and not succeeding on it, instead of telling my students the right answer, I always had the tendency to pull the answer from them, by mentioning synonyms, other forms of the verb, directing the way the said thing must come up from, depending on the situation. I always found this the right method to use, because this way they would feel like they are accomplishing  it themselves, working for it and getting rewarded with a ‘Bravo’ from me.

Using constructivism in teaching, in this case - helping solve problems, helps the students memorize the form, structure, etc. of the exercise better for later use, and it will be way easier to recall the same information in another situation. And I used to do the same things while teaching the lesson itself. Continuously reminding students of past situations, to help build up and store the new pieces of information. Obviously in a lower scale, because I was not aware of the benefits of it or either the existence of constructivism as a concept. It was just my way of learning, and I wanted to reflect the same thing while teaching.

From past classes of other subjects, I remember missing the class or not paying attention to some information, and immediately feeling lost trying to catch up with everybody. As a rational person, this is where I figured that if you have information gaps, the new knowledge given has a difficult time trying to stay in your brain, and it just won’t make sense until you connect it with somethings else. In my mind I always imagined it this way: the knowledge in your brain is like a chain, where every information is a ring that has this great importance to keep everything tied strong together. This is why I found it crucial to ask for the missing piece of the puzzle. It’s not that I would ever ask the teacher for explanations, I was to too shy for that, but that’s not the point.

To conclude, I simply must state how important it is for us as future professionals, to make sure that our students have a complete comprehension of what we are trying to convey. Because at the moment, you may think they understand, THEY may think they understand, but is our job to analyze whether the information we are giving has strong foundations to stay and grow in.

Song of the day: Alt-J (∆) - Taro 

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES - Reflection no.1

The multiple intelligence theory was known to me, because over the course of time I have constantly been trying to figure out why some students thrive more than others in certain subjects while they don’t have very good skills on other fields, and the other way round. And I wanted to know the same for myself, why was I good at solving complex mathematical or logical situations, but I was the worst at playing ANY sports at school, or having difficulties getting around in a new town. While I still don’t know whether I was born this way, or my bringing up contributed on this, I believe in what Gardner claimed about multiple intelligences. That “they can be nurtured and strengthened, or ignored and weakened.”

If I think about it, I never played sports as a child. I was on my own making up stories about my dolls and their adventures and their boyfriends. This explains why I am better at mind stuff and worse at physical activities. The same works for everybody. Maybe the majority of us were born with some basic intelligence, and then it is the childhood or the formative years that shape our intelligence. Later during our whole adult life, we have the choice to further cultivate what we lack or not. For example, I am aware I lack a lot of Interpersonal Intelligence, because I spent most of my years dwelling on and trying to figure out myself, that resulted in good Intrapersonal Intelligence. As for the first one, I am eventually improving, step by step, interaction after interaction, sometimes failing and learning, but always embracing my strengths, because all kinds of intelligences are important and useful in the society.

And this is what leads me to think about the importance of proper teaching methods, to enhance the intelligences students need to cultivate at some point, and enhancing other kinds at others times. Because the education of our generation failed us. We never did music or learned instruments, we never went out on nature as a class to explore and watch dad frogs guard the eggs, we never even studied philosophy or were invited to think about certain values or purposes that we should have in life. And man, this is stuff you should learn at school, because some of us will never have the opportunity to go back to it, because it is crucial to get positive influence from our early years at school, and because all of that information that enhances intelligence and understanding, generates love for things around. Because as long as they have not been exposed to some this kind of information or exercises, they will never give importance to things that matter and will even fail as citizen of the world. This may even be why we are doomed as a society.

Dear colleagues, through teaching English you have so much power in your hands, to give your students’ knowledge about themes much more important than language ITSELF. Grasp and exploit this opportunity that you will be given, by opening different discussions and debates useful for your students’ intellect. Make language a tool, not an objective. Don’t forget that you have a major influence in shaping them as citizens of tomorrow, even though the results may not be very visible at first; and you can only shape them by using the principle of equity – giving everyone what they need so that they improve at their own rates. As much as you may love grammar, don’t expect everyone to ace it, instead, assist them find their hidden talent/intelligence.

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As for multimedia in teaching, I think it is cool and helpful sometime, but try your best to make the class interesting without the use of it. Your future students will have enough technology in their lives already.

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P.S Kudos to all your good posts! I wanted to share some personal reflection instead of rearranging the lecture. I hope I was not too gloomy, but it is KIND OF raining A LOT at the moment.

P.P.S SONG OF THE DAY: PINK FLOYD - ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U