A couple of nice quotations

Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.

Scott Hayden

Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself.

Virginia Woolf: Monday or Tuesday

Friday, 10 May 2013

Week 6

This week's topics Teaching Large Classes and Interactive PowerPoints were interesting to study although I didn't find parts of the information very useful for me at the moment. That's because the groups I teach have 36 students at the most so I don't really give lectures in class that much. Through the readings I did find some useful links e.g.  Interactive Lecture Ideas (http://www.thiagi.com/interactive-lectures.html) that I will have to look into more closely and apply to my lessons next year.
Secondly, we don't have PowerPoint in our classroom computers but OpennOffice so I will have to spend some time examining the possibilities of OpenOffice Impress in creatinf some of the more advanced gimmicks that could be used in interactive presentations. Of course, things like blank slides and think-pair-share and concept test don't require any fine technology. The latter two are the methods I used in my presentation about the comparison of adjectives. While making it, I tested a couple of sites I just found namely bubble.us (https://bubbl.us/) which I used for making a mind map (one version of it below) and http://hcmc.uvic.ca/clipart/ where one can find free clipart for education. You just have to add credits.

I've given my students the assignment I planned to have in the project and actually, some of them have already handed it in. The project includes both reading online newspaper articles on specific topics and the summarising the contents and commenting on them. The students can either hand in a typed report or write their News Watch report as a blog. Gladly, a few have written a blog, which I told them they would get extra credit for.

It's Mother's Day on Sunday here in Finland so a nice weekend coming up, I hope. ; )







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3 comments:

  1. Unknown12 May 2013 at 19:39

    Hello Tuula,

    thanks for the websites bubbl and cliparts, they seem interesting to try.

    What I am curious about is what extra credit have you promised to your students when they create a blog. How are you going to assess those reports handed in in a paper form and those online. I am dealing with the same issue - to assess posts on my students' blogs.

    Monika

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  2. Unknown12 May 2013 at 21:51

    Hi Monika!

    At this point, when blogs are a new thing for me and probably for most of mys students (at least when it comes to handing in school assignments is the form of blogs)and as creating a blog is optional for them, I will basically assess all the reports according to the same criteria, which is correctness of language, the contents of the summary compared to the original article and the depth and originality of the comments they make. As their instructions tell them to read 4 - 6 articles, of course those who've read and worked on 6 articles instead of the minimum of 4 will get a better grade. The extra credit for the blog will be either a higher grade for this assignment or a rounding up of their final course grade (eg. if a grade average 7,2 would otherwise result in the grade 7, it would now be 8; our scale is 4 -10. I haven't quite decided yet, I have just promised them some form of extra credit ; )

    Probably, as I think I will use blogs later so that all the students will have to create a blog as part of a written assignment, I will pay some attention to the visual side and organisation of the blog in the criteria as well.But I think the students will have to get a bit more familiar with the medium first. And the same applies to me as well...

    Tuula

    Tuula

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  3. Unknown12 May 2013 at 23:26

    Hi Tuula,

    thanks a lot for the explanation. I feel I am losing "the power" if I am not sure how to assess their work. Firstly, I have to think about priorities - continuous work and work done on time. Then I would like to proceed to assessment of correctness. I will see.

    Thanks a lot indeed.

    Monika

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