Week 10: What we have learned from the course

What we have learned from the course

First week:

We were introduced to know one another through the making the learning blogs to share, learn, and comments on each other’s posts. We could know how to create blogs for posting our ideas to show to the others. It is great tool for sharing, learning , and commenting.

Second week:

We learned the ABCD tool for setting the clear objectives for our lesson plan before teaching our students. It is a good tool to use in order to verify the lesson objectives and we also learned  the three kinds of objectives(cognitive, affective and psycho-motor) and Boom’s  Taxonomy . Moreover, we were introduced the ways of searching on the web engines more effectively.

Third week:

We learned the oral skill-building websites so that we could use some useful websites to help teach the oral skill, speaking skill, or pronunciation. Then we learned how to bookmark many useful websites to learn from next time though creating the Delicious account to save them, so next time we won’t forget those important sites for learning.

Fourth week

We learned from many helpful reading/ writing websites such as www.edmodo.com, which is a good site to make the template for teaching, and www.academia.edu which is what we can register to learn from many researchers and we can upload ours to share ,too. They both are good websites to learn from and I like the most. More than this, we learned the techniques and formats of writing lesson plans so that we can modify and update later by storing in google drive.

Fifth week

We started to devise our project plan for our final. It was very nervous during that time because I have never learned like this, and I did know what to do by my own self. But we could just draft what we want to do as a plan. Then we learned how to use the WebQuest tool to design the course template for teaching and learning, but it is not free for all applications in it. I really like that tool, but I could unfortunately not use it in full because it requires payment. However, we could design our own rubrics freely from the Rubistar tool. It is great to design our own assessment rubric.

Sixth week

We could learn some ideas suggested by  Alan C.McLean on the five points to be considered  in teaching  are reduction of coercion, active learner involvement, experience before interpretation, avoidance of oversimplification, the value of silence. They are great ideas to think of before planning a lesson to teach students. We could also design the interactive lesson plan through PowerPoints storing in the Google Drive which can make us easy to update later.

Seventh week

We could learn some ideas related to learning autonomy, using one computer in the classroom, and using mobile devices to help the teaching and learning process.  We learned how to boost the self-learning, how to assign students to work together by using only one computer, and the 20 ideas of Hayo Reinders  to consider in using the mobile devices to help students learn from more effectively. Moreover, we could know some free-ebook websites to help our teaching as well.

Eighth week

We learned some ideas from our guest Mr. Jeff Magoto  in using ANVILL to teach, and we drafted some ideas to design the project plan for our final.

Week nine

We learned the different learning styles suggested by Howard Gardner of Multiple Intelligences and we could know the learning strategies. Moreover, we finished our project plan by the deadline, but it was not good enough I think.

Week 10

I have already done what the course requires me to do and I have learned a lot from the course up to now even though I have not done it so well, but it was a great thing to learn.

Great thanks to US Embassy in Phnom Penh for supporting my study, million thanks to Courtney Cunningham my Instructor and all instructors, director and coordinators from University of Oregon.

Week 9: New things with old users

This week I learned a lot as following:
  1. Preparing a project plan for the course: It is really difficult to do and prepare it, but was inspiring to refresh our feelings.
  2. Learning styles of students: We can learn a great lesson to help our students. So we have to know their styles of learning, if we want teach effectively.
  3. Learning strategies: If they all want to get better result, they all should have strategies in learning.

To sum up for the week, I learned about preparing the final project plan, learning styles and strategies to help educate them to be more effective teachers.

Week 8: Learning Tools

This week I spent a lot of time to try new things in our areas in terms of  online-learning tools.

I have created wikispaces for preparing to teach my students. Moreover, I have designed Nicenet as well because the poor and vulnerable children. Nicenet is a greet to use because it is free for all.

But I really like the WeQuest beasc, it has good style.

Week 7 :This week I have learned three things

This week I have learned three things

Learner autonomy: Learning autonomy is not easy to make it happen for the students unless they have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in doing it. I have learned many useful websites from it. They are http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/elp/ is about the portfolio which is used for free, http://livemocha.com/ which is port, and many others.

The one-computer classroom: If we have only one computer to teach our students, we need to know how to manage it first. Then we need to plan and organize our tasks for both our students and ourselves. Next we need to take measure for what we have planned. And finally we need to check or evaluate our action.

Mobile devices are playing the important roles in helping students learn a second language, but teacher or students themselves should know what kinds of mobile phones to use in learning and what applications are suitable for helping their learning. We learned that Hayo Reinders suggests 20 ideas for using mobiles phones to learn a second language. Those ideas are as following:

            Idea 1: Use the Notes feature to collect everyday language

            Idea 2: Use the Camera feature to take pictures of text

            Idea 3: Use free programs to organize language samples

            Idea 4: Use the Voice Memo Recorder feature to record language from media outlets

            Idea 5: Use the Voice Memo Recorder feature to record conversation outside the classroom.

            Idea 6: Use the Text Messaging feature to reinforce vocabulary learning

            Idea 7: Use the free programs to make flashcards for mobile phones

            Idea 8: Use the Text Messaging feature for circular writing

            Idea 9: Use the Text Messaging feature for tandem learning

            Idea 10: Use the mobile phone to keep a blog

            Idea 11: Use the mobile phone for microblogging on Twitter

            Idea 12: Use the mobile phone for social networking

            Idea 13: Use the mobile phone for a language exchange

            Idea 14: Use the mobile phone for “phlogging”

            Idea 15: Use mobile phone memory to distribute listening material

            Idea 16: Use mobile phone to distribute reading material

            Idea 17: Use the mobile phone to play games

            Idea 18: Use the Voice Memo Recorder, Notes, and Calendar features to keep a portfolio

            Idea 19: Use the mobile phone to check student comprehension and get feedback

            Idea 20: Use mobile phone memory for research and data collection

I really like the website : www.gutenberg.org because it offers 47,338 free ebooks to download for teaching my students. By the way http://www.polleverywhere.com/ is very helpful for teachers to pose their survey questions to students.

Week 6: Student-centered large classes and interactive PowerPoint

I have learned many new points related to techniques of teaching large classes and how to make the interactive PowerPoint to teach students. Furthermore, I did many tasks as well to make improvement in my learning.

Techniques of instructing large classes are important for teachers to know clearly in order to teach students well as the five points(reduction of coercion, active learner involvement, experience before interpretation, avoidance of oversimplification, the value of silence) suggested by Alan C.McLean. So teachers need to scrutinize those points carefully before starting teaching. However, I have ever learned some techniques by Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw. I could also understand the importance of collaboration, small group learning activities through the tactics: Think, Pair, Share.

For technology, I have learned how to  set up the presentation slides on the web.

I hope these points are important for my plan because I am considering of using the WebQuest, Edmodo, or Moodle for sovling my problems.

Week 5: Project-based learning, WebQuests, and rubrics

We are in hope of getting familiar to new sources of ideas and tools to use for helping us to teach more effectively because this week have learned 3 more things:

1. - Project-based learning (PBL), "students work in groups to solve challenging problems that are authentic, curriculum-based and often interdisciplinary" (Sheppard and Stoller, 1995). This lesson can make us know the ten steps of PBL by Sheppard and Stoller(1995). 

• Step 1: Students and instructor agree on the theme for the project.
• Step 2: Students and instructor determine the final outcome of the project.
• Step 3: Students and instructor structure the project.
• Step 4: Instructor prepares students for the demands of information gathering.
• Step 5: Students gather information.
• Step 6: Instructor prepares students to compile and analyze data.
• Step 7: Students compile and analyze information
• Step 8: Instructor prepares students for the language demands of the final activity.
• Step 9: Students present the final product.
• Step 10: Students evaluate the project.

      We could know the seven traits of every good project needs by  John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller ,2010,http://www.ascd.org/cache/publications/educational_leadership/sept10/vol68/num01/Seven_Essentials_for_Project-Based_Learning.aspx. We have  also learned Purposeful Language Assessment about types of assessments, testing formats, and testing procedures from John M.Norris, 2000,http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/50_3_10_norris.pdf. Moreover, we have learnt about the Twenty Common Testing Mistakes for EFL Teachers to Avoid by Grant Henning, 1982, http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/50_3_8_henning.pdf.

  2. WebQuests, we have learnt that making a WebQuet is really helpful for teacher and students to help their teaching and learning go smoothly. We can make a WebQuest by  Zunal.com or we can go to http://www.webquest.org/ to learn more about making it.
 
3. Rubrics, we have learnt how to design our own rubrics for our own class through website: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php. Here we don't need to spend much time on it to design any kinds of rubrics we want.

Week 4: New things learned this week

This week I have learned many new things such as the reading and writing websites and technology enhanced lesson plan. 

I can know more resources to teach my students and my staffs. Those are http://www.rong-chang.com/tutor.htm which is helpful for students to learn and improve their writing by themselves, http://www.edutopia.org/ which is useful for teaching reading and writing from kindergarten up to K12, https://www.academia.edu/ is what we can register to learn from many researchers and we can upload ours to share,too,  https://www.edmodo.com/ is wher we can make as our own classroom template for teaching and learning. I like www.edmodo.com the most because it can help me to create my own classroom template for teaching my students. I will use it for my teaching.

Moreover, I can also learn a new idea related to writing lesson plan based on technology. It is great thing that we can do to make an ease for teaching career. We can even learn techniques and format of writing lesson plan using technology.

I found that this week lessons can make our teaching career go smoothly.