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Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Problem-Based Learning (PBL)

In a traditional classroom, students are often told what they need to learn, are assigned homework for practice, and tested at the end of a unit of study. In a PBL classroom, students are challenged with a problem to solve, identify what is needed to learn in order to solve the problem, then engage in learning by applying content to unique learning products using 21st century skills, including digital citizenship. In short, PBL comes as a response to the appliance of learning/skills in real world situations and/or problems.





Students work with partners or in groups to solve problems in a PBL classroom. Through facilitation, the teacher supports thinking strategies, guiding and monitoring students toward mastery of learning goals. Students use technology to demonstrate knowledge by creating unique, self-directed products. 21st century skills are embedded into the learning outcomes and grading rubrics.







PBL in a nutshell:






Conditionals??? Easy and Practical


 

First, Second, & Third Conditional

Conditional Clause and Main Clause

If I have enough money,
conditional clause    
I will go to Japan.
    main clause
I will go to Japan,
main clause    
if I have enough money
    conditional clause

First, Second, and Third Conditional

1. First conditional:If I have enough money, I will go to Japan.
2. Second conditional:If I had enough money, I would go to Japan.
3. Third conditional:If I had had enough money, I would have gone to Japan.

Conditional clauseMain clause
1. If + Present Tense will + inf / present tense / imperative
  1. If you help me with the dishes (if + pres),
    I will help you with your homework. (will + inf)
  2. If the sum of the digits of a number is divisible by three,
    the number is divisible by three (Pres. tense)
  3. If you see Mr Fox tonight, tell him I am ill. (imperative).
2. If + Past Tense would + inf
3. If + Past Perfect Tense would have + past participle
We do not normally use will or would in the conditional clause,
only in the main clause.

Uses of the Conditional

  1. First conditional
    1. Nature: Open condition, what is said in the condition is possible.
    2. Time: This condition refers either to present or to future time.
      e.g. If he is late, we will have to go without him.
      If my mother knows about this, we are in serious trouble.

  2. Second conditional
    1. Nature: unreal (impossible) or improbable situations.
    2. Time: present; the TENSE is past, but we are talking about the present, now.
      e.g. If I knew her name, I would tell you.
      If I were you, I would tell my father.
      Compare: If I become president, I will change the social security system. (Said by a presidential candidate)
      If I became president, I would change the social security system. (Said by a schoolboy: improbable)
      If we win this match, we are qualified for the semifinals.
      If I won a million pounds, I would stop teaching. (improbable)

  3. Third conditional
    1. Nature: unreal
    2. Time: Past (so we are talking about a situation that was not so in the past.)
      e.g. If you had warned me, I would not have told your father about that party.(But you didn't, and I have).

Interactive Math

Adding and Subtracting 

This video helps children to learn how to add or subtract number less than 10.



Annie and Jose have fun with Addition and Subtraction in their new garden. Addition and subtraction are the most basic things of Mathematics. In this basic math video you will learn all the basics of addition and subtraction. Recommended for Grades: K.

Humor in the Language Classroom

The Serious Business of Boisterous Hilarity


Humor may just be one of the oft-neglected tools most needed in the classroom environment, as it helps stimulate the students' attention and focus toward the abstract topic concepts. How can a teacher expect dynamism without it coming from the primal stimulator of innovation? How can he expect palpability in the students' interaction and cooperation without the allure of his own intra action moving thus outer inter action? 

Professor Lance Askildson from the University of Arizona comments:
"the employment of humor within the context of second language pedagogy offers significant advantage to both the language teacher and learner. Indeed, humor serves as an effective means of reducing affective barriers to language acquisition. This effectiveness is particularly relevant to the communicative classroom, as humor has been shown to lower the affective filter and stimulate the prosocial behaviors that are so necessary for success within a communicative context. In addition to the employment of such general humor for the creation of a conducive learning environment, great value lies in the use of humor as a specific pedagogical tool to illustrate and teach both formal linguistic features as well as the cultural and pragmatic components of language so necessary for communicative competence."

Many ESL fields can be perfectly taught with the aid or employment of comedic assets. However, it does not even have to be for academic purposes, comedy can be used in plain conversations and ordinary class time--it is actually a perfect way to establish a fun, albeit respectful, bond with the students. Much of the theories involving a mixture of affective and cognitive approaches have to do, to a degree, with the lesson becoming appealing not only to the cognitive faculties, but also to the affections and emotional responses. 

The following are linguistic components availed by the use of humor:

1. Phonology
 An American in a British hospital asks the nurse: “Did I come here to die?” The nurse answers, “No, it was yesterdie.”

 2. Morphology
 John Kennedy’s famous blunder in Berlin: Ich bin ein Berliner (I am jelly doughnut), instead of Ich bin Berliner [I am a Berliner]

 3. Lexicon
 A: “Waiter, do you serve crabs here?” asks a customer.
 B: “We serve everybody. Just have a seat at this table, sir.”

 4. Syntax
 Student 1: The dean announced that he is going to stop drinking on campus.”
 Student 2: “No kidding! Next thing you know he’ll want us to stop drinking too.”

 5. Syntax + Lexicon 
     Q: How do you make a horse fast?
     A: Don’t give him anything for a while.
     (Deneire, 1995, pp. 290) 

Finally, just as cognitive development by itself cannot bring the whole 'learner' into activity, humor by itself as well will not be able to stretch the learner's mind to its uttermost, but it can produce bountiful benefits for the classroom environment and language learning.


Monday, May 4, 2015

Enhancing Vocabulary

Techniques for Vocabulary Improvement


“Prolonged thought about the words which we ordinarily use to think with can produce a momentary aphasia. I think it is to be welcomed. It is well we should become aware of what we are doing when we speak, of the ancient, fragile, and (well used) immensely potent instruments that words are.”
-CS Lewis 'Studies in Words'
While it is not, strictly speaking, highly critical to have a wide and extensive lexicon, it is very useful in order to undertake not only detachment or vanishment of  simply conceptual language content, but be able, as well, to give it a function of expressing or stimulating emotion, or both respectively.

We find that, by combining both the conceptual and emotional sides of language expression, we come to a two-way traffic dynamic in our words, where the flow is not static, motionless, and airless-- it is pulsating, where, even when they mesh to a blur of language and inarticulate vocal sounds, it is exactly what we ultimately desire in order to find its communicatively palpable substance. 

There are numerous activities that can be utilized, mainly outside the classroom, to enhance vocabulary. For instance, reading, conversations, word games, etc. Reading has been an efficient tool, as it not only involves learning foreign idioms and words, but- inasmuch as it pertains ESL students- foreign cultures, interesting characters (which stimulate the imagination so as to be able to learn language from a tangible perspective), and foreign affairs as a whole. 

Game examples include the following:

  • Crossword Puzzles
  • Anagrams
  • Word Jumble
  • Scrabble
  • Boggle

Ultimately, there are so many other vocabulary enhancing techniques and activities that can be used; for instance, index cards, voice recordings, etc. However, a ground level knowledge of its benefit shall suffice for this post. 

Formative vs. Summative Assessment

What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?

Formative assessment

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:
  • help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
  • help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately
Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:
  • draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic
  • submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture
  • turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:
  • a midterm exam
  • a final project
  • a paper
  • a senior recital
Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.



Why Formative Assessment Matters...

Summative assessments, or high stakes tests and projects, are what the eagle eye of our profession is fixated on right now, so teachers often find themselves in the tough position of racing, racing, racing through curriculum.
But what about informal or formative assessments? Are we putting enough effort into these?

What Are They?

Informal, or formative assessments are about checking for understanding in an effective way in order to guide instruction. They are used during instruction rather than at the end of a unit or course of study. And if we use them correctly, and often, yes, there is a chance instruction will slow when we discover we need to re-teach or review material the students wholly "did not get" -- and that's okay. Because sometimes we have to slow down in order to go quickly.
What this means is that if we are about getting to the end, we may lose our audience, the students. If you are not routinely checking for understanding then you are not in touch with your students' learning. Perhaps they are already far, far behind.
We are all guilty of this one -- the ultimate teacher copout: "Are there any questions, students?" Pause for three seconds. Silence. "No? Okay, let's move on."
Ever assign the big project, test, or report at the end of a unit and find yourself shocked with the results, and not in a good way? It happens more often than not. The reason for the crummy results is not the students, but a lack of formative assessments along the way and discovering when, where, and how certain information needed to be re-taught or reviewed.