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 clause	Main clause
1. If + Present Tense	will + inf / present tense / imperative
If you help me with the dishes (if + pres), I will help you with your homework. (will + inf) If the sum of the digits of a number is divisible by three, the number is divisible by three (Pres. tense) 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.

http://slat.arizona.eduncoh.slat.arizona.edu/sites/slat/files/page/awp12askildson.pdf

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.

Pair them up: Basic Cooperative Learning Strategies!

There's nothing worse than a distracted classroom; feels like both the teacher's and student's time goes to waste and nothing gets to remain in the learner's mind. Engaging students in pair or group work has proven to be one of the most effective ways to enhance the participation of all in the classroom (Even those who are most quiet!) 

The following is a sampling of basic cooperative learning strategies can apply to almost any lecture and it will sure hold your students' attention throughout most activities you carry through during class:

1) Think/Pair/Share

• Have attendees turn to someone near them to summarize what they're learning, to answer a question posed during the discussion, or to consider how and why and when they might apply a concept to their own situations. The objectives are to engage participants with the material on an individual level, in pairs, and finally as a large group. 
• The activity has been helpful to carry through with any of the following tasks: organization of background knowledge, question brainstorming or simplu summarize/apply/integrate any new information.
• Approximate time: six to eight minutes.
•  The procedure is as follows: 1) individuals reflect on (and perhaps jot notes down) for a couple minutes in response to a question; 2) participants pair up with someone sitting near them and share responses/thoughts verbally for two minutes; 3) the discussion leader randomly chooses a few pairs to give thirty-second summaries of ideas.

2) Question and Answer Pairs

• The main objective of this activity is to engage students in readings to later pair them up to answer particular questions.
•  This helps deepen the level of analysis of presentations/readings, and helps fuel students' interest in new concepts and how to properly explain them, as well as how to apply these new ideas to their own work setting. 
• Approximate time: five to ten minutes.
•  The procedure: 1) participants respond to a presentation (video, panel, readings) and compose one or two questions about it;; 2) the participants pair up; A asks a prepared question and B responds; then B asks a prepared question and A responds; 3) the leader may ask for a sampling of questions and answers in order to bridge to a full group discussion.

3) Shared Brainstorming

• Presenter administers sheets of paper to each small group of 3-5 people. On each sheet is a different question. Team members generate and jot down answers to the given question. The presenter then instructs each group to rotate to another sheet containing a different given question to answer. 
• Depending on the time available, this procedure is repeated, giving each group the opportunity to respond to as many questions as possible. 
• At the end of this activity, each group returns to their original question sheet, reviews the given responses, generates a summarization of ideas, and shares their conclusions etc. with the entire group.

4) Peer Survey

Each participant is given a grid that is to be filled in according to the needs of the group. Group members can be instructed to fill in the grids on their own or they can collect statements from peers and then share in small groups. Groups can then generate and share conclusions. Grid topics or categories can be designed as needed/preferred; here's a sample grid:

   

Example of Idea:
Useful Information:
Unresolved Question:

5) Background Knowledge Probe

BKPs questionnaires ask for basic, simple responses (short answers, circling, multiple choice questions) from students who are about to begin a course, a unit, or study of a new concept. Such probes are meant to help teachers determine effective starting points/appropriate levels of instruction for a given subject and/or class. Used to both open and close course activities, a BKP helps students focus attention on what will be important material.

Project Based Learning

The Good Hassle of Projects 

Projects may seem like a complete enervating nuisance at their very outset. However, projects spur within students the ability to think critically, research smartly, choose correctly, and invest their time wisely.
Projects provide students with the following competent assets:

• Problem solving

• critical thinking

• collaboration 

• Communication

• Creativity/Innovation 

Projects allow for the possibility of wide research and academic enquiry by positing open-ended questions that do not allow for a closed answer; close-ended questions usually come down to a 'yes' or 'no' answer whence you can simply circumvent annexing to them further critical and innovative thought. Consequently, autonomous learning and inquiry is nullified. In projects, everything is opened to the students innovation-- to the students creativity, where mere abstractions will not suffice, but only expatiating ideas.

Discovery Learning

Learning by Discovery

The idea behind discovery learning is that people understand and remember concepts better when they have discovered them on their own. Discovery learning includes activities such as experimentation, data interpretation, interviews, and dissection. See the following examples:

• Experimentation: Students may learn through experimentation how the position of the fulcrum affects the force necessary to raise a given object using a lever.
• Data interpretation: Examining family trees showing which members have a disease will allow students to determine whether the allele causing the disease is recessive, dominant, or sex-linked.
• Interviews: Students can learn about integration by interviewing people in their community who remember when the schools were segregated.
• Dissection: Dissecting small branches will show students that only the green cambium layer of a tree is living and active in water and nutrient transport.

Discovery learning can overlap with inquiry learning. However, inquiry should include students generating questions they want to answer, whereas discovery need only involve answering questions. Direct instruction is usually used with discovery learning to introduce knowledge necessary for a discovery or reinforce ideas uncovered through discovery.

To Reflect or not to Reflect?

Reflective Learning!

WHY?...HOW?

Why is it important for me to reflect on my learning?

Reflective learning enables you

• to accept responsibility for your own personal growth
• to see a clear link between the effort you put into your development activity and the benefits you get out of it
• to help see more value in each learning experience, by knowing why you're doing it and what's in it for you
• learn how to 'learn' and add new skills over time.

How do I reflect on my learning?

Reflecting on your learning enables you to link your professional development to practical outcomes and widens the definition of what counts as useful activity. Quite simply, you need to keep asking 'what did I get out of this?'

As a reflective learner, you’ll think about how you’ll use new knowledge and skills in your future activities – so learning is always linked to action, and theory to practice. It’s also useful to reflect on how you learn best. This may be through private study, networking with peers, formal courses, mentoring, or a combination of techniques.

Active vrs. Passive Learning

Teachers!....Let´s Learn too!

What Is Active Learning?

Defining "active learning" is a bit problematic. The term means different thing to different people, while for some the very concept is redundant since it is impossible to learn anything passively. Certainly this is true, but it doesn't get us very far toward understanding active learning and how it can be applied in college classrooms.

We might think of active learning as an approach to instruction in which students engage the material they study through reading, writing, talking, listening, and reflecting. Active learning stands in contrast to "standard" modes of instruction in which teachers do most of the talking and students are passive.

Categories of Active Learning Strategies

There are four broad categories of learning strategies that one might use in an active learning classroom:

• individual activities
• paired activities
• informal small groups
• cooperative student projects

Keys to Success

• Be creative! Invent new strategies and adapt existing ones to your needs.
• Start small and be brief.
• Develop a plan for an active learning activity, try it out, collect feedback, then modify and try it again.
• Start from the first day of class and stick with it. Students will come to expect active learning and perform better.
• Be explicit with students about why you are doing this and what you know about the learning process.
• Request students vary their seating arrangements to increase their chances to work with different people. Have students occasionally pair up with the student behind them, since friends often sit side by side.
• Use questions from in class activities on tests. For example, include a short essay question that was used in a think/pair/share.
• Negotiate a signal for students to stop talking.
• Randomly call on pairs to share.
• Find a colleague or two to plan with (and perhaps teach with) while you're implementing active learning activities.
• Continue learning through workshops, reading, and practice.

English Mode

Let´s do Something Fun...

said the COOLEST Teacher ever!

Learn how to get Students in "English mode"...

Why are warm-ups so important?

The warm up of a lesson often receives less attention than it should. Teachers spend a lot of time preparing explanations and worksheets to introduce and practice the target language, for example. They then enter the classroom unprepared for the first five or ten minutes. "Let's do something fun" usually constitutes all the planning that goes into this stage of the lesson. Planning then gets done on the way to the classroom, with the teacher pulling a game out of his bag of tricks.

Every teacher with more than one month's experience is guilty, including myself. But a well-planned, effective warm up offers more towards the lesson than just a bit of fun.

Because it's the first activity of the lesson, the warm up sets the tone for the next hour. An activity that students find too difficult, or even confusing, results in a class of disinterested zombies. Similarly, a writing-based activity won't get the students communicating. This then translates into a quiet class session in which you have to prod and push the students to volunteer examples or simple answers.

A fun warm up, on the other hand, raises energy levels. Fun activities also produce relaxed, less inhibited students. With the right warm up, you'll have created a positive atmosphere to practice and experiment with the language.

The lesson's warm up gets students into "English mode." If you teach EFL in China or Japan, the lesson may represent the only chance for students to use the language. In other words, they might not have spoken English since the last session, be that two days, one week, or one month ago. Even if your students encounter and use English every day, it still takes some time to prepare for the intensive ninety minutes of classroom time.

To fully get into "English mode," as I like to call it, a warm up should last about ten minutes. I'm assuming your lessons meet for ninety minutes, so a sixty minute session can shave a few minutes from this figure. Without enough time to get warmed up, though, students will continue to make mistakes during the early stages of the lesson - important time needed to present and drill the new material. Students may be slow to understand, too, again because those wheels aren't turning yet. As a final comment, if the warm up takes too long, say fifteen minutes, then valuable time gets lost from the main focus of the lesson. Students have less time to acquire the new material.

Why not give a try to apps for improve learning?

Technophiles

In the new age of technology and information everyone (specially the new generation) is involved in technology and some of the most popular entertainments are apps. We obviously must take advantage of this interest and incorporate the apps technology to our classrooms, and once again make our students to Enjoy Learning! 
These are some apps you will love 

1. Kids practice addition and multiplication by feeding the monster sushi. 
    Practice Math with Sushi Monster

2. HomeWork app to keep track of your homework and Timetable.
    Homework

3. Free books complete with voice-over, pictures and alternative languages.
    iStoryBooks

4. Numbers Flash cards will entertain and teach them as they learn the numbers, count and hear the words.
    0-10 Numbers

5. Numbers are spoken in kid-friendly English. The paid version enables the number ranges to be set, with numbers going up to 20.
     Kid Numbers

Welcome!

This blog has been designed for you to learn how to help your students become good learners.

Learning is a beautiful process, but it can only be achieved when we know ourselves and it is mandatory to understand how do we learn. There is always a type of intelligence that is outstanding in us, or that characterizes us, and we must learn how to take advantage of it.
Another important fact that shouldn't be omitted is motivation, and there are many ways in which we can motivate ourselves and motivate our students. Basically these are the two more important tools when we are going to start to learn something.