- Teacher roles (Score: 8)
The teacher crafted out a structure which allowed the students to undertake roles as “Secret Agents” before lesson to search for resources which were needed in the lesson. This enabled the students to take ownership in solving the problems given and providing possible solutions to them. The teacher acted as a “shepherd” and a facilitator. As a “shepherd”, she repeated her instruction and gave the students a “push” so that they will get on with what is needed to be done, when they were all doing different activities instead of posting questions on the online Discussion Forum. As a facilitator, she realised the students had trouble in asking relevant questions, thus she intervened and showed how things should be done. This enabled the students to be focused and know what were the things needed to be done at that particular time. Even though all in all the students had a good impression of the lesson, the teacher realised she might not have given the students enough time to cope with the numerous tasks that were needed to be completed. The students also might not know the proper way how to do note-taking and categorising the points. Therefore the quality of work was compromised as a result and the objectives of using the decision-making template and mindmaps were not met. It was good that the teacher realised and did amendments by modelling the various steps to doing a mindmap and gave sufficient time for the students to organise their decision-making templates. Lastly, the teacher set up an online poll to monitor the students’ understanding of the lesson. - Student roles (Score:9)
The students were responsible to come out with possible solutions to the given problems by the teacher. This enabled them to construct their own understanding and take up this ownership of learning. They were then asked to present their data and ideas to the rest of the class. This provided a platform for social interaction. More social interaction can be seen during the next lesson as the teacher allowed the students to act as both presenters and facilitators to engage the class in helping to clarify doubts. - Curriculum character (Score: 7)
The teacher set an environment for student-centred learning like letting the students tasked as Secret Agents to source for information, make decision, do mindmaps, allow social interaction such as online discussion forum, etc. All these not only engaged the students in a different and more interesting way and with the more improved way of facilitation by the teacher during the next lesson, had brought the students to a higher level in term of building their critical thinking, team cooperation and interpersonal skills. - Learning goals (Score: 8)
The ability to do up a presentation had shown the capability to work with others. The students were given the opportunity to voice out their doubts and ideas be it face-to-face or through the discussion forum provided the students with a general framework of thoughts. With the teacher’s guidance in some areas helped to enhance the learning experience and gear it towards the objective of the lesson on a whole. - Types of activities (Score: 8)
Students were allowed to work in a group and a pair for presentation and note-taking respectively which allowed peer teaching and cooperative learning. Skills such as looking for information on the internet, doing presentation using the Powerpoint, using mind mapping and other tools helped to build the students for the further working world. Online discussion and polls were set up to encourage self-learning, critical thinking and also enable the teacher to monitor the students’ understanding of the lesson. - Assessment strategies (Score: 7)
The group presentation, online discussion, online poll, mindmaps, face-to-face discussion at one occasion, and the decision-making templates all helped to monitor the students’ understanding. These can be more efficient as they provided opportunities for different learner to present their understandings of the lesson.
- Use of ICT (Score: 9)
- Digital mind mapping tool known as Inspiration help them to construct and organise their thoughts into a mindmap format.
- The Internet was used to search for information of the topic
- Microsoft Powerpoint was used to consolidate all the data found and present them in a more systematic manner.
- Online discussion forum and poll were set up to provide a channel for communication and interaction to share information, clear doubts and for the teacher to monitor students’ understanding.
Overall, I felt that this lesson was student-centred to a large extent as we could see that the students were the “stars” in learning and understand with occasional facilitation from the teacher to help better grasp of certain ideas.
Reference:
Chapters 1-5 of "Connecting Student Learning & Technology"
4 comments:
Hi Jasline; a very personalized blog with concrete views that couldn’t have been any better!
Nevertheless, you did agree that “Skills such as looking for information on the internet, doing presentation using the Powerpoint, using mind mapping and other tools helped to build the students for the further working world. Online discussion and polls were set up to encourage self-learning, critical thinking and also enable the teacher to monitor the students’ understanding of the lesson.”
Do you think the students were really listening and understanding to their classmates presenting the topic or were they more keen on putting words to screen using Inspiration?
On top of that, what counter measures should the teacher take if say, the online discussions were heading nowhere and going in roundabouts? Meaning the students were asking questions that actually have been covered during the presentations, or the questions asked couldn’t be answered by anyone. Should the teacher come in and do a thorough explanation? Will this then defeat the purpose of the planned student centred environment?
Hi Jasline,
you have mentioned about the learning goal, the ability to do up a presentation had shown the capability to work with others. The students were given the opportunity to voice out their doubts and ideas be it face-to-face or through the discussion forum.
Do you feel that every student in the class really obtain the objective or the learning goal from the presentation?
Do you think that students who were not presenting will do their research before hand to find out more?
Do you think the students sitting down really know what their classmates were teaching or producing what they have found to the class?
What can a teacher do in order to make sure that the learning goal has achieve?
Hi Felicia,
In this case I defined my learning goal as the ability to work with others and this could be reflected in the presentation. But of course some would have a more pleasant or enjoyable time compared to others or some might contribute more and learnt more stuff compared to others. Be it more or less, it's still part of a learning process in terms of working with other people. And for the "face-to-face" discussion, I was referring to those students who took their discussion offline and "confronted" their classmates. Of course only students who were involved would benefit as such actions showed their thinking and analysing of the problems, this will also enhance their perceptions of certain issues and find suitable solutions to them. As for the online discussion forum, this would seriously need the monitoring of the teacher to ensure the whole forum is geared toward the learning goal she wanted to obtain. Of course this might only benefit some and not all I am sure. In life there is no "one size fits all" so I can't guarantee “every student in the class really obtains the objective or the learning goal from the presentation” but I can be sure that most will.
For your second question, it says in the video that “Daphne’s pupils had been tasked, as Secret Agents, to surf the Internet for information about various environmental problems and possible solutions.” Thus I believed each student had their own project to be done, meaning other environmental problems and Desertification was not the only one being covered. Would the students go find out more about those topics that do not concern them? I don’t think so as they would be too focus to do up their own. But I believe these students should have some prior knowledge to these topics.
For your third question, I do believe those who were busy doing up the mind map might have some difficulty in multitasking (understanding and drawing the mindmaps) especially if they were really bad at it. Thus they might need some time after doing up the mind map to read it again. But the partner who was conveying the message to the one doing the mind map should have a clearer picture for he himself should understand before the message could be pass on. If ultimately they still don’t understand, the discussion forum would be there to clarify doubts.
For your fourth question, as I had mentioned slightly in the first part of my comment, the most important thing the teacher had to do was to observe and listen. For the “offline discussion”, she allowed it to go on because she knows it was moving towards understanding and showing that the students were thinking. As for the online discussion, at a point of time the teacher spotted that the discussion was gearing nowhere thus she intervened and geared the discussion back on track and the students could also learnt to think and express in the way that the teacher wanted. For my last learning goal which was ability to work with others, this goal was subconsciously learnt as the students interact and work more with one another.
I hope these answered your questions.
I do believe most of the students understood their classmates who were presenting. But for the listening part, only the partner who is conveying the key points was listening. To the one typing, he/she will have to understand it through the mind map done up.
The counter measure would be the teacher's observation of the forum. She will have to play an active role in ensure all discussions are geared towards her objectives of the lesson. If all else fail, she could start the ball rolling by putting up some provoking questions so that the students could model from it.
I feel that in this kind of learning, it is essential for the teacher to conclude, especially for some who have difficulty in gathering information and put it in a big picture.
I feel that a lesson should have a good mix of both teacher and student centered environment. This not only enhanced the lesson and make it more wholesome, it could extract the good points of both environment and put them into practice.
I hope these answered your question.
JaS
Post a Comment