#10 My PLE

Hello everyone! This subject is coming to its end and this is going to be my last entry before the conclusions. 

I want to talk about my PLE. We had the oral presentation last Friday and while I was watching the ones of my classmates I thought: Ohhh I should've include that or I like that page too, why I didn't post it? But at the end, your PLE is always changing, I will be including new pages and I am sure that in few months my Bymballo would be bigger that what it is now.

In the following image I would love to share with you my Symbaloo page, I've drawn circles in order to separate the sections it has. 

As you see easily in this picture, the colors help to understand better how I did organize it. I check all those pages at least once per week and some of them everyday and more than twice in a day.

I hope you like my webmix, if you want me to share it with you, don't hesitate in sending my an email or a message so I will do it as soon as I'm able to. 

Thanks!

Adri

#9 What about Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)?

Von Humbold said one century before I was born “You cannot teach a language, only create the condition under which it might be learning”. Therefore, as a teacher I ask myself which tools do I know to create this condition?

 

We studied more than once what CLIL means; we also said it must be done correctly in order to make it useful and effective. But I can't keep asking myself HOW am I going to do it?

After reading Do Coyle's article I could organize my knowledge about this topic a little bit better. But I thought I had to do more research in order to create a meaningful concept about it.

Our main goal as teachers is to developed our students skills so they will be ready for their future in this changing century we are. This world is in need of creativity, problem solving and innovation to face the challenges in the global economy. Some young people are creating new platforms and schools to help other young people to develop their creativity. This is the case of The college of everything, I met the creators in Madrid some months ago and their task is being so effective I am trying to organize something for teachers with them so, we will work on this in the classroom.

But going back to the CLIL topic, I think what makes CLIL so useful is that it involves memory, speed, attention, problem solving and flexibility. Working in teams or groups, the students develop social skills as well as they build their own knowledge. 

What has to do the teacher? The teacher makes the correct questions that make the student to feel like learning. The activities must connect with the real world and the relationship between teacher and students should be equal. 

Using different tasks make the learning look like scaffolding, a way of learning in which the student is the center and it goes through all the steps, building his/her learning. Using English or any non-native language in a subject lesson gives meaning to the foreign language.

In words of Chris Lehmann, CLIL turns information into meaning and meaning into wisdom. 

Check this video out

#8 School-Home Relationship

We’ve been talking in class about the relationship between the school and the family. I think as teachers we should work in this relationship as much as possible because running with the same purpose than the families should be a priority. All we know that is there are discordances between what we do in the school and what the parents say at home (and vice versa) our students won’t achieve the same goals as if we were following the same objectives.

I tried to simplify my entry about this topic answering these questions.

• What? Constant information is given from the school to the families and feedback. The students explain what they have done, what are they working on…
• Who? The School (teachers, students, head of department, head teacher…) to the families and also the family informs to the school about news and relevant important.
• How? Sending letters (like the one we did in class), a class blog, inviting the parents to daily activities, sharing experiences, etc.
• When? ALWAYS or at least one time per week. Parents love to know what their children are doing in the school.
• Where? Physical meetings, letters, magazines, pictures or online contact.
• What for? In order to keep a good environment between both spaces and also to make the students feel confident and loved.

{Pictures from SweetFineDay}

#7 Classroom management

Today in the day of my 23rd birthday I decided to keep working in all my projects and do my uni homework. Some people would say I should be doing nothing, but there are some things you cannot stop doing because it is a special day. 

{Christmas is almost here, enjoy the best of the seasons}

Here I want to write about the article ‘Rethinking Classroom Management’. I found it very useful because it connects with the reality of our schools. It is not an article about a school in Finland, England or the States.

As many articles we have been reading the main characteristic of a good classroom management would be to make the student the center of the learning, so they are the responsible of it. The teacher provides the conditions needed for learning to take place. As we always say the teacher as a guide and not the one who recites concepts.

Here I write some of the most important things I underline and rewrite in my notebook.

• Behavioral issues should be addressed through teaching and learning considerations based on the idea of behavior for learning rather than behavior management.
• Managing teaching and learning is not a task for an isolated teacher (shared responsibility)
• Not only a good student’s behavior, but a successful teaching experience.
• 3 interrelated ideas (organizational, curriculum and social)
• Organizational: setting rules or dealing with discipline
• Coherent decisions
• Broader level (department, cycle, school)
• Rights and duties: rules should be the result of a process of negotiation and the role of the teacher in the process should be clear. (INVESTING TIME)
• Respectful ways to solve conflicts.
• “The best tool for a good management is not the reaction to conducts but proaction” (proaction= creating or controlling a situation rather than just responding to it)
• Differentiation to respond to groups and individuals.
• Use the cooperative learning as a teaching strategy (individual accountability, equal opportunities, group goals)
• Students must be taught how to participate in a group situation.
• From instructors to facilitators
• OPTIMISTIC FRAME!!

 

Here you have this video about Classroom management. Check it out!

#6 Questions and Wonders

Hello everyone!

The other day in class we're talking about which questions can we do to our students about the lessons. I also connected this with the questions we should ask ourselves as teachers. It is very important to get to know our students,  their objectives and asking ourselves how are we going to do this is the only way to achieve the goals we'all have.  But it's not a question we can ask ourselves once and that's it... no! We should ask ourselves every day, after every single lesson or session with our students. 

- Are we doing it the best we can?

- What else can I do as a teacher/guider to help them?

- Am I understanding their needs?

- Is this the correct path to follow?

These are some of the questions I thought about this topic. 

Because we chose this marvelous profession we should give everything inside of us to be the best teacher we can. We all had a grumpy teacher who looked 'burned' of his/her job. Do not let yourself to get tired of this profession, love it every day, with its best and its worst moments. 

{A beautiful quote I thought you'd like + great picture from The Daybook}