Target Action - Developing a Webquest

Sometimes details don’t allow to see a whole picture. I am very glad that in the readings I came across “Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever” by Chickering and Ehrmann (http://polaris.umuc.edu/~cschwebe/gsmt800/7principles.htm). This reading reminded about thoughtful use of technology based on educational principles of good teaching practices, and not for the sake of technology itself.

I have thought of making a Webquest, because it’s a kind of tool I haven’t used so far. Sо, this week I have gone through some background reading at Webquest.org (http://www.webquest.org/search/index.php) and sample webquests at Zunal (http://www.zunal.com/index-matrix.php?Curriculum=109&Grade=104). I also thought about the resources for my Webquest and the tasks to go with them. A lot of science and technology-related resources may be found at http://sciencestage.com/resources, http://www.esa.int or http://nasa.ibiblio.org.

Then I feel necessary to integrate some communication tools like a discussion forum and a reflective blog. The platforms may be the ones we have been using in our course. However, there are also some concerns about using Blogger and other Google tools, because I personally experience problems with access to Blogger and Picasa. I hope these problems are temporary, but they need to be taken into consideration when deciding on the choice of tools. I looked through our university educational portal at https://www.do.ektu.kz and found that there is an opportunity to have a forum discussion, and this is accessed from university locations free of charge. It allows attaching files as well. So, this may be an option for class discussion.

Well, this is where I start. I expect spending the following week formulating the task and refining resources for the webquest. There are no classes so far, so this is going to be one of the first technology enhanced tasks for my students in their second year of ESP, and the first in their Translation course in September.

PBL and Webquests

This week I focused on a Webquest more, as this is a tool I haven’t used before, so I read the interview of Bernie Dodge, the author of the technique, and went through some Webuest samples at http://www.zunal.com/ For example, I investigated the “Integration of The Technology Into Life” webquest, and found that it involved a lot of preparation: brainstorming charts, process description, evaluation and teacher pages. I understand that once this tool has been introduced to my teaching it will be easier to develop other webquests and engage students in creating some of their own.

The fact that there is no Internet access in my computer lab does not pose any problem, as websites may be saved for off-line use and still provide motivating content and original layout. I’m just a little bit frustrated about the amount of time it may take to produce creative tasks in order to make students do something close to the real world situations. So, I will try to implement this technique to see how it will work in my situation, with my resources, and my students.

Projects of any kind are very appealing to me. Before I even knew that it was a project, I organized my first one. In October 1999 I wanted to celebrate discovering of America with my students. It didn’t have to be Columbus Day, but something to give them a bite of what America is. We realized that the discovery of America brought extermination to the native Americans. So, my students suggested putting Columbus to trial. They used the web to look for facts for and against Columbus and his discovery. Then they distributed parts, and we had the jury as well. So, nobody actually knew whether the court decision would be “Guilty” or “Not guilty”. And even though Columbus was found guilty by the jury, the court decision was to question the justification of pronouncing Columbus Day a National holiday.

Nowadays I would use rubrics to assess the students’ involvement, performance, oral skills, etc., everything involved in the project. Then my assessment was more subjective and not transparent. So, the students didn’t know the requirements for assessment before performance and were not able to improve it. However, the whole experience was very exciting for them, and they actively took part in other innovative activities.

Using Rubrics

I have already used rubrics for assessment of two things in my classroom: speaking and multimedia presentations. So far a lot of traditional assessment takes place at our university. Multiple choice tests, which are sometimes not well elaborated, are widely used for testing most of the subjects including English. Many test development requirements are not met. Testing is curriculum driven. That is, the curriculum is determined first, and assessment aims at establishing if acquisition of the curriculum occurred. I find it only possible to be used for testing grammar knowledge. When it comes to speaking/writing as productive skills, it becomes clear that traditional assessment lacks objectivity, and teachers rely more on their attitude and emotions, students’ previous performance.  

A rubric presents an objective and transparent tool for assessing student performance. It is a scoring scale with a specific set of criteria. The criteria are assessed according to a level of performance.  It is helpful to communicate the criteria to students before giving them a task, so that they would know what is expected of them. A teacher assesses the level of student performance and can define areas that need improvement. Rubrics can be used by students (for self-assessment), peers (for peer assessment), and teachers.

Week 2 (copied from Livejournal)

Describing a target group in general was not difficult. However, when I tried to apply the ABCD framework to make the description more objective, it was not so easy. The traditional post-soviet education system is known for extremely broad and unfeasible goals and very fuzzy objectives. We had to move to objectives which would be feasible, measurable, realistic and tangible.

In teacher training workshops we helped teachers to formulate specific objectives. However, even experienced teachers have difficulty in writing objectives that meet the above mentioned requirements. The main idea for writing a good objective is thinking ahead for the ways it may be accomplished and measured. There should be a way to measure students’ performance through something you can see, hear or read. When writing objectives we should avoid verbs like ‘understand’, ‘think’, ‘memorize’, and ‘remember’ – they do not provide a possibility to measure and assess.

One of the approaches to formulating an objective is SWBAT, ‘Students will be able to…’ followed by a performance verb like ‘draw’, ‘recite’, ‘dramatize’, ‘use a structure in dialogue’, ‘make a table’, ‘write’, ‘make a poster presentation’, etc. (Onushco, 2002) For example, you may write an objective in the following way: “Students will be able to use the Present Continuous tense in describing an action”. That is why I liked the lists of verbs to be used for writing objectives from “Classifying Objectives” and “How to Write Clear Objectives” articles. They make it clear what is expected from students and are easily assessed.

As for the reference mentioned, it is just one of the sources describing SWBAT, I am not aware of the original author.

References:
1.    Onushco Michael, Jr. 2002. Teaching English Communicatively: Practical Ideas and Suggestions.  Bishkek: Institute of World Languages.

Week 4

Looking into the ways of writing a technology enhanced lesson plan, I got a better picture of what a teacher should think of: standards requirements, performance indicators, learning objectives, the use of appropriate technology, etc.  I found it engaging, but very time consuming in the beginning. They should become easier to formulate when given more time to practice.

Technology itself is very motivating: students cannot part with their mobile devices, and sometimes are more skilled at using technology than their teachers. However, we see more opportunities to turn the students’ use of technology into an educationally useful stream course.

This week project tasks reinforced my understanding of my class needs and my wants in relation to technology use. I went through a few postings of other participants and saw a great number of ways to use technology and integrate it into traditional teaching. I liked the idea of using authentic websites as resources for motivating classes. The tasks my peers provide with their lesson plans give a wide spectrum of ideas for implementing web resources into my curriculum.

Teaching Active Listening

I found it very useful to review some of the basic theories of listening processes. They complement each other and produce a 3D picture of what may go on in one’s head when listening. I remember my experience in a British supermarket when asked at the till: “Any cashback?” I used my first card and had no schematic knowledge related to it. So these words that I understood later not only had no meaning to me, they sounded incomprehensible.

Therefore in my teaching practice I try to use relevant and engaging materials so that to encourage students’ active listening. One of the examples is “Burn Notice” video series experience. The series is about a former spy. It has short episodes with completed stories. All these make it easier for students to understand the language. There’s also a website with lots of things to do after students have watched the film: do quizzes, watch 1-minute “Ask a Spy Tips” or play games using the information from the film. I myself had fun doing those activities.

Mykola Kisil in his Week 3 blog mentions a few things that he learned during this week. I also think that the resourses we have read and looked through help building a more motivating and engaging learning environment.

Social bookmarking that I already knew about turned out a useful thing, especially when I was away from my computer and couldn't access traditional bookmarks. Thanks to Javier I have a great number of new links to go through. I think they may be grouped for easier access, too.