-.Elvis Fuentes
Myself as a learner and Language Learner
One of the most
important aspects I have when it comes to learning, is that I have different
stages in the learning process. I have to follow certain steps to acknowledge
what I am processing. For instance, I must have a reason to why I want to learn
something new. I watch what it is, how it is done and overall why it is used
for. One of the quotes I really enjoyed
and that I consider I have done in the past is “Connect
before you direct”. [AR2] What I get out of this is the
importance of knowing as much as possible from your students before and during
the class. When you personally find
some sort of connection between students and you, it will be much easier to
establish the so called bond among teachers and students. For instance, having
a main reason of why they are studying English and how they are intending to
use it in the near future for their lives. Once that bond has happened, it is
time for you as a teacher to send or direct the target language to your
students and have them produce the language in teams or pairs.
Learning
As Winston
Churchill says: “I am always ready to learn although I do not always
like being taught”, reflects many things to me. How?
Well, in many cases students love English and therefore, they would like
to learn how to speak it. However, it
is our job to find different ways to transmit the learning and with that I mean
exactly by this would be that we must find several ways of teaching to students
so that our target language in our class can and will be achievable. [AR3]
Another
aspect I personally learned about learning is the different types of awareness
that one must have as a teacher in order to have a better connection with students.
Being aware of all these aspects when it comes to the learning process makes
you prepare yourselves even better for the sake of the students’ learning.
Another
aspect that I would say I have successfully been more aware this week about was
regarding the importance of assessing. Making
sure your students know what they have to do in your tasks makes the learning
process more meaningful and easier for them to fulfill.[AR4]
Language
Learning
A few years back, I remember that Steve Jobs
once said:
“That's
been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than
complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move
mountains”. –Steve Jobs
Being simple when it comes to giving
instructions to your students, makes your lesson much more effective and also
easier for them. When I say easier, I mean it is not that difficult for them to
comprehend, but yet in each stage of the lesson, it becomes more challenging as
well as interesting for them. We
sometimes make things much more complicated than they are and then as a
consequence our students cannot complete the tasks that have been given to them
by teachers. In
addition to this, I would say that when
Deyvis gave us a training on “Giving Instructions “, I felt very
confused and lost at some point, because he kept changing his instructions
towards what he wanted us to do in that precise task. After a minute, I figured
out that his intention was that we acknowledged how as learners, we feel when
we get blurry instructions or even 2-5 instructions at once. I learned to be more aware on my
instructions.[AR5]
Equally important for me that I learned was to
always keep in mind to offer language structure (my target language) so
students can have something to use when they are in the Fluency stage. Without
it, I noticed that at times it would be a bit more difficult for our students
to express what they think or want to do according to the objective of the
class.
In conclusion, as
teachers, we should never stop being learners, because if we do, we will not be
as aware of what our students go through when they are in our classes and
therefore; the objective of the lesson will neither be meaningful nor met by
our students. I
personally love to learn at least 3-5 things every day regarding education,
technology and life hacks[AR6] .
“Green & Purple Zone”
DESCRIPTION
On Tuesday I was
sitting in my rocking chair next to Freddie talking about our goals for this
course. All of a sudden, Amanda told us to go the “Rancho”. When I arrived, I
got excited by the fact we were going to work on puzzles. Little did I know,
that it was going to be an awesome yet challenging experience. It was actually
really cool how we had to work “as a team” to put the puzzle together. Now I
emphasize in the “as a team” because it was very meaningful for me since we did
not work like that. What puzzled me was the fact that each member of the group
was focused on their own puzzle within their “Purple Zone” instead of helping
each other first. [AR7] The “Green Zone” for me was very
important because it represented support in which I needed to complete my
puzzle since I had problems putting them together.
INTERPRETATION
|
GENERALIZATION
|
PLAN ACTION
|
Something that hindered me was the fact that I couldn’t speak to my
classmates to either help them out nor to help me. This interpretation is great, however, I
didn’t read about in your description.
Remember that you have to extract interpretations from what you
describe, which is why the description needs to be very detailed.
|
It’s convenient to give students options to communicate what they want
to say during an activity. True.
|
I will give my students 2 or 3
options to get their ideas across to each other and model them. Very measurable!
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I was also hindered by not getting help when I needed it from my
partners. Great!
I read about this in your description.
|
It’s important to establish the steps and how to use them so students
will develop the task in a more secure way. Why is
peer help important?
|
I will give clear instructions to students so they can communicate in
a more effective way. How will you encourage peer support in your
lessons?
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I would say that something that helped me was having the option to ask for help to my partners
in the green the zone. Great!
|
Students feel more comfortable knowing that they can rely on someone
who they can get help from without asking the teacher. Great.
|
I will give students’ arrangements in a way they can have students
helping others.
What specifically will you do?
|
One more thing that helped me was to have the experience of putting
together puzzles as a child. How come?
|
It’s important to put yourself in your students’ shoes when designing
an activity by remembering how it was for you as a learner. I like this generalization, but I’m wondering how it
fits with being a child in your interpretation?
|
I will take into consideration how my students feel when giving
instructions and I will model, chunk, and pause while giving instructions. This action plan
and generalization match, but the interpretation doesn’t have the same theme.
|
“The Teaching Game”
DESCRIPTION
On Tuesday we were
given the task on teaching our fellow partners. I was actually nervous towards
what I wanted to teach. However, I looked for something I am very familiar
with, which is “How to charge your phone faster”
and that I also know it would be of great help for everyone in my mini class. The exact
moment that puzzled me was when my partners were just waiting for my final
instructions [AR8] and it felt as if though there was
nothing else to do. Even though I
consider I reached my objective, I would say that there were several
instructions that I could have given but didn’t.
INTERPRETATION
|
GENERALIZATION
|
PLAN ACTION
|
Something that hindered me was the fact that I did not assess my
partners after giving instructions. I agree that this can hinder learning, but I didn’t read
about it in your description…
|
It’s important to assess students after giving instructions to make
sure they have understood what they will be doing during the task. Great generalization.
|
I will assess my students after
giving clear instructions before doing a task. How
will you do it?
|
I was also hindered by not having any additional cellphones for my
partners in order to do the activity. Materials can help or hinder learning
depending on the quantity and how we use them!
|
It’s convenient to expect the unexpected and come prepared just in
case to give the class What can you say about
materials here?
|
I will be better prepared with my materials in my class so that way, I
can make it more effective for
students by having them participate in the class. How will you prepare?
|
I would say that something that helped me was associating the topic of
the class with a real context for my partners. Yes!
|
Students feel more comfortable knowing that they can relate with the
problem mention at the beginning of the class.
True.
|
I will create real life context for students so they can easily relate
to them in my class. Awesome!
|
One more thing that helped me was that most of my partners had a
cellphone, so it was easier for them to reach my objective and it was more
meaningful for them. Great.
|
It’s important to know who your students are so that way you can see
their needs and provide possible solutions for them.
Agreed.
|
I will take into consideration on knowing who my students are and
their needs so I can provide possible solutions.
Great.
|
To summarize, this
has been an awesome week of learning regarding awareness, emotions, and overall
reflections on everything we do in our classes. It has actually been rewarding
to find connections on how I feel as a learner so I can acknowledge how my
students really feel in my class. As Steve Jobs said once:
“You can't connect the dots looking
forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that
the dots will somehow connect in your future.”[AR9]
I will take the
reflections written by me based on each lesson taught to us because that shows
who I really am as a learner and how I
process new and useful information , which takes me back when I was in high
school and in the university. Taking that into account, I will for sure think
ahead my lesson in order to serve my students in class!
Dear Elvis,
Thank you for sharing
your past week’s experiences with me. I
noticed that you wanted to relate your experiences to your practice, which is
very common and makes a lot of sense, but it is also important to stay in the
learner’s shoes in order to deeper into what happened, how did it make you feel
and what does it mean before jumping into the teacher role. When you shared your experience in Deyvis’
instruction workshop, you do just that and it makes you realize the importance
of avoiding the feeling of confusion or frustration. This was a significant learning experience
for you and I was excited to read about how this impacted you as a student
fluent in English!!!
In regards to your
DAPAs, you did a great job in your charts.
Your ideas were connected to each other (interpretations,
generalizations and action plans). I
noticed that sometimes your interpretations were not present in your
descriptions, which is why I wrote you some questions in your paragraph in
order to see if I could get you to add more details. It’s really important to zoom in on the
moment and describe it in as many details as possible in order to see where
learning was taking place or not.
Elvis, you have met the
requirements for this assignment.
Congrats.
Pura vida,
Amanda
[AR2]This was a very popular saying on
this course. It’s powerful because it
makes us stop and reflect on what we are doing and perhaps how to be more
humanistic in our approach to interacting with others, especially our
students.
[AR3]Elvis, how have your learning
preferences been addressed or not this week?
I would love to read about your experience as a learner on the course
and what you have learned about yourself.
[AR4]I agree. Formative assessment is crucial to knowning
what your students really do understand and how to make intelligible decisions
to enhance their learning process.
[AR5]Great example from your own learning! Deyvis instructions are very similar to what
sometimes happens to our students.
Feeling this confusion and frustration is what humbles me to remembering
how my students feel.
[AR7]Elvis, I think this could be a moment
where you zoom in. Who was in your
“team?” What did they do that made you
think that they were no working as a team?
What were you doing? How did this
make you feel?
[AR8]Who was in your group? Did everyone have a phone and a charger? What was the final instruction that they were
waiting for? Why hadn’t you given it
yet?
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