Its Weeks 5 and we are midway through our course. Its really such an enlightening experience for me. I am not a teacher for whom technology is a new approach in teaching. While studying for my MA in the UK, I have realized the importance of technology in research and teaching. Yet, getting schooling via this course is opening so many new doors for me. I were not aware of the things that I could experiment with before doing this course e.g; web-quests.
PBL is something I always aim at whenever there is the opportunity and time.many of the tips I learned from Susan Gaer's articles and student projects.I cant wait to share many of these tips with other teachers in SPELT- Society of Pakistani English Language Teachers. Once in a month, we have an academic session/workshop where the members learn and exchange their ideas. Its a voluntary professional development activity where the resource person or the members are not paid for their services.
Well, coming back to the course contents, this week was about Alternative assessments, Rubrics , PBL and Web-quests.
For me as a teacher, checking large sets of assignments or papers has always been a nightmare!
I do practice peer editing but very rarely because the students do not seem very satisfied that their work has been marked by a partner instead of a teacher who is more qualified and authoritative. Creating checklists and rubrics for assessment criteria will make the checker's award more authentic. RubiStar is a very useful website in this regard. An asset for a teacher, I must say.
I suggested a technology related 'change' that would come as a solution to the problem faced by me or the class. I tried to integrate the solution with the newer approaches that I have learnt this week. I used PBL and web-quest to find a solution to the problem. I state it here once again:
Plan is to divide the students in groups and assign each group the task of making a list of the books available on a specific writer e.g one group is given Jane Austen and they have to enlist all the books available in the library of her and at least 10 web links containing information about her novels . At least one member of each group must have access to internet and should be computer literate. They will also search for the relevant websites containing the authentic information about the writer assigned to them.
The links will be added to the lists prepared on MS word by each group.That way the class will have resources to search for their assignments on some writer consolidated at one place.The print-outs of the completed lists can be taken and exchanged among the groups. a soft copy can be emailed to those who have their email accounts to be accessible even if they use internet occasionally at a net cafe or at a friends etc.
I hope this project could work though I anticipate that it will take quite a long time to complete since there is just one library period of this class per day.
The course is tickling our brains for ideas.
Yusra Anwar
PBL is something I always aim at whenever there is the opportunity and time.many of the tips I learned from Susan Gaer's articles and student projects.I cant wait to share many of these tips with other teachers in SPELT- Society of Pakistani English Language Teachers. Once in a month, we have an academic session/workshop where the members learn and exchange their ideas. Its a voluntary professional development activity where the resource person or the members are not paid for their services.
Well, coming back to the course contents, this week was about Alternative assessments, Rubrics , PBL and Web-quests.
For me as a teacher, checking large sets of assignments or papers has always been a nightmare!
I do practice peer editing but very rarely because the students do not seem very satisfied that their work has been marked by a partner instead of a teacher who is more qualified and authoritative. Creating checklists and rubrics for assessment criteria will make the checker's award more authentic. RubiStar is a very useful website in this regard. An asset for a teacher, I must say.
I suggested a technology related 'change' that would come as a solution to the problem faced by me or the class. I tried to integrate the solution with the newer approaches that I have learnt this week. I used PBL and web-quest to find a solution to the problem. I state it here once again:
Plan is to divide the students in groups and assign each group the task of making a list of the books available on a specific writer e.g one group is given Jane Austen and they have to enlist all the books available in the library of her and at least 10 web links containing information about her novels . At least one member of each group must have access to internet and should be computer literate. They will also search for the relevant websites containing the authentic information about the writer assigned to them.
The links will be added to the lists prepared on MS word by each group.That way the class will have resources to search for their assignments on some writer consolidated at one place.The print-outs of the completed lists can be taken and exchanged among the groups. a soft copy can be emailed to those who have their email accounts to be accessible even if they use internet occasionally at a net cafe or at a friends etc.
I hope this project could work though I anticipate that it will take quite a long time to complete since there is just one library period of this class per day.
The course is tickling our brains for ideas.
Yusra Anwar
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