Rubrics

These pictures show how assessment is understood by some people:

For some teachers, assessment is based on a simple number or letter and they want the students to learn the same contents to pass their exams and if they don't do it, they fail. This kind of assessment does not take into account the individual improvements in their learning process.

Analyzing these ways of assessing students we should think about something new according to our way of teaching. So, as I reflected on some past entries, I personally agree on doing a differentiated instruction and this is why to do it, teachers are expected to assess also focusing on every different child's progress and not only on the marks they get. Because these marks are based on the SAME exam for DIFFERENT children, with different backgrounds, abilities, interests and also very different learning styles, so we cannot reach to teach every child if we assess them with the same exam.

To change this old way of assessing we have a great tool: Rubrics. It is a way of assessing focused on the child's progress, so with it, they can really understand in what stage of the learning process are them. They can see their weakness and their best abilities, so that they can focus on what they need to keep on practicing.

How to Make a Rubric:

1. Decide what criteria or essential elements must be present in the student’s work to ensure that it is high in quality.
   
   
2. Decide how many levels of achievement you will include on the rubric.
   
   
3. For each criterion or essential element of quality, develop a clear description of performance at each achievement level.
   
   
4. Leave space for additional comments and a final grade.

There are different possibilities with Rubrics that can be used to enhance students' learning experience: the teacher can give the Rubric to them before doing the assessment, so they can be conscious of what they are expected to achieve. 

It is also a successful practice to involve them in the rubric development process. As we did in class with the rubrics to assess our PLE, students as a class or in small groups can talk and decide the criteria for grading a task. The teacher would be the guide in the process but also gives the students an opportunity to participate on their own learning process by thinking which are their goals and being able to self-assess themselves.

To conclude, we have to bear in mind that rubrics help teachers to display criteria but also levels of achievement, so, the more explicit the items are, the more realistic the rubrics are. With this tool students can understand the reason of their mark and they know what they have to do to improve on their learning process.

Some examples of rubrics:

CLIL

In the last years, CLIL has become a point of interest in lots of education systems of European countries.

 

The term CLIL refers to any activity "in which a foreign language is used as a tool in the learning of a non-language subject in which both language and the subject have a joint role" (Marsh 2002:58).

  “CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign     

   language with dual-focused aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of    

   a foreign language”.

   “It [CLIL] provides exposure to the language without requiring extra time in the curriculum“.

    (Marsh, D. 2002. Content and Language Integrated Learning: The European Dimension – 

    Actions, Trends and Foresight Potential).

But, after defining the term, we also have to pay attention to the process needed to do a good CLIL in class. As Do Coyle mentions in her article, there is a big danger, CLIL can become another version os TEFL or ESP. So, to prevent this from happening, we have to bear in mind that this kind of programmation can not be taught only by an English teacher (who doesn't dominate the contents of another subject) or by the specialist of another subject ( who doesn't know how to teach English).

As the author says, to integrate perfectly language and contents, the CLIL subject must be taught by the two teachers, the language one and the one who knows the contents. Only if the two combine their learning and design the lessons together, the CLIL lesson will have success.

To end this section of defining the term, it is very important to remember what is CLIL, but also that it is a very flexible practice, it can have very different curricular timetabling, it can be studied by very different ranges of ages, it can include projects or investigations, it can include chemistry practices,...etc. This can be better understood with this picture that I have found on the Internet:

As the author comments, research shows that CLIL has some advantages for learners and teachers, it can: raise learner linguistic competence and confidence; raises teacher and learner expectations; develops risk-taking and problem-solving skills in the learners; increases vocabulary learning skills and grammatical awareness; motivates and encourages students’ independence; it takes students beyond reductive foreign language topics; it helps improving L1 literacy; it encourages spontaneity on talking if students are enabled to learn through the language rather than in the language; it develops study skills; generates positive attitudes and finally, puts cultural awareness back on the agenda.

Lots of schools in Europe are teaching CLIL units, but is not as easy as it seems...

Coyle has provided us with the 4c's framework to support CLIL pedagogy:

This framework, as we can see in the picture, focuses on the relationship between culture, communication, content and cognition, which means to integrate learning (content and cognition) with language learning (culture and communication). 

To sum up this idea, we can say that we need to integrate learning to use language, and use language to learn. So it is necessary for CLIL to succeed, to take in account the 4C's carefully in the planning of the unit to be taught.

Learners are going to use and develop language TO/FOR/THROUGH learning, this is why teachers also must plan, monitor and evaluate CLIL learning and teaching from different perspectives. 

This approach demands to analyze the role language plays in CLIL processes and engages providers in planning, monitoring and evaluating CLIL using a different set of criteria.

To finish this reflection it is important to bear in mind that as trainee teachers we should read all the principles on CLIL and also have the chance to practice CLIL methods in real contexts in order to be able to use this method in our future classrooms.

We have to keep on reading articles on CLIL to form our own idea of it. As future teachers we have to take in account that CLIL gives lots of advantages to our students because they are learning not only contents and not only a new language, they learn to use a language and also use the language to learn.

Teaching and learning management

According to the article "Rethinking classroom management", there is an old conception of this term:

The authors think that we need to deep into the classic concept to define a new one: "teaching and learning management", which implies a process of great complexity. 

First, we need to know that there are three interrelated areas to analyse in order to understand this concept: 

1. Organisational issues
2. Curriculum issues
3. Social issues

If these three areas are not integrated it won't be guaranteed a successful teaching and learning management.

Organisational issues:

As the authors say, it is very important to explicit rights and duties in the school, and at classroom level, rules should be the result of a process of negociation between students and teachers. All the students will participate in the process so it will be easy to follow the rules because they all feel part of the community.

Once we have the rules, the teacher should be coherent and consistent in its aplication, he should be kind and firm.

Curriculum issues:

In order to be communicative teachers, we have to read the curriculum, not only  we have to transmit contents unidirectionally, but also we should establish our goals in terms of WHAT to teach and HOW to do it. 

The activities have to be powerful and meaningful so that enable students to think deeply and critically; give them opportunities to be creative, innovative,...; enable pupils to manage risks and respond possitively to challenges; contribute to progression on learning and finally, engage ALL the students.

Moreover, it is a very important point to take in account, the fact that most students love working individually or in cooperative groups. As teachers we have to bear in mind that they really learn when they are able to practice that contents.

On the one hand, cooperative learning is useful since students feel all important, helps improving their oral skills, it promotes students' social skills and increases their self-esteem. But it is crucial for the cooperative learning' success to be taught to the students how to participate in a group situation.

On the other hand, individual learning is also necessary for the students because they can develop self-discipline, needed for future real life.

Social issues:

According to the authors' point of view, teachers have to provide the conditions needed for learning. Some social issues can emerge from the other two areas, such as self-esteem, respect,...etc. but they do not have sense without the establishment of a positive affective relationship in the classroom. Students need to feel safe, secure and accepted in the class to learn better.

This relationship has to be bidirectional, students must respect the teacher and the teacher must respect the students.

To conclude with this reflection I would like to say that although the teacher's job is difficult and can be hard, we have to do it all with optimism. As teachers we will have to work hard to create effective and meaningful activities and we also have to think deeply how to assess and how to manage our classroom, but we have a great amount of resources and ideas to promote a successful teaching and learning management.

The home-school connection

These past days we have been talking in class about the importance of involving parents in their child's learning process.

Nowadays, some dramatic situations happen between teachers and parents:

And also between children and parents at home:

It is very clear that these problems must be solved by creating a....

(home-school connection)

During our lessons we have concluded that there are some important reasons for home-school connection:

- It helps parents feel involved and informed

- Children can keep on learning out of the class.

- Students feel proud of their learnings by showing their work.

- Teachers can be aware about children's family background.

- Parents and Teachers are partners in children's education, is an invitation to participate.

- Synergy among teachers and parents.

- Showing develops memory.

So, it is very important to create a home-school connection because children can benefit tremendously if we connect their most important two worlds. Researches show that children whose parents and teachers are involved in their learning process have more possibilities to succeed.

"Good communication between parents and teachers has many benefits. When parents and teachers share information, children learn more and parents and teachers feel more supported. Good communication can help create positive feelings between teachers and parents" (Kreider, Mayer & Vaughan, 1999).

But, what can we do as teachers to support the home-school connection? 

It's pretty easy today, we have lots of resources and ways to communicate with our students' parents. As Theresa Zanatta mentions in her article, we have to create classroom routines to keep parents involved, such as sending home hands-on student-made learning tools; so that the students can feel proud of their learnings by showing and parents feel informed regularly, and know what their children are doing at school. 

Also the students' individual portfolios are very useful to keep their learning organized, clear and accesible. They can do one for every term and then bring it home to show to their parents all what they have been doing. Parents can see their children's progress, improvement and also their difficulties in order to promt them for their work but also to be aware of their weakness and be able to help them to solve their learning difficulties.

To conclude, I would like to remind that nowadays, teachers have lots of tools to keep on communicating with parents like Internet, it is very easy for example to create a classroom blog to show what it is happening in class or to send them information by e-mails. For instance, I have found a printable newsletter to send the parents with tips and advices and which helps creating a home-school connection since parents feel supported with their children education: newsletter home-school connection

Meeting individual needs

After reading Peter Westwood and Wendy Arnold's article on individual needs, I can reflect on some points about differentiating instruction.

As I have written about this topic in the previous entry, I will not talk again about the definition of differentiated instuction, but I will reflect on some interesting ideas from the article "Meeting individual needs with young learners".

First, as it is said by the authors, differentiation is desirable but unfortunately, sometimes is not feasible. This means that, a big number of teachers want to recognize the differences among the students and cater for all these differences, but it is not as easy as it seems to be. In several countries, teachers find important hindrances when they try to sustain differentiation such as the size of the class, prescribed textbooks, lack of time or rigid curricula.

Fortunately, there are still a quantity of teachers that try to approach their teaching methodology to differentiation using strategies like:

- Differentiated resource materials: worksheets, books or videos between other materials, that can be leveled for every student.

- Whole-group activities: focused on practical work in which students can give their best but also taking in account their different interests. 

- Small group activities: all groups rotate through different activities and the teacher can be a guide.

- Projects: they enable children to pursue their own interests while they are learning.

- Student and teacher interactions: are the base of differentiated instruction since the teacher has to connect to every child in order to personalize the teaching methodology to the students' characteristics and needs.

- Computer supported learning:can help to match students abilities and interests to the learning process.

- Multiple intelligences: Gardner's theory is a guide to set a differentiated instruction because helps teachers recognizing every students' learning style. So, the teacher can cater for all the learning styles in order to reach every student.

I have found a picture which explains this last idea, it shows how to help every student depending on their learning style:

To conclude this reflection I will say that although it can be very difficult to differenciate our instruction as teachers, but it is necessary to connect to all students' needs. If we want to be effective teachers this is our main challenge.




 



In this link you can find 7 facts about differentiated instruction, which are very useful for teachers

Differentiated instruction

To begin with, I will stick a picture that shows why should we differentiate the instruction as teachers, depending on the students:

Nowadays, classrooms are becoming more diverse and we cannot avoid this fact, we can't expect the students to learn the same contents since they have different backgrounds, abilities, experiences and interests.

According to all that we have been talking in class, differentiated instruction is the way of teaching which tries to cater for all the different students, with their different backgrounds, ways of learning, interests and knowledge.

 

As Carol Anne Tomlinson mentions, there are three ways to deal with students' differences: ignoring them, separating kids or, the less common way, keeping all kids together but attending their different needs, interests or ways of learning. The first two options have no good results because a big quantity of students are not attended when they are considered "different". The last option is the one with good results for all the students of a class because it implies the same possibilities of learning for all of them.

So, as future teachers, what do we need to do to be effective with differentiation?

Tomlinson says that, first of all, the teacher has to connect with all the students, to talk to them in order to be conscious of their needs. Then, it is very important to create a community sense between the students, every one has its differences but all of them work together in the same direction. Finally, the third point is about the quality of the contents selected by the teacher. Teachers need to design catchy activities to reach every student but selecting important information to be taught.

In addition, teachers have to bear in mind that the principles of a differentiated instruction are:

- Creating respectful tasks, every student needs to work equally, with important tasks depending on their needs.
- Flexible grouping, thins means that students won't be divided arbitrarily. Groups will change constantly and students will be mixed with same interest peers and mixed interest peers; similar or varied readiness students.
- Teaching up, which is starting with what we consider to be high-end curriculum and expectations.

I have found a good graphic which explains very clear the different instruction characteristics:

To sum up, as future teachers we have to take in account the fact that as the world is changing, our students are becoming more and more diverse. Because of that, we have to design strategies to reach all the students, we can call it differentiation or whatever, but we have to cater for all the differences in the classroom.

 

A child-centered activity

This week, we have been talking about the importance of designing child-centered activities, between others, in order to "do" a different instruction.

So, as yesterday was Halloween, I will explain an example of this kind of activities related to this special day in english-spoken countries.

The activity is for a 4th grade class in wich the students are reviewing the food unit.
The teacher will ask the pupils to think about a "scary dish" to prepare at home with their parents and they will bring it to class, the following day, with its recipe.

Every student will explain his peers what ingredients do they need to prepare his dish. They will also explain how to prepare the dish, using vocabulary like "mix", "cut",etc.

Finally, the teacher will give all the students a copy of each recipe and they will make a "book of scary dishes".

At the end, they can taste all the dishes!

This activity is child-centered because all the students can explain their recipes using their own level of English, they can choose what to say and how to do it according to their level. With this activity, they also have something to show and share with their peers, which make the students feel useful and important.

Student-Centered Classrooms

As we have been talking this past weeks in class, it is very important for teachers to know the characteristics of effective instruction.

This way of teaching and learning is based on student-centered classroms, in which students are involved on their own knowledge to become autonomous learners.

As teachers, we have to bear in mind that all students are different, with different backgrounds, experiences and ideas, so, we cannot pretend to teach them in the same way or to expect from them the same products.

So, in this type of classrooms, students are encouraged to reflect their own learning, to share information with peers and to learn by doing authentic tasks in order to construct their knowledge by meaningful experiences.

It is also necessary to assess the pupils not only with written tasks about theorycal concepts or with exams, but also the teacher has to assess the students in a meaninful way. This means that assessment tasks have to be very different to engage all different learning styles, and the teacher has to observe to every single student to see his own development.

In conclusion, to promote a student-centered classroom, the teacher has to design activities related to their own lifes, with different ways of working so the students can also collaborate in groups and construct their own learning by comparing and discussing ideas with peers. With all this characteristics we will students be more and more autonomous, to become independent persons.

About me...

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Diana and I'm a future English teacher.

I am 24 years old, I come from Mallorca and I would describe myself as cheerful and enthusiast.

I enjoy learning new things everyday in order to become a better teacher, so I hope I will take lots of benefits with this blog by sharing information and beeing connected with other people.

Last year I learnt a lot of useful information in order to promote children's development by designing activities and unit plannings which help students learning English and being more and more autonomous taking in accout the different learning styles.

So, this year, I expect learning lots of useful tools and resources from the Internet, like apps, which are very catchy and interesting to help teachers designing dynamic and interactive activities. Besides, as a future teacher, I have to be prepared to use all these tools with the children because as time goes by, things are turning mobile.