For a good class preparation

Preparing a class doesn't mean, looking for  meanings that you don't know, it's much more than this.
As no shadow of doubt, it's necessary a good dedication to succeed in any class preparation, no matter how big this challenge will be, but it's important to remember using methodological strategies, otherwise your students will feel that you are simply reading the activity instead of teaching it.


Using methodological strategies is also having a broad vision of the tasks to be developed with your students, and it concerns reading between the lines.


Reading btw the lines for me is taking advantage of certain topics to investigate and evaluate how my student's knowledge is on determinated topics, and it makes a great difference in the class flow. Although, we must be aware of which tasks      should be selected to investigate our student's skills and difficulties.


Beforehand, make yourself some questions while preparing or developing a task. Thinking about this, Shavelson and Stern (1981) suggest some topics that must be taken into consideration like:


-Content - the subject matter to be taught
-Materials - the things that learners can observe/manipulate
-Activities - the things the learners and teacher will be doing during the lesson
-Goals - the teacher's general aim for the task (they are much more general and vague than objective)
-Students - their abilities, needs and interests are important
-Social Community - the class as a whole and its sense of  "groupness"

As we can see, it's not proper to apply a task just because you want or just because the teacher is trying to be kind with his students, we can't put it in practice without a purpose, it's urgent to put a seriousness in it, that's why I always follow those hints, trying to succeed and I frequently have good results.


                     "Proper preparation prevents presentation predicaments"

 

T-H-I-N-K-N-O-L-O-G-Y

Frequently we notice that certain subjects are less complicated to be understood than others, and it easily happens because students have different assimilations. Consequently, one of the reasons for this to happen , is that they are still trying to brake the barrier which doesn't allow them to go further or think straight in English, then, the point is, some of them show to be understood when they are not.

Analyzing this student's mistake, it's very common to see groups that are not homogeneous, and it lead us to be stuck on determinated subjects, and it may cause a frustration for both sides.

It would be awesome if all in a class could learn in synchronization, but it doesn't depend totally on us, and each one has his/her limits. What we should bear in mind, is that we are one of the conductors from our student's progress, and we are on charge of instructing if some "Extra Help" would be necessary.

One of the accessible tools students/teachers use is the internet, which is very useful, but when used wrongly can cause some desagreements. I completely agree to make use of this tool to keep them thinking, researching and improving their comprehension, however, with a little guidance.

Researching about this, I realized that some students' excuses are close to the end, for example when they say that it was not possible to come prepared for the class, or even do a simple homework, because there are some English schools in the market that are providing Extra Content over the internet, through private websites if the information received in class was not enough.

Meanwhile it doesn't make part of all schools' reality, teachers need to find what Extra could be included in a class, or even what strategies could be applied to approach this student into a thinking baseline.

An assistance for it would be the help of visual aids, and why not technological visual aids? As technology has been improving general ways of living and learning, let's try to show that it's possible to match the classroom/home learning process to it, using for us and not like a threat.

Getting ideas from the web, I got one very useful if worked with the correct audience, where the professional can link animation with classroom. It's a software that people who work with animation use, where it's  possible to create lessons and  illustrate much more what we want to propose our students and who knows strengthen their learning and thinking baseline.

Here goes the link of some simple projects and some explanations about the software, besides having the chance to download a free demo to try by yourself.  HAVE FUN



http://www.toonboom.com/edu/?sl=US#

                                                                           

Can you measure how much you learn from students?

Concerning this topic, it's unbelievable the power students have to keep us thinking and studying. Of course, there are some other strong elements,that are naturally activated by this cyclical learning process,but nothing is stronger than the simple wish of learning, and it includes how much you dare to it.

Teaching is an exchange, and we shouldn't close our eyes and act like an egoist individual or declare that students have nothing to teach us. We can't place ourselves just as a classroom  contributor,in fact, we must accept that we are frequently benefited by the pupils in general aspects.

Accepting the simple idea of being a listener, and not a classroom ruler, we are able to observe how much  we are prepared for the challenge of teaching, and also how much we should improve it,in order to come up with new ideas and trying new strategies.

Something that mustn't be forgotten,is that the learning process  is cyclical, and this cycle only starts when the individual (teacher and student) is wide open to receive and learn.I believe there's too much resposibility while measuring or establishing a concept for this fact, because nobody is inferior or superior, and what is really measurable is the experience we exchange, but unfortunately not everyone is prepared to share or at least raise student's awareness.

So, try to be more often a listener instead of a classroom ruler!!!!!