All Discussions Tagged 'methodology' - Classroom 2.02024-03-28T22:58:15Zhttps://www.classroom20.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=methodology&feed=yes&xn_auth=noCan we bridge the Perspective Gap?tag:www.classroom20.com,2012-09-03:649749:Topic:8704172012-09-03T16:32:11.578ZAndrea Lopez Olatunjihttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/AndreaLopezOlatunji
<p>We talked a lot about performance gap in education but what about the Perspective Gap? As educators, we need to get involved in conversations with our students to understand where they stand.</p>
<p>Go to <a href="http://AlignEd21.com/Evoke_Fall2012.pdf" target="_blank">AlignEd21.com/Evoke_Fall2012.pdf</a> to follow this conversation.</p>
<p>We talked a lot about performance gap in education but what about the Perspective Gap? As educators, we need to get involved in conversations with our students to understand where they stand.</p>
<p>Go to <a href="http://AlignEd21.com/Evoke_Fall2012.pdf" target="_blank">AlignEd21.com/Evoke_Fall2012.pdf</a> to follow this conversation.</p> Bridging the Gap between ELT Theory and Practicetag:www.classroom20.com,2011-06-21:649749:Topic:6587212011-06-21T18:29:47.278ZAbdelouahed OULGOUThttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/AbdelouahedOULGOUT
If you ask any novice teacher of English how she finds teaching in the English classroom, the preeminent answer will be: there is a huge gap between theory and practice. Most new teachers have spent much time absorbing ELT literature, yet few were trained on how to apply their knowledge in the teaching space: the classroom. In this paper, a humble endeavor has been made to define the bridge between theory and practice in ELT and punctuate some key ingredients of effective theory-practice…
If you ask any novice teacher of English how she finds teaching in the English classroom, the preeminent answer will be: there is a huge gap between theory and practice. Most new teachers have spent much time absorbing ELT literature, yet few were trained on how to apply their knowledge in the teaching space: the classroom. In this paper, a humble endeavor has been made to define the bridge between theory and practice in ELT and punctuate some key ingredients of effective theory-practice bridging.<br/><br/>Bridging the gap between theory and practice is possible through lesson planning. Planning is the process of connecting theory to practice. It is also the process during which lesson success or failure is planned. While planning, English teachers apply ELT knowledge by devising a set of procedures that incorporate definite activities for definite objectives, naming the necessary tools and requirements, accounting for assessment, and distributing the possible lesson whole time in accordance with the lesson phases from opening to closing. Yet what ingredients does a cook need to prepare a delicious meal?<br/><br/>Lesson planning needs mature theoretical awareness. Even though some teachers underestimate, and even mock at all that is theoretical in ELT, still, theories and approaches work. The importance of ELT theories lies in raising our awareness of every action we take for teaching and learning purposes. And because they reflect a number of experiences in a particular time and space, ELT theories do help in beefing up our predictability in the field of teaching, blowing up our applied knowledge, and making our actions so principled and organized. Further, an ELT theory tells us how English is viewed, how it is learned, what style is adequate to what learner, how an activity is to be assessed, and what procedures and techniques are to opt for to meet certain aims…<br/><br/>Lesson planning calls for multiple intelligences and creativity. Since the clients we target have multiple moods, preferences, needs and demands, we as guides and assistants have to have an intelligent and creative soul. We need to cater for the needs of our students and ponder about smooth and efficient deeds to meet their needs and satisfy their expectations. To be knowledgeable in your subject is not enough. You also need to be smart in the art of communication to get your students to taste, not to say learn, the flavor of language as a combination of multiple components of which behavior is the backbone. How you can smoothly, briefly, and inductively get your students into picking up new skills determines your level of creativity and intelligence in planning a lesson. How you start up, proceed, and close a lesson tells us whether you are a principled teacher or chaotic one.<br/><br/>Lesson planning requires high level of imagination and expectation. While planning your lesson, imagine how it will possibly work, the reactions it will possibly bring about, and the feedback you will provide. The power of imagination and expectation does not only help you predict your performance while in class, but it also empowers you to create suitable situations for the target objectives. Language is function, and the situation is the cradle of both. <br/><br/>Theoretical awareness, intelligence, creativity, imagination and expectation are therefore key elements of effective lesson planning. More consideration of these elements will undeniably improve your lesson performance and ameliorate your design skills in ELT as well as in other disciplines. Common Core Curriculumtag:www.classroom20.com,2011-01-23:649749:Topic:5854962011-01-23T01:21:57.969ZGary Latmanhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/GaryLatman
In the Winter issue of American Educator , the Editors discuss Common Core Curriculum, maintaining the benefits are many. The first bulleted benefit is that "teachers need not guess what will be on assessments; if they teach the curriculum, their students will be prepared." Ideally, this would be true, if the course work was successfully taught and successfully evaluated. Unfortunately, the evaluation of student work can be labor intensive and very time consuming, one evaluative method…
In the Winter issue of American Educator , the Editors discuss Common Core Curriculum, maintaining the benefits are many. The first bulleted benefit is that "teachers need not guess what will be on assessments; if they teach the curriculum, their students will be prepared." Ideally, this would be true, if the course work was successfully taught and successfully evaluated. Unfortunately, the evaluation of student work can be labor intensive and very time consuming, one evaluative method different from another. As a high school English teacher of over 30 years, who was probably more devoted to my career than my personal life, I know the toll that such scrutiny of student work can take. I also know that many of my colleagues in my department and others with families of their own to raise did not maintain the same level of intensity and standards as I did. I gave multiple choice Scantron graded tests infrequently. My usual mode of evaluation was short answer explanations, which I created and evaluated, devoting entire weekends to do so. Usually, some of the items on the test or quiz was geared toward high level thinking. I was concerned with inference and comprehension, as much as with specific plot detail. It would help me determine who fudged the reading, and for take home assignments it helped me determine who copied mindlessly from classmates.<br />
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Outside of the classroom, I often watched students borrow each other's papers and copy directly. I know that this type of cheating was supported by teachers who did not scrutinize their students' work. My evenings were also spent evaluating and correcting students' work. I devoted more energy to perfecting my teaching than to maintaining my personal relationship to my significant other. I don't expect this type of sacrifice from teachers. But without it, it is difficult to assess whether one has successfully communicated the content and skills necessary for any curriculum. But with a common core curriculum, it would be easier to determine whether one teacher's methodology is better suited to students at a specific school than his or her colleagues. And this could be shared and duplicated.<br />
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Other points made in the article are significant, and certainly bear consideration. Specifically, "Teacher preparation programs ensure that candidates have mastered the curriculum, and ways to teach it, before they become teachers." During my tenure, I was surrounded by teachers in my department, some of whom taught me about the content I was commissioned to teach, and some who learned from me. But often, there were those with very limited experience and background in literature, composition, and grammar, and these few were weak links seemed not to care that they didn't an adequate background, that they did not belong in the classroom. I always wondered where they received their degrees and how meaningless their certification was, other than allowing them to collect a paycheck. A common core curriculum might have forced these teachers to rise to the level of their colleagues with a substantial background in the content and a equally successful methodology for delivering that content to their students.