Reflection #1 (Spring 2019)

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dennis Galicia on February 24, 2019 at 2:22pm

Hello, Melinda.
I liked the concepts presented in your lesson. Additionally, I would recommend adding more culturally relevant pedagogy to your lessons, as this, will allow room for quality output from your students. However, you have to be careful in doing so, since one would not want to create a “separation” among our students. To conclude, I would also recommend using the TL and the Heritage Language in two equal blocks. In other words, 50% TL and 50% Heritage Language. Nonetheless, great presentation.

Permalink Reply by Gisele Rentas on February 25, 2019 at 9:54pm

Hola Melinda! I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation. It spoke to me as an HLL and I appreciate the way in which you used geography as one of the cultural components of the lesson plan.  I feel that it is a useful way to incorporate language and cultural through a much broader lens, since geography has a significant impact on culture and can be utilized to encourage participation and spark interest where it might be lacking from a learner who has a highly developed Emerging intelligence, so I would definitely keep it! I might have had a two-column slide with the names of the regions available to the learners, so that those with no prior knowledge (L2) or relatedness can make use of what they already know about the geography of Spain, Puerto Rico and Peru, for example, to inspire some critical thinking and utilize their reasoning skills.   I concur that the activity would have precipitated some interesting discussion and participation and most importantly learning and that is the goal! I was inspired!

Permalink Reply by Fazima Kausar on March 1, 2019 at 1:49pm

Hello Melinda, 

I really enjoyed your presentation! I agree with that fact that you and your partner could have found a "middle-ground" that implements both the Spanish and English language because some of the slides did consist of more complex Spanish grammar and vocabulary that may or may not be appropriate for adolescent students. Or maybe, you can really take into consideration the Spanish level students are at, and implement the lesson at that level. I believe that will not only put the students Spanish skills to use but it will also help them enhance their verbal and listening skills! 

Permalink Reply by Karolina Custodio on February 25, 2019 at 12:57pm

    Our micro-teaching activity that Dennis and I prepared was “Los momentos del día”. As we determined how we would develop our lesson and what activities would help us to involve students, so they would actively participate. At the same time keeping our student with a physical disability in mind. Our goal was foster a collaborative environment where students can work in groups and thus help each other and to adjust the design of our lesson to respond students educational needs. We designed our presentation with bright colors, visible texts and realia to support the lesson. I believe that the materials we provide, helped to make connections to every moment of the day. As I mentioned, we tried to focus on how to provide an inclusive class for all of our students. However, we made a mistake which our classmates helped us recognize. As future teachers we have to consider the small actions that can be significant for our students, which, however minimal and helpful they may be for some, may also be improper for the rest of the class and even for our student with an IEP. We provided printed slides for our student with IEP without realizing that we were failing to maintain inclusiveness in our classroom.

Additionally, we lack the cultural aspect in our lesson. To bring culture into the lesson is very important because our students would be able to identify themselves while learning. For example, traditions that they practice with their families during the day, what types of celebrations they would prefer to celebrate in the afternoon or evening, or what differences there are in the moments of the day in a country of South America with one in North America or in another continent. In addition to that, we could add videos presenting the sounds that we could hear during the morning, afternoon, evening, and night.

Definitely, we know that with practice and experiences we can improve our teaching strategies, what we want is to cultivate a more inclusive educational experience for all students, think our class as a diverse community, where all students learn together, regardless of whether they have educational needs.

Permalink Reply by Fazima Kausar on February 25, 2019 at 8:02pm

My partner, Geomyra, and I, were assigned to design a micro-teaching activity for deaf and/or hearing impaired students. We collectively decided to teach classroom objects with the help of arranging a mini-scavenger hunt followed with a corresponding worksheet. In order to solve the worksheet, the students must actively go about the classroom, and search for vocabulary words labeled amongst differing classroom objects. We found this would be helpful for the deaf and/or hearing impaired students because they would be actively involved to solve the worksheet with the rest of the class, as well as physically see the objects that correspond with the vocabulary words. Tangibly detecting the objects in order to help solve the worksheet, allowed students to create a more personal connection and experience. Then to conclude this lesson, my partner and I chose to include a game of Kuhoot! to create a bit of friendly yet educational competition amongst the students. The students were to join and play the game with their smartphones while the questions appeared on the smartboard. After presenting our activities, my peers as well as Professor Salgado made me mindful of some aspects that our activities may have lacked. Being that the lesson plan was to be catered towards deaf and/or hearing impaired students, my partner and I were made aware that we should have included the pronunciation of the words beneath the labels. This would have made Spanish learning more effective and efficient. The students would be made aware of the phonetic parallels that exist between English and Spanish or another language they may know. Another peer evaluated that as the students went about the scavenger hunt, it would be helpful to demonstrate the way the word would be verbally pronounced so the students can learn to replicate the specific sounds that exist in the target language while also enhancing their oral motor skills. To introduce some cultural aspects in the lesson, I would have shown more visuals of the content that have different Hispanic cultures integrated in the photos or videos. 

Permalink Reply by Maria Lorena Flores on February 26, 2019 at 7:24am

Fazima:

Your teaching activity was very engaging and fun, I liked how every single object in the classroom was named with colorful signs, I think that this activity definitely catches anyone’s attention not only students, having tangible objects along with signs is what any class needs by exposing different options of learning.

Permalink Reply by Gisele Rentas on February 28, 2019 at 8:23pm

Hola Fazima! I enjoyed your presentation and appreciate the time both you and Geomyra put into the use of realia into your lesson plan. The inclusion of an activity that requires TPR was also of interest to me because as a future educator I have been curious about the ways in which it could be incorporated into a lesson plan.  I don’t remember if you had mentioned what level/grade the lesson plan was designed for, however, I am concerned with it being age appropriate, and it prompted me to consider what types of TPR activities would be for adolescents.  Taking into consideration the special physical needs that you were presenting for, I believe reducing the amount of words included in the instruction along with some Venn diagrams and flow charts to show cause and effect and create connections visually would also be helpful. 

Permalink Reply by Gisele Rentas on February 25, 2019 at 8:15pm

Thinking reflectively on my presentation for formulating a lesson plan that is equitable in a classroom environment where there may be a learner or learners with a physical disability, I regretfully did not meet the requirements of the assignment.  While I may have not been assigned a specific physical disability, it is expected that all of our learners are offered a lesson plan that is inclusive of all the diverse needs of learners in the language classroom.  Physical needs are but one component of the various ways in which learners require that educators differentiate instruction based on the varying needs of their learners.  

I found this assignment interesting for the same reasons that made it challenging for me, the manner in which these needs are addressed in the classrooms that we observe as novices in this field, if done well, are unrecognizable as differential instruction to future educators.   My experiences thus far in observing classroom environments has been abstract, as opposed to observing actual teaching “methods”, that is to say, observing concrete realities and actual instances.  Going forward, observing in this manner is going to allow me to do so from an entirely different lens.  I can now begin my observations integrating myself, so that I can figure out what teaching styles appeal to me and why and learning how to adapt my teaching style to serve the learners in my classroom  Having an awareness of my own learning/teaching strategies and being able to identify the various learning styles of  the students that I am observing can only serve to improve the quality of the education that I will one day provide.

I would like to think that my lesson plan would have included the use of audio/visual technology, although I am of the school of thought that interpersonal skills need to be nurtured now more than ever, particularly among adolescents.  The innate desire to connect and communicate with one another is the reason that language was created.  We live in a day and age where connecting with and communicating with people is everything but personal.  I would want a student with low functioning motor skills to be given the time and space to speak, however time consuming it might be, as opposed to relying solely on assistive technology because it is there and because it would just be easier for them and the rest of the class if they used it to complete the assigned task or meet the participation requirement. That being said, language is a system of communication that can be expressed linguistically, visually and rhythmically, and we live in a world where all of these systems of language continue to be utilized, so exposure to them is vital. 

I would have designed a lesson plan that required a Q & A among the students related to their family heritage to encourage social skill building and encourage communicating with one another in the TL and/or an independent assignment that builds introspective skills, such as doing some research on any region in the world where Spanish is the dominant language.  For example, if a student chooses Puerto Rico, I would want at least one well researched fact about the island.  Those facts can then be the topic of the next lesson, so as to incorporate something new and adjust the curriculum accordingly.

Permalink Reply by CAROLINA PUERTA on February 28, 2019 at 9:52pm

Hello Gisele Rentas, first I congratulate you for your presentation, take the time to explain a topic that is a little broad in terms of physical disabilities, you handled it very well in general terms. the only thing that I advise you is that for the next use an example of some kind of physical disability in specific, for example students with "Acquired brain injuries" and do an activity or show us one through video, photos, etc, this would help to understand a little more about the subject. I congratulate you again.

Carolina Puerta

Permalink Reply by Evelyn Salazar on February 28, 2019 at 10:15pm

Hello Gisele,

I think you presentation was informative and organized. You had a lot information about your topic but at the same time so much information in such little time was overwhelming. Also I think for the powerpoint less grammar and more explications from you will be better, in my opinion. However I think you a good job and your reflexion about your presentation is very honest and intelligent.

Permalink Reply by Geomyra Granados on February 25, 2019 at 9:24pm

The micro- teaching activity that my partner Fazima, and I created was designed for deaf and/or hearing impaired students. But also with the intentions of not forgetting about the rest of the students. We decided to do a micro-teaching lesson that consisted of labeling different classroom objects, in order to have a mini-scavenger hunt activity. This lesson was then followed by its corresponding worksheet, which consisted on the students being able to fill in the blank with the words that was learned during the mini scavenger hunt lesson. We both agreed, that this lesson would be very helpful not only for deaf/hearing impaired students but also for the rest of the class since the lesson consisted in labeled objects and therefore the non- impaired students would have a sense of what the objects look, feel, and are written in Spanish. To conclude the lesson we ended up by showing the students a web based activity named KAHOOT, which allows students to engage with each other. We both agree of this being helpful because during this generation majority of the kids are surrounded by technology therefore instead of using in class for a bad purpose, we can give them a reason to learn in a fun way and also engage with everyone else in the classroom since it allows everyone to be part of the game. I believe our lesson could of been much better if we included the sounds of each word at the bottom in order to give once again not only the deaf/ hearing impaired students a sense of how the word sounds like but also everyone else in the classroom. 

Permalink Reply by Selena Jaquez on February 26, 2019 at 8:40pm

Hi Geomyra, 

I have to say I really enjoyed your presentation. I liked the strategies that you and your partner have implemented into the lesson because the materials were appropriate for deaf and/or hearing impaired students. The only thing I would have changed is not allowing students to use cell phones in the classroom to complete any activity. While cell phones can be used as learning tools, it is a challenge to make sure students are using them for school related tasks.

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