This week’s topic for discussion Interactive Learning and Teaching Large Classes is the most interesting and exciting for me personally. Interactive Learning is the issue I am very interested in and the more I learn, the more I want to know and to try. Sometimes I feel lack of IT skills or terminology knowledge and experience, which upsets me a lot, but I think all these obstacles are surmountable. I can handle them!
This week our task was to create an interactive PowerPoint presentation. The task was amazing. It took me much time to read all the materials on different issues as well as how to make the PowerPoint presentation interactive. The main problem was that my PowerPoint program is different from those in the teaching video guides and there were a lot of discrepancy, which puzzled me! I tried to include different interactive tools, such as Action buttons, hyperlinks, and the best was Jeopardy game. I was extremely excited about creating my own game. At first it seemed imposible. I couldn’t get the main idea how to arrange all that, but finally it turned out a very easy thing to do. “All the great things are simple”))
Teaching large classes is very challenging. Many of my colleagues, and I am not the exception, have had in their teaching career lecture-style lessons and all we know what problems a teahcer may have. The most difficult thing is to keep students’ attention and get them engaged. Large class teaching diminishes personal contact with students, interaction and cooperation, students’ speaking time. We have learned this week how to involve the students and make them more interested. Any lecture-type class can have some breaks for group or pair activities, for reflection on the issues, for cooperation and discussions. We’ve learned about Think-Pair-Share or Think-Square-Share activities, ConcepTest, Quick-thinks activities, etc and all of them are just perfect for teaching large classes. These activities are very easy to arrange, they don’t need time for extra preparation; they don’t need extra skills or knowledge to fulfil them. On the other hand, they promote cooperation, discussions, critical thinking, develop students ability to express their ideas and thought and prove them.
One more amazing thing of this week is our guest Jesse. I want to thank her for her enthusiasm and interst in our discussions. It was extremely interesting to read her posts and to think on the questions she asked. She has a real talent to boost discussions)
Hi Iuliia,
ReplyDeleteVery rightly said, " All the great things are simple." Even I have the same experience with the PPT, found it really difficult. But once you get in, you start learning things and this you will never forget as you learn it by your own self as we discuss about learners' autonomy.
I am really impressed by clarity you have about your final project. I am still in raw stage.
All the Best for your Final Project.
Cheers,
Mithun Khandwala (India)
Hi Iuliia,
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea of using an online survey to know about your Ss' needs and learning difficulty . I guess this is a good start for the final project. Thank you for inspiring me with this idea. Unfortuanately, I couldn't see your webquest, I don't know what title is it, I checked one I suspected to be yours but it wasn't available to publishing.
Hala
Hi, Iuliia
ReplyDeleteGreets from Ecuador
A 100% agree to you, survey is a goog way to know everything about students`, classes` needs, also a good and funny tool the power point I like that and i think that you feel the same to use it in class, so, creating presentations in power point is an interactive way of teaching and also of motivating the students. The first benefit is because this program is very easy to use… because it is an application of Microsoft office and almost everybody has access to it. Another benefit is that we can introduce whatever we need in order to create an interesting presentation. In other words in each slide we can include texts, charts, pictures, graphs, animations, sounds. This PPP make it more visual for the students to understand the lesson and for the teachers this kind of presentation saves time in class that could be use for the students to produce the language…
Power Point Presentations also demand time from teachers, because we have to find, analyze and select the materials we are using in advance… this is also an advantage because we are actually planning the lesson.
Hi Mithun,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments! Don't worry about your final project. You still have time to think. I am sure evrything will be alright! I am still in two minds about some things yet and don't have very clear how it should look like to meet the course criteria. So I am also worried a little! Let's encourage and inspire each other:) And things will get better!
Hi Hala,
ReplyDeleteSurvey is really a good way to know your students better. Online surveys are very easy to create and you can include any questions you want! So try this out!
My webquest link I shared on the wiki page and in our Nicenet thread, if I am not mistaken. It's title saving the Earth. Try this link
Hi Edu,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your words about PPP. I do agree with you that it makes our lessons more interesting, motivating,inspiring and facilitates the learning/teaching process. I also think that both students and teacher benefit from using PPP at their lessons!
Hi Iuliia,
ReplyDeleteI checked the link it says it is not published yet. check the publishing settings.
Hala
Hi Hala,
ReplyDeleteThank you for letting me know! I forgot to publish my webquest to make it visible for others. So now I've published it! Try it again. Hope it will work this time))
Hi Iuliia,
ReplyDeleteI like your PPT lesson, especially the Jeopardy game that is well-designed and can draw students' participation. The marks are from the highest to the lowest with four separated columns related to vocabulary revision after the lesson. At least shy students can join it by choosing the appropriate vocabulary item that they can hopefully get 10 marks. This game is very interactive, I think.
I'll try it.
Thanks,