Module 1 Activity 7 – Collaborative learning:

What I have learnt about collaborative/cooperative learning when teaching with ICT"

• it provides opportunities for active engagement
• it is an instructional strategy that can benefit diverse or large groups
• it promotes understanding, shared responsibility and academic achievement
• it encourages the construction and discovery of knowledge
• it promotes personal transactions among students and between teacher and students
• it increases motivation and develop positive attitudes towards learning

For this strategy to be effective and successful, it is essential that students learn skills that will enable them to work cooperatively in groups.

Module 4- Activity 2 – What we assess

What I have learnt about  what we can assess:

• how students interact with each other as they work on creating media literacy
• how students demonstrate problem solving skills
• how students collaborate in gathering information to complete projects  
• how students communicate with each other while designing a collage using pictures from a field trip
• how learners contribute to class discussion
• how learners demonstrate and understanding of a concept
• how learners learn and cooperate with each other as they create a picture dictionary
• how they demonstrate knowledge of phonological awareness

We can assess how students use Bloom’s cognitive domain: define, identify, list, locate, recall, compare, summarise, explain, convert, apply, calculate, practice, demonstrate, analyse, contrast, deduce, differentiate, distinguish, infer, compose, create, design, formulate, produce, rearrange appraise, assess, critique, judge, support

Areas of assessment practice that I could address:

Peer and self assessment, the use of anecdotal records, portfolio assessment and rubric and checklist for student use.

Module 4 - Activity 1 – Reflecting on your assessment practice

What I have learnt about my assessment practice:

My assessment practice is more teacher-centred, using a combination of behaviouristic and cognitive skills  approach.  I should therefore create an environment for the practice to be more student-centred – providing more opportunities for students to engage in critical thinking and problem solving, reflecting, peer teaching and learning from each other.

Module 1: Activity 6 - Vygotsky’s understanding of cognitive development:

After the activity:

What I have learnt about verbalizing and dialogue during this activity: As an educator I need to mediate the learning experience of my learners by providing meaningful activities in an effort to help them develop their skills in dialogue and verbalizing. Some of these activities include demonstration for students to imitate, encouraging/praising learners for each accomplishment no matter how small.  When this is done, learners feel confident and they also feel that their thoughts and ideas are valued by their teachers.  Students need to be actively involved in their learning; having the freedom to express themselves by sharing thoughts,  ”ideas and feelings and views” through responses to open-ended and reflective questions.

(Optional) – Thoughts from self-activities

I can assist students in the following: Articulation: This involves verbalizing or putting into words.  As a teacher I need to create a warm and supportive environment where students feel accepted and encourage to speak and respond to others with confidence, clarity and respect.  Some activities that I use include – Reading a list of words and students repeat the words and give a thumbs up if they have the same beginning or ending sounds as the sound being targeted; or have them producing words with the sounds. Having students producing a target sound in isolation following a model Encouraging students to create rhymes Beginning a story and have each student continuing a sentence or phrase in an effort to complete the story. Discussing what they know about a particular topic, what they would like to know and after reading discussing what they have learned. Having students reading in groups observing punctuation or speech marks (chain reading) Modeling the teacher’s reading Reflection: ”Closely related to articulation, reflection also requires that the learner think about and verbalize the way they have undertaken tasks and the results of these”   After students would have read or during reading ask questions such as: What do I understand or know already about this topic? What do I think is going to happen next? What did I learn? What do I think I will learn? Do I understand what I have just read? What kind of picture does this form in my mind? What can I do to understand this better? What does this remind me of? What was important? What were the most important points in this reading? How does it fit in with what I already know? What questions do I have? I have also tried having students reflecting in their journal but this tended to be time consuming. Exploration: “Exploration is the final step. It involves generalizing what has been learned or accomplished, to other circumstances or situations.”  Students are encouraged to use their knowledge of sound to blend to make new words. Add consonants, blends or digraphs to the rhymes to make new words or transfer what they learned to  read new words eg. They know the word may if they change the m to pl they get play, or change the pl to w they get way. Use the strategies learned in reading in other subject areas.

(Optional) – Other comments

From the brainstorm session I observed that a number of my colleagues included dramatization as opportunities for verbalizing and dialogue in their teaching.  I am especially in sync with Theo’s   contribution because those are activities that I often use in my classes.  I also like Bernard’s contribution and it something I tried but have not been very consistent. “Ask students to keep a journal where they will reflect and write on their thoughts about particular topics, experiences in class, then share them with the members of the class”.