It is great to be in this class and I am excited to get going.
I am a Canadian and have been involved in education for 12 years now, so I still have a lot to learn. I am a second language educator and had ventured on a pathway, about 6 years ago to specialize in what we refer to as CALL or Computer Assisted Language Learning. I have taught in Tanzania, Japan, and the Middle East.
What I had noticed very quickly was that international language teachers actually lacked a lot of educational training - and this became very obvious when looking at the sites offered for language learning. I have a very deep interest in Cognitive Psychology and memory. What I discovered was that a lot of sites catered to "only" the working memory system and affordances offered to learners via online learning platforms were merely screen deep. A lot of activities, that I had examined, may have been fun - but I'm not sure the goals of the activities (i.e. jeopardy like games) were intertwined with some higher order overarching goals. It's not to say we shouldn't have fun - but it is to say online learning platforms need a solid grounding in webpedagogy.
I love to teach. Sadly, at a college where I am now, you can see the failure rates soar regarding literacy development. Our college is a laptop campus and the traditional sit down and read activities are slowly being replaced with time online - and I am concerned. Just two months ago results came in from a international proficiency test in English and 54 out of 79 students failed the reading component of the exam; hence, failed. I acknowledge that this course is for K-12, but am excited because these are the things I'm after: teaching basic literacy via online platforms.
I coach online courses in differentiated instruction and Teaching for Understanding for WIDE, a division of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I love this role as we help educators develop globally.
I could go on and on and on. So, should stop.
Kindest regards to all
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Here is a very cool netvibes tutorial:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIorN9dG4Mk
You have a varied, interesting background. And I thought *I* did a lot of traveling!
ReplyDeleteA class I am taking right now deals with health and wellness issues of college students. One of the reasons given for failure to properly adjust to the college scene was "too much time spent online." I wonder how this will play out in this class?
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely like to hear more about how your laptop campus compares to K-12 environments throughout the course. I'm also interested in cognitive psychology, having been a psych minor in college. I took Cognition & Learning here at TC which was a wonderful introduction to the new field.
-Robin
Very interested in the literacy results you mentioned. I want to develop a teaching resource and educational materials and am interested in what you think works and does not work from your experience. What are your programs like?
ReplyDeleteWonderful questions, and love to discuss these. Hmm, how do you do that here. I guess that one thing you could do is follow a class. I will provide a link and lets see what students post in the next few weeks.
ReplyDeleteI will encourage that students be very explicit about goals and interests - and to take a more active paper based approach to reading - but with online reflections.
The class I will give a link to will be based on differentiated instruction embedded within a Teaching For Understanding framework. A couple have posted the course overarching goals.
Would be fun to talk about this - and here is one of the issues with online learning, writing in this small box about something of this size (the pedagogy of literacy instruction via a blended learning environment) is difficult to describe in such short spaces.
And on top of this - I have 20 other blogs to go check in on.
Interesting that you've taught at countries like Tanzania, Japan and Middle East - something that I would like to do too!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat 2nd language are you teaching?
Very interesting. I am a language teacher as well. I also lived in Japan for a year. I am also interesting in CALL-- I've heard a lot about it! But never had a chance to see what it really is.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you that lots of online learning websites/ tools are lacking a solid foundation. I am also interested in cognitive learning in second language. Seems like we have lots to talk about!
oh wow... this is interesting. I am surprised that so many people have failed the exam. Why do you think happened? Could it be because of other factors aside from the usage of online platform?
ReplyDeleteWow, you did teach in different countries! Interesting~! I am also surprised that more than half of the students have failed on the test. Was there any gender or race difference with the results? That will be also interesting to analyze, since the learning rate may differ by gender or by race (different country/culture may have different traditional teaching style.)
ReplyDelete