Activity 5_Partner Professional Dialogue

Partner Professional Dialogue

By Sergio Méndez

The Five Standards for Effective Teaching is a term which I had never heard before or at least in such fancy words. As I was working in the activity for this unit I realized that the Five Standards for Effective Teaching has to do to what I usually do in class, which is integrating students and teachers by generating opportunities for dialogue. Despite of the fact that my activity is a listening exercise, it provided integration between the students and me. Discussing this exercise with a colleague provided me with feedback which is useful in case I use this activity again.

My activity aimed at developing my students listening comprehension skills. It might look like there is no too much dialogue in this sort of exercise, but this dialogue took place in the pre and post stages of the activity. Still, there was more dialogue between the teacher and students than among students. This means that the joint production was generated while I and the students were producing together in a whole class activity. My major participation was designing, enacting, pressing, assisting in the activity, and providing feedback for the activity.

This listening exercise (Predicting Bingo) required the students to predict, based on the title (The Earth Without Humans), what the future would be like without the intervention of humans. Based on this, they had to draw a tic tac toe grid in their notebooks in which they had to write a topic-related word in each of the spaces in the grid that they thought it would be mentioned in the recording. While listening, they had to cross out the words the recording mentioned and that they had in their grid. The students who crossed three words in line, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, were the winners. This listening exercise was contextualized in the students’ previous knowledge by integrating their previous knowledge from home, school or community with the current activity.

There are some modifications that can be carried out in order to include additional opportunities for students-students dialogue in this listening exercise. For instance, students can discuss in pairs or trios how the future without humans would be like before listening to the track and write their predicted vocabulary in their grids. Another additional opportunity would be after the listening exercise. Students could use the vocabulary in their grids to talk about the lesson topic with a different classmate. All in all, this listening exercise was useful for students to practice their listening skills. This listening activity was appropriate to the students’ level of English, and also provided them with the opportunity to work on their listening skills more intensely since they had to identify specific vocabulary (their predicted vocabulary) in the track.

The comments provided by my colleague generated ideas which suggested changes in order to improve my class. These suggestions were directed to the post stage of the class. After having students checked the words they cross out in their tic tac toe grid, they could have used them either to have a speaking activity (talk about the future without humans), or a writing exercise (write some sentences or a short paragraph with the words in the tic tac toe grid).

To come to the point, I believe that this activity promoted a good joint product. The students and I worked together to achieve an objective: develop the students’ listening skills. Besides the class, what I liked of this peer observation is that teachers can be greatly benefited from receiving comments and suggestions for remedial work for future classes.

Classroom Observation

Lesson Plan

Pre-listening

Video/sound track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikkYkc1E-WM

Pre-listening Menu:

1. Use prompt questions to introduce the topic, elicit vocabulary and get the students’ attention.

                      I.        What would the future be like without humans?

                    II.        What changes would there be?

                   III.        What would cities look like?

2. Prediction bingo: Ask students to draw a 9 square grid and predict 9 words that might be included in the recording – example o the board.

While-listening

While-listening Menu:

1. Students listen to the recording and cross out the words mentioned in the recording that match their 9 square grid items.

Post-listening

Post-listening Menu:

After listening to the recording, the students’ predicted words are checked in class.

Video

Activity 4_Situated Learning

Situated Learning_Reflection

A First Look into Situated Learning

By Sergio Méndez

The implementation of traditional teaching methods might cloud the view of other factors that influence the learning processes. It is important to consider different perspectives concerning learning, which can be beneficial for learners and educators. Enhancing social relationships in learning communities can improve the way knowledge and skills are enhanced by the learners. The situated learning theory provides an insight into what these advantages might be and what it is required in order to achieve social learning.

According to Smith (1999), learning is not only acquiring structures or models as part of the learning process. Learners have to participate in different social structures that are based on certain schemes. These structures are found in social interactions which lead to social learning. Smith refers to such interactions as participation in a community of practice. A community of practice is a learning environment where students can gain knowledge of something new by observing the older members’ behavior and interacting with them.

In addition, Smith (1999) suggests that people in a social environment learn by observing others’ behavior. The social interactions also provide individuals with cognitive processes by observing and interacting with older members in a group. These interactions and cognitive processes allow learners perceive consequences of others’ actions. These social interactions function not only as an indicative of what can be performed in certain situations, but also as a guide for the newcomers in a group of how to act and what the possible consequences of these actions might be.

Furthermore, Smith (1999) states that there are some disadvantages individual learning. He argues that individual learning can become arduous and dangerous. In other words, individual learning is self-centered with little or no social learning benefits.  Nevertheless, he adds, that observation of human behavior is the key to decode the information transmitted in such behaviors and build new behaviors which would guide further actions.

Smith (1999) explains that combining remembering and participating is a key behavioral aspect for enhancing social learning. He defines this combination as rehearsal. He describes this rehearsal as the self regulating measure of one’s behavior. In this process, individuals observe their own behavior and compare it to their own cognitive representation in order to prepare themselves for being part of a larger group. With this, Smith (1999) recognizes that learning goes beyond the bare acquisition of knowledge. It is a process of social participation, and its development is extensively influenced by the nature of such social interaction.

Smith (1999) believes that being involved in learning societies is unavoidable for learners. He notes that full participation of newcomer learners in social cultural practices of a community improves their knowledge and skills. Smith (1999) suggests that legitimate peripheral participation allows the opportunity to bring together the new and the old members in a community. He states that activities, identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice are reinforced by peripheral participation. In accordance with Smith (1999), becoming a full participant in a social-cultural practice engages the learners’ intentions to learn and improves their knowledgeable skills.

So as to be full member in a learning community, Smith (1999) estimates that there are some factors which determine this process. Among these factors are the learners’ identity, their ability to speak, act and improvise in such way that contributes for the community wellbeing. This conveys a full commitment in the process to form a social learning community from both new and old members. The heart of this process is to develop ways to learn, evolve and renew the relations among the social group members and strengthen the relation person-learning.

Smith (2003, 2009), provides a view into the grounds for situated learning. He claims that there are two main assertions concerning this topic. The first states that abstract, general, or knowledge out of context is meaningless. The second suggests that knowledge and learning are located in communities of practice. However, there are some aspects which seem to contradict Smith’s perspective.

For instance, the possibility of learning occurring separate to a specific context or life situation can take place. This does not necessarily mean that neither knowledge nor skill is neither acquired nor or developed. Concerning the second assertion, there is the possibility of a learning community being fragile in terms of relationships among its members. This would discourage the attempts of partaking and contributing in the learning community members. In this case, knowledge is diminished as consequence of the poor interactions among the members in the learning community.

As for how situated learning can potentially benefit my receiving institution and my social service, I agree with Smith (2003, 2009). Social interactions are inherent to a better learning process. As in the process suggested previously, I believe that I am in the position of newcomer trying its way into the social group already established in the academic-administrative department in my receiving institution. Consequently, the relation between both parts has to be strengthened by participating in this social interaction. The outcome of this relation can benefit both parts, I as a social server and an observer of the situation studied in my receiving institution in terms of data collecting and analysis, and the institution by providing it with some suggestions for remedial work concerning the issue which is being dealt.

Reference:

Smith, M. K. (1999) 'The social/situational orientation to learning', the encyclopedia of informal education, Retrieved from www.infed.org/biblio/learning-social.htm, Last updated: December 01, 2011.

Smith, M. K. (2003, 2009) 'Communities of practice', the encyclopedia of informal education, Retrieved from www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm