Hello everyone
Hello everyone,
There were two things that stuck with me from watching Week 1's video:
1. How important it is not to waste time and to make teaching more intentional
2. Alternative ways to make exercises more meaningful for students
We are with our students for a short period of time, and so it's important to be more critical with what we decide to do with our students in the classroom. So, from watching the video, I need to think about why I am doing certain activities and what the learning value or purpose is that I want my students to take away from the activity. This will help in saving time and making learning more meaningful for the students.
I tried one of the ideas and suggestions by Penny about letting the students rewrite some of the exercise questions. We are currently studying passive voice in my intermediate grammar class. The students have been struggling with describing why we should use passive voice instead of active voice in some suggestions. So, as part of a review activity, I had students look at an exercise from their book where they had to ask questions that need to be answered in passive voice. I then asked students to work in groups to try to write their own questions that can be answered by another group using passive voice. The students were very engaged in this activity, and they were able to discuss out loud why/how to form these questions, including which questions could not work and why. Afterwards, I collected their work, projected what they did on the board, and worked with the students in correcting their questions/answers. I am attaching some pictures below of examples we did (including some with my corrections).
There were two things that stuck with me from watching Week 1's video:
1. How important it is not to waste time and to make teaching more intentional
2. Alternative ways to make exercises more meaningful for students
We are with our students for a short period of time, and so it's important to be more critical with what we decide to do with our students in the classroom. So, from watching the video, I need to think about why I am doing certain activities and what the learning value or purpose is that I want my students to take away from the activity. This will help in saving time and making learning more meaningful for the students.
I tried one of the ideas and suggestions by Penny about letting the students rewrite some of the exercise questions. We are currently studying passive voice in my intermediate grammar class. The students have been struggling with describing why we should use passive voice instead of active voice in some suggestions. So, as part of a review activity, I had students look at an exercise from their book where they had to ask questions that need to be answered in passive voice. I then asked students to work in groups to try to write their own questions that can be answered by another group using passive voice. The students were very engaged in this activity, and they were able to discuss out loud why/how to form these questions, including which questions could not work and why. Afterwards, I collected their work, projected what they did on the board, and worked with the students in correcting their questions/answers. I am attaching some pictures below of examples we did (including some with my corrections).
Hello Suzanne,
ReplyDeleteMaking my teaching more intentional (less waffle!) was one of my takeaways too. Interesting alternate activity. There is a "change from active to passive" activity on a text on Global Warming (or vice versa!!) in one of the books I use. I'm thinking of getting students to write questions to ask another student instead of just rewriting the text (Q formation practice review as well). Thanks.
Wow! I wondered how well letting students write the questions would work. It looks like your students did a great job.
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