Week 10. Reflections

Time flies. I can't believe that the difficult but really exciting course is over. Thanks to Sean and other moderators I have learned a lot of tools of modern technology and started using them. I see that my way of teaching has greatly improved.

I am also grateful to all my virtual co-students who were very helpful and cooperative. I have learned a lot from them and really enjoyed working together. I hope I will "meet" them on other virtual courses I am going to take.

This week I researched the articles from Washington and Florida which were really interesting. According to Tiers of Technology Integration, I discovered that my school is being practicing the second tier, which means conducting the lessons with the help of the only class computer and a video projector. I use it mainly for teaching English Literature and other audio-video materials. Unfortunately we have only one computer room in our school, so I cannot use it every day. I take my students there mainly 2-3 times a month.

Despite highly developed technologies including hi-tech, Israel still lacks computers in the classrooms. There are only special computer rooms in schools. But some changes are being made. The Ministry of Education is going to introduce taking matriculation exams only online, so Israeli schools will have to make the rocess of learning more computerized. I believe that our country is on the way to the third tier, a it was described in the article from Washington University. Some hi-tech schools have already done it.

All the best!
Julia

Week 9. Reflections.

This week seems to me the most difficult one because we had not only to check our peers' rough versions of the projects, but complete checking, correcting, or maybe redoing ours. Finally our projects are ready, so the main part of this course has ben done.

This week we have been researching learning styles. There are seven ones:



 

I teach at school for special education, so when we accept new students, we create a learning profile for each one, which includes:

 

- the student's age

 

- gender

 

- cultural background and native language

 

- emotional and social maturity

 

- IQ

 

- which LD he/she has

 

- learning style.

 

How can one teacher adress all of these needs of each student?

 

- by variety of methods

- by flexibility

- by providing multiple options and have another plan of the lesson in store

- by recognizing that NOT all students need to do the same things at the same time and in the same way.

 

In accordance with this data we make an individual educational plan (IED). That means which ways of teaching all the teachers are supposed to use and compound the lesson plans using differentiate instructions. Fortunately we have only 8 kids in each class, so it is not very difficult to work in acordance with the IED. Besides, our school has a team of teacher's assistants who sometimes sit in the classrooms during the lessons and help us. Some kids prefer only solitary learning style, so we try to provide him individual consultations during the school day. Mainly teacher's assistants do that outside the classroom.

 

To sum up, everything that LD teachers do at school is acceptable, even if it has beed considered strange or senseless. Even sitting with a hyperactive kid outside during the lesson and watch the view of the Mediterranean Sea and trying to make him study at least only few words in English or playing a game with him thal looks like a card game. There is only one motto of a LD teacher: "Don't give up!"



Reflection of Week 8

Hello everybody!
I can't believe that we are going to finish the course soon. My students and I are on holiday now because we are celebrating Hanukkah. Nevertheless I have a lot to do.  This week I have been busy mainly with my project, so I had very little time to explore the toos offered by Jeff and Sean.

I have created the blog for my students. http://jkoifma.blogspot.co.il/
for more details click here:
 http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9157355328329368896#editor/target=post;postID=1159859414913094865;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=6;src=postname

I will introduce it to my students next week when we return to school from holiday. In this site I posted the topics for project that are supposed to be writen in the 11th grade and in 12th grade the students take an oral exam and a presentation with th external tester.

Now I have been exploring such sites as Hot Potatoes http://hotpot.uvic.ca/index.php and the Easy Test Maker https://www.easytestmaker.com/  I have never heard about these sites, but I will certainly use them in my teaching. I used to compose tests in another way, mainly copying texts and downloading grammar exercises from the Internet, but now it will be much easier. This is my first quiz about the story "A Summer's Reading" by Bernard Malamud. https://www.easytestmaker.com/Test/6B8FDEC7C5EF4B9A8B7CCB49C58FDEC7 I think I'll give it to my students a week after the end of the Hanukkah vacation. I often give them quizes for 10-15 minutes, so I'll compose them only on the Test Maker Site.

I have also started to develop the Literature Course in the ANVILL. I have a lot to do, of course, so currently you can see only these materials https://anvill.uoregon.edu/anvill2/node/49936
 In my opinion, audio-visual tool will work well, but the problem is that we have only one computer room in our school and each teacher has to wait for his\her turn to use it. Therefore I will recommend my students to use it at home after I have completed it myself.

Happy Thanksgiving to all American friends!

Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate Jewish holidays!