TTELT -Test taking strategies

 Firstly, in this title, I was very interested because a week ago I  made a project related to this topic and I wanted to know another perspective from the ones that I considered through my project. Even more surprised I was when I saw that the guest on the video speaking about this topic was Dr.Christine Coombe.

Two days before, I participated in the 13th Elta conference and it was invited the same guest and it was the first I was listening to her at a conference. So this second time, immediately grabbed my attention and I was watching these tips carefully and willing to perform them in my future as a teacher.

I strongly agree with Christine that teachers play a crucial role to test scores and many pieces of research have proved that. Students acquiring their anxiety and having some test-taking strategies can improve their performance according to Christine's research.

Some of her strategies were looking at three points in time before the test, during the test, and after taking the test strategies. 

• Before the test, we might help students put the test into perspective, at the end of the day a test is only a test.
• In many countries, doing well or not in a test is critically important and that is why also putting the grade into perspective.
• It is not only about getting an A or a 10 (Al) but for us as English teachers is how well our students speak the English language outside of the classroom.
• They should learn about the exam, how they will be tested, and what kind of questions they will encounter.
• It is important for students to develop reasonable expectations
• Using relaxation techniques
• Preview the test paper before jumping into answers
• Reading the directions carefully can save you a lot of time and effort
• Answering the sections on the test  you think is easy so you can build up your confidence
• Research shows that you should not go to the test doing randomly changes in your answers
• ignore any distractions (sb might deliver it faster than you but that doesn't mean you have failed, you have your own test-taking experience

1. These strategies and more conveyed by Christine, I found them very valuable and I learned a lot from them. It was very useful and that is why I listed some points that I found most interesting and new for me so I can have here written and use them in my future. Also, I wanted to share them with you since we are getting into the exam season very soon, so these tips we will need them for sure. 
2. I will make sure to use all these tips in the real classroom because through these tips I can improve their performance during the test. Furthermore, they will ameliorate their emotional state and anxiety because traditionally tests are mixed with these feelings and that is why students tend to fail or get confused during the test.
3. It might look like small details when you have a look at them, but these details make the difference, and as research has shown it has raised their test score. So that is what a good teacher does, helping their students to get better scores not only in the class just for the sake of the test but learning to apply it in the real practical world. I am glad that I learned from the TTELT website, I will watch these videos from now on to learn more tips and improve myself in the aspect of teaching the English language. ( So thank you Professor Daniela for always bringing valuable apps and websites for us)

Thank you for reading my blog!

See you next week!😍

The decide and design stages of preparing a Multimedia Project!

 

Multimedia products are those resources that are composed of different formats, such as audio, text, video, images, or animation. These are intended to bring information to the student, that is, the viewer of the content.

• DECIDE is the first phase of the DDD-E process, and it involves a significant amount of planning and organization. Planning includes setting instructional goals, deciding on a project, developing prerequisite skills, and assessing computer availability and other necessary resources.

There are multiple stages to creating multimedia projects, but the DECIDE phase is the most

critical to their success. The stages that follow depend on the planning, organization, and research activities conducted in the DECIDE phase; each stage depends on its predecessor. The time needed to complete each stage will depend on the size and complexity of the project, as well as the level and number of students in each group. Well-managed classrooms and organized projects will add to the success of students’ multimedia endeavors and learning.

Deciding the project's goals  -In this phase we decide which goals we are going to achieve in the end, for us as teachers and for our students to convey through the process.

Planning and organizing-in this phase we plan our work in the form which will be presented and the organization of the content 

Identifying the target audience-This is the key moment where we decide upon our audience because based on this choice we decide on all other features,(template, colors, level of difficulty, games, etc)every detail is related to the audience.

Conducting research- Collecting data, and information regarding our topic lesson and the audience too. To get inspired and new ideas we look up different resources and materials.

Choosing a concept-we should choose a good concept that goes smoothly through our audience and it combines perfectly the topic lesson, eg-(on Halloween day, we decided to bring pumpkins, and candles in order to fulfill the concept of this holiday )

Designing stages

 The DESIGN phase is crucial to developing a multimedia project. The content outline,
flowchart, planning sheets, and storyboards serve as the blueprints for the program and help to ensure
that the project’s goals will be met. In the DESIGN phase, we participate in organizing information for optimal presentation; determining the most appropriate sequence; and outlining the details of the text, graphics, audio, video, and interactivity.

Storyboarding-in this step we list our materials in the form they are going to be animated, presented, and the order of activities.

Visual design-the visual part is my favorite part because I love choosing the perfect layout, and color combination. I am obsessed with templates. (Fun fact: whenever I am doing a multimedia project it takes me 2 hours or more to pick the template and then go with other steps.)

Content creation-choose the proper template and study each detail of that template if there is a small icon not related to the topic we should omit it. Picking the right images, and videos always relates to the topic lesson, or it will lose the principal intention of the lesson.

Technical problems-We should rehearse our materials before presenting them because at home everything might be perfect but technical problems might appear in class so we should take care of each detail regarding the technology tools that we are going to use. 

Documentation-We should keep notes for every decision or change we have made to our multimedia project so we could present it in the desired form. Also, we use this stage to have it as a reminder of any activity we might forget at the moment.

In conclusion, decide and design stages are both evolving and engaging through the process ,but in order to  have a successful multimedia project we must follow these stages precisely and in a coherent form.

Chapter 3

 

Constructivism and autonomous learning.

 

“If you tell somebody something, you've forever robbed them of the opportunity to discover it for themselves.” ― Curt Gabrielson

Every week that we are passing through we are learning new techniques, strategies, apps, and programs that lead us to one path which is constructivist theory. We have dealt the last semester a lot through this theory and we know very well that is a crucial part of our profession as future teachers.

Firstly, here is a reminder of what is this theory about and who brought this up and delighted the art of teaching.

• The constructivist theory is based on the idea that learners are active participants in their learning journey; knowledge is constructed based on experiences. As events occur, each person reflects on their experience and incorporates the new ideas with their prior knowledge. Learners develop schemas to organize acquired knowledge. This model was entrenched in learning theories by Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, Gagne, and Bruner.
• I admire the concept of constructivist learning because it opposites very well the traditional classes we had before and highlights the best ways to ameliorate the quality of teaching day by day. Being an active participant in the learning journey is the best thing a pupil-student could have.

The processes involved in the construction of learning would be the following:

• Assimilation: it is the internalization of the information or event to a pre-existing cognitive structure with the aim of deciphering it using knowledge obtained from previous but related experiences. Assimilation is the understanding of the new event by relating it to one's own cognitive structure.
• Accommodation: the incorporation of new knowledge into the cognitive structure, through the creation of a new knowledge scheme or by modifying a pre-existing scheme.

Constructivism learning defends that reality is not an external factor, but an internal one. In this way, two people can experience the same event and have different meanings for each of them. For example, for one person earning a lot of money may mean having a symptom of success, however for another person it may mean a symptom of greed, it all depends on your interpretation and previous experiences that relate to it.

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTIVISM

1. The individual builds knowledge by actively interacting with the object of study
2. Learning is facilitated thanks to mediation, interaction, and negotiation with others
3. Learning is an internal constructive process that feeds itself on new data and experiences.
4. The degree of learning depends on the level of general cognitive development
5. New knowledge acquires meaning when it is related to previous knowledge and experiences.
6. Previous knowledge is the starting point of all learning and will be key in its future
7. Learning occurs when what the individual already knows conflicts with what he or she should know.
8. The social and cultural context of the person influences the construction of the meaning of this learning

Thank you for reading my blog!

See you next week!

My project ,,,Trick or treat?!

As you can notice from my title and image up here my project topic lesson was about Halloween Day.

The project presentation was the most challenging, interesting assignment due to this subject. A hard work of hours refined into a final product which I and my partner took care of every detail to succeed in our work. Every day we were full of new ideas on how to work better on our ongoing process. This happens due to infinite technology tools that every day keep evolving and bringing us a wide choice of interactive lessons.

• This holiday is well-known for its dark atmosphere and we brought pumpkins and candles into class and which brought us on 31st October day even though we were in mid-May. That is the power of an organized setting with small physical details we can intervene in our learners' minds and attract their attention at the beginning of the lesson and get into the right path of learning new information about this topic.
• In addition, we prepared a slide with 3 simple questions about this celebration. That was a good  strategy to leave space for the students so they can express their opinions and create a discussion in the class
• Furthermore, I was in a dilemma if I should give this new information by explaining a couple of slides or just using a video or using both o them. We decided on both of them.

That is the first thing I would change is omitting the information written on the first slides and just going through with a video.

• After students were informed, then we decided to go through with a game called Halloween Race, the class was separated into 2 teams, the witch and ghost team. There are 18 letters and each letter hides a word related to Halloween (mummy, bat, candy), etc. They took turns and picked a letter and tried to find where the word candy is hidden. The first team to get to the candy is the winner. 
• Through this interactive game, they learned new words in a fun and interactive form just by using this technology tool with the design of pumpkins and other figures that symbolize Halloween.
• After that, we continued with a special quiz Quiziz. com, which was not used before. I am saying special because you give the correct answer by drawing it or recording it as a voice message. 
• This was a challenging app to create and also using it but was definitely worth it because it is creative and a clever strategy to learn through entertainment. Gamification motivates students and makes them love their classes.
•  We also brought a Halloween song where new words were reinforced better and they enjoyed that.

Finally, we decided on Mentimeter, where they wrote what they learned, memorized best, and their favorite activity. There were things I would change as I mentioned, but I am happy with the result, and important is that I saw their reflections and the interactivity they conveyed in the class through our hard and passionate work. 

Thank you!

See you next week!😍

Abstract -Successful teaching

Graduate level

Researcher: Hanife Demnushaj

Presentation Title: Succesful teaching

School: Faculty of Foreign Languages\University of Tirana

Student Level: Masters\1 st Group A

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation\Powerpoint

                                                    Abstract:

Teaching is an art in itself, and to develop this art, a teacher must possess the right qualities and skills. The teacher is a figure of great value, he is the foundation of the whole society, since from the teacher come generations of doctors, lawyers, economists and any other kind of profession. Based on my research, the teacher is the biggest influencer in the formation of a person both academically and humanely. To educate and educate generations is not an easy thing, it requires a high capacity of knowledge, great patience, high teaching and management skills, so the work of a teacher can be considered as a difficult and heavy job, but at the same time and very beautiful. I keep in mind, Horace's expression where he says that a great teacher inspires. I strongly support this expression from my experience as a student, since really the good and great teachers who loved and did their work with love and devotion, inspired me and inspired me. In this conference, I will try to list and argue some of the most basic qualities of a successful and modern teacher, qualities that I will always try to keep in mind as a future teacher.

Webquest

 

                                                

Salute everyone and welcome to my blog!

Every week that we are passing through we are learning new techniques, strategies, apps, and programs that lead us to one path which is constructivist theory. We have dealt the last semester a lot through this theory and we know very well that is a crucial part of our profession as future teachers.

• Furthermore, we can not deal with this theory without the proper, colorful, creative programs such as Webquest, Eddpuzle, Canva, Genially, Mindmapping, and Interactive video lessons. Word cloud generators, etc. As I have mentioned before we are lucky to live in the TechnoWorld, because of these opportunities we have a lot of ways to use to teach and learn in an interactive form that is in a symbiotic relation with students vs teachers.

•  I would like to reflect a bit on the last app I used, Webquest. Firstly, I was a bit disoriented, it was unknown to me, but as Piaget says we should get out of our comfort zone and explore the unknown and succeed in the path of the new things we can learn just by being active participants through the learning process. 

• In addition to,we learn better when we may fail on the first try, but then when we get into the right process we never forget the way how we learned by ourselves just looking for the solution to the problem and not getting it granted by the teacher. That is constructivist learning, learning through your actions and thinking processes with some hints and the supervision of the teacher. That is a student-oriented class, where the student is an active learner who finds the solution on their own and reflects on the form of how we learn things and that is a never-ending process, cause we never stop learning. That is the law of life.
• That happened like thousand times even today I would say, because whenever I am facing a problem or an unknown situation I get into a critical thinking process and in the end, after minutes, hours, or days it depends on the sort of subject or project I get my desired results. That happened with Webquest today and I am very excited that I am going share it with you.

              Here is my wehquest-         http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=784793

Through these apps, we might make colorful presentations that grab the attention of the students and make them learn interestingly and more easily. Also, using this app we leave space for students to react and take the first place through their process of learning by themselves.

Finally , in the examples I have mentioned below, constructivism theory and all these programs affect learning in relation to teaching/learning English as a foreign language.

Thank you😍

See you next week!