Group items tagged

The question isn’t just academic. When related to education I think it really has some significance. Of course we have all the data driven, test score driven administrative tom follery. I’m not going to discuss this silly stuff. If you can’t see that emperor has no clothes, well, then dream on….. No, I want to look at how teachers make decisions in their own classroom. Are we like Apple, generals and experts that know and with our charts, handouts, videos, textbooks – steering the ship of students? Or are we listening to students and letting them take hold of the wheel and allowing them to steer the ship?

Of course, most teachers will say that they are the later, they are googlites, they listen to their students. This is the mantra of modern education. However, me thinks this is only cosmetic. Look deeper and almost all teachers are governing their class as “experts”. We truly don’t go down to the level of students or listen to them. We all say that we “listen” and are “data informed” but when push comes to shove – I believe we teach as we were taught. We perpetuate a worn and bedraggled and very much irrelevant orthodoxy. All the while propping up and rationalizing our methods, our job, by saying we are listening to the students, we are listening to the data. However, the facts are out there for

all to see.

extra workload

enhances reading comprehension, improves students’ writing skills and abilities [6].  develops writing and learning strategies [5].  has a positive impact on the content and increases the amount of writing of learners [7].  makes students pay close attention to the formal aspects of writing, both in terms of word choice, structure, and word spelling, attending to sentence and paragraph structure as well as adapting academic style, register and appropriate word [8].  Diminishes barriers to learning English by providing them the opportunity to write freely without being judged for their grammatical mistakes [9].  develops ideas and provide feedback for the authors [10].  enhances student analytical and critical thinking skills [11]  increases student motivation in reading and writing, promotes learner independence and autonomy, and enhances students’ analytical and critical thinking skills [12].

students with low English proficiency may experience difficulty in putting their ideas in order

October 31, 2011

trying to have a conversation with someone you have never met, over a low quality video connection, in a language you don’t speak very well, is quite challenging socially as well as linguistically.