What will they remember?

Steve Hargadon has used this poem before in his talks and I like the message. But I wonder sometimes, do we “Old Crows” really know where to go? What principles guide how we use our classroom time? What is the goal? And what will they remember?

Will they remember that day we reviewed for the test? Likely not. Will they remember the day we worked on conjugations? Doubt it.

Will they remember the visits to Bent Elementary, watching El Norte, and realizing that many of these children are just one generation removed from the immigrant experience? Maybe. Will they remember the day we visited the Art Gallery here on campus and talked about what we saw. Maybe. Will they remember the days we spent in the computer lab working together to write plays and letters. Maybe. Will they remember the day Jesús threw a wad of paper from the back of the room, which bounced behind the fluorescent light before landing in the garbage can. Probably.

What will they remember?

Another way to look at this is how habits form. It takes repeating an action at least seven times (made-up number) before it has any hope of sticking. What did I do in my classroom more than seven times that had any hope of sticking in my students’ minds and hearts?

I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when the evals come in. Or when I see them again in 15 years.

Videos and video games without words

I’ve been experimenting with playing SAMOROST 2 in the language classroom. I give students this worksheet and they convert the verbs into commands to tell me how to walk through the level. I know that they find it challenging. There are five levels so I’m hoping that as we move forward with the game that it will become easier. On the other hand, this may be one of those activities that isn’t worth the trouble. We’ll see… I’ll let you know after I’ve given it a fair shake.

Another activity we did today was watch the movie World Builder and then students worked with a partner to describe what happened first, second, third, fourth, etc. (practicing ordinal numbers). Tomorrow we’ll take everyone’s stories and edit them together on EtherPad.

Setting the tone for a learner-centered classroom

This article has some great ideas for how to invite students to work with you in the learning process.

This semester, I created a short survey for my students to fill out at the beginning of class. Besides the typical contact info, I asked questions like the following:

1. Are you a big picture learner (I need the big picture first before I can hang on to details) or a detail-oriented learner (I get overwhelmed by the big picture)?

2. How do you foresee yourself using the knowledge and skills you gain in this class?

3. How would you rank both your skills and motivation in the following areas (i.e. listening, speaking, writing, reading)?

4. What can I do to help you succeed in this class?

Questions like these helped the class to express any concerns or worries they had about their “weak” language acquisition skills or not being fully prepared for the semester. It also gave me a chance to acknowledge which students were seeing this subject matter as important to their future lives as well as recognize the students were taking the class just to fulfill a requirement. Having such a frank discussion at the beginning of class helped everyone to see that everyone was approaching the class and the subject matter from a slightly different angle. Surprisingly, even the students that stated that they were only taking the class to fulfill the requirement have become fully engaged in the class and language learning process because they know that I know where they are coming from.

I’d love to know what other teachers do in their classrooms to create a sense of safety, trust, and cohesiveness. Comment away!

Jiggler for the mac

Plugging my laptop into the projector is a MUST for me and my teaching style. There are days when I don’t need the extra visual, but usually I find it to be a great way to reinforce what we are doing in class. One of the challenges is that the projector likes to “time out” and lose it’s connection with my laptop. Usually a quick brush of my hand on the trackpad solves the problem, but by downloading Jiggler you can stop that problem completely. Jiggler jiggles the mouse every couple minutes, which keeps the connection to the projector awake. Now you never have to worry about the projector dimming down when you’re in the middle of a class discussion.

Etherpad for teaching

Etherpad has been a great tool for my Span102 and Span201 classes this semester. It took awhile for the students to get used to using it, but once everyone learned the URL, it has really enhanced their learning and our efficient use of class time. Every day I assign a student to come to class with a short story (“Hora de cuentos”). They paste the text of their short story on the class Etherpad and read it to the class. Then we work together to refine it, correct errors, and discuss the subject matter. By writing my comments and corrections right there, students are able to vicariously correct their own writing, every day.

Etherpad has also been a great tool for quickly writing up new vocabularly that arises during class conversation. I love that when I type it, I can get it up there faster than using a dry erase marker AND it stays. Students can always go back to review it later.

Same with grammar. Every day in class, I have students presenting examples of the grammar point for that day in front of the class. They often type their notes into EtherPad so that other students can review them later. It’s a great thing!

I use ============ equal signs to break up the different sections on the pad. You can check out our pads in progress here and here.