Week 10: Closing a Chapter, Waiting for Next

As Maria and Julio reflected themselves, we came close to the end. But it would means that we can leap off the current status for the next stride.

Last 9 weeks, I learned a lot. What was the most useful? I would say, PBL with the technology. I learned that PBL can be conducted online beyond the place and time differences. It also showed that students including me can be more technically active and cooperative when learning. Using ANVILL is a whole new experience too. Delicious.com is the sites that I like the most through whole programs. Actually, not a single task or discussion even learning a post here is valuable and precious as a teacher. They served as the scaffolding on which we could pass through the stage. Within well-organized program, well-trained instructor Janine, and well-thought participants, I now assure that TEAM which is the same name of my project. Together Each Achieves More. I hope that many of Korean teachers will share the experience with web-skills program sponsored by U.S. Embassy.

THANK you, Janine! THANK you, ALL!

May all be happy!

Week9 : Technology and Learning Styles

We went through almost 9 different destinations before we arrived at the final destination.I already had mixed feeling.
This week I had full time read about whole different learning styles ranging from MI to MBTI test to  Kolb's Learning Cycle Model, and Felder-Silverman Learning Style Dimensions . I like the occasional article from ther professors of different field. It gave me a fresh  and new aspect on how to observe students' learning styles. Grasha-Riechamann learning styles shows more practical approach on understanding diverse students who have different educational and cultural backgound. Once again, this week reinforced me to go toward understanding students and made me think of suitable learning stratgegies to each student.
 The final report project from the first draft to the final, I put my all the results from the week 1 to 8. It gave me a meaningful insight. If I designed the project in a organized way before students jumping into the project, they will learn more of contents as well as the way they set up their learning. Giving feedback back and forth with my partner Mari was memorable experience with an intearnational teacher. Thank you, Mari!

I now learned that teacher shoud be the multitasking inspector gadgets. Equipped with the various ways of teaching styles, a whole variety of technical tools and creative thinking in mind, a teacher provided as preferrable learning environment as possible to their students.


Always faithfully,
Michelle Hyesun LEE

Week8 : Teacher Resources Online

Teachers in the past had come by GOOD, quite broad and general concept though, teaching resouces. Sometimes they created their own materials and home in on them during the whole teaching years. But things have changed a lot. Teachers now are readily approach the online-based resources even on the street using smartphone application. This week, I walked toward the online exercise creators. I already met some of them and kept them company but there's still jaw-dropping fancy sites. ANVILL is one of them. I am really gratefull to Jeff Majoto to bring this issues here. Ladened with the brilliant ideas, I collect myself to encourage students to practice oral skills which lack of students' daily lives. I am sure that this will regain "Can-Do-Spirit" to my students and let them hold more accountable on their learning.
 Thanks to my partner Maria Carmen, I am much more keen on myself and my final report. Reading Maria's draft, though not finished, showed me a good way of complete form of final report. Her endeavor and enthusiasm toward the final report is so sincere and ardent, I looked back on my project report again.
Day by day, Week by week, I am grateful to everything that I could work for web-skills program and the amazing colleagues  form every corner in the world that work with. When I was invited the alumni of webinar program, I already share the merit of this program with the Korean teachers and highly recommend this program to them. I hope that next session, other Korean teachers might have a sheer luck!

Thank you, Maria and all other teachers!

Week7 : Learner Autuonomy and One-computer classroom

This week, when I worked on the issues like Learner autonomy, I was immersed into the topic more than ever because this was the long-term topic for me. Just after 15 days of graduation, I was offered a teaching job. It was an international school. Half of the students lived abroad using English or other languages more than a year. English is another first language to them. The students who were born in Korea also have a greater expectation on learning English by themselves. At the time, I was only thinking that how I could enhance my professional skills such as the application of new teaching theory or project-based learning. But when I have a job in other area which is quite isolated and full of unprivileged students, the learning aims and teaching strategies were at stake. Then came the motivation issues. From the first day to end, I had to think how can I catch students’ attention during class? How can I make a joke related to English? How can I teach vocabulary adding fun factor? I think elevating students’ motivation and learning needs are the hardest part for any kinds of teachers. How can we, as teachers, ignite students' lower esteem and lack of motivation into a vivid and lively burning fuel to learn by themselves?

This is I found from my students.

First, give the topic related to their real life rather than that from textbook. It was what Richard Smith called, "Relevance".

Second, let them have many of storytelling. It would be the fairytales which usually ends up with the nice people with the good luck, funny story which make them laugh with English, or anecdotes from the biographies of famous figures, newspaper, articles. This make the motivation and self-efficacy stronger and wider.

Third, let them involve. The earlier days of my teaching career, I would stick to the pages that I planned to cover in a period. There's little flexibility. But now I could see bigger picture. I could go faster or slower the pace depending on students' readiness. One day, if they are fully ready, I could give more information than usual and talked about the topic in a deeper version. If class doesn't respond well enough than usual, I slow down the pace of the lesson and let them talk or write about the topic with ample time. This is the way I found and applied to my class so far. I hope that I will find the suitable way to have my students feel the joy of learning. I  also want my students to hold accountable on thier learning.

Week 6: Implementing the Technology-related Change in Class

                              Click a PREZI on Tae-Geuk-GI (Korean National Flag)

                                                                   


Two weeks ago,  I threw several questions to my studensts. The first quetions is "Are you familar with the Powerpoint?" All 15 students anwered positive. And second question goes like this : " How familiar are you in creating new PPT slides by yourself on a scale of 1 to 5?" The answered showed me they are not quite sure about making new PPT for the presentation. But I challenged myself further. "Have you ever heard of Prezi? None of the students are mindful when I was saying PREZI. They looked all blank and aloof. So I showed them one of my Prezis, which exactly illustrated students the final product they would create at the end of Project Week. They were very into the new form of presentation and some of them alreadt decided to go with PREZI instead of PPT. I love this positive and intriguing attitude toward new technology. It will help a lot in both sense : Language and Technology. And they will be more confident when the days are come for a REAL presentation in university or job-related presentation. I want my students to take a big stride toward new gadgets or presentation form and learning how to work together as a TEAM. In a group work, as all language teachers noticed, there are some students who are weaker at language but strong at technology. I wish that I could help both types of students in one class.

Week 5: How will be PBL beneficial to the students

     
When students are young, we are more likely to belive their potential and give them as much praise as possible. But with the time our(paernts' and teachers') expectation would be way too high. They lose the beliefs on studensts autonomy and the power of the self-learning stragegy. How can we regain our confidence on the belief on students and their studies? I think the experince waing time is quite important. Students of course should learn, not at our pace but at their own pace. We, as parents of teachers give them a right amount of resources they use and wait for them to bloom like the spring bring the flowers to blossom. I believe project-based learning could be the one solution. From first to end, studenst activate themselves to research, connect the separate items in order and bring mundane data in life with the innovative delivery styles. This is how students approach the real-life problems. They at first figure out what the core and critical problem is amongst the possibles problematic situation. Second, they have to research all the way throught to find out the possible solution. Then they analyze the soultions on the list according to their ciritical thinking or practical benefits. After that, they implement the process they chose and find out strong and weak points of using the selected soltuion. They accumulated these expereinces with the different topics, they might increase practical sense of problem-solving techniques not experimenting all the possible paths putting ahead of them. It will be the goal of PBL and this merit will never acquire throught traditional way of teaching.

Week 5: Tech-savvy Teacher

I have walked almost half way through the course. The more weeks go by, the more confidece I have as a tech-savvy teacher in every way. I was afraid of applying new technology into my class and had a fear throwing "what if" questions. What if I could not follow all the instruction that is only conducted online? What if I failed in completing this project? But this program has been part of my life and taught me great pleasure of teaching, learning and sharing. I believe that familarity breeds likings. It can also apply to my students. They at frist might have a huge fear of using English for the project-based learning. But if I break down the whole process into small steps, they would follow several steps without knowing that they are on the big project and slowly and smoothly move on to the goal they set. I hope that I would be a good role model who use English and technology in the practical use and we were all born to be digital natives.