Survey Questions

Survey Questions

1-      For what purposes did you use your blog during the Fled 412 course?

2-      Did engaging with the blog tasks affect your view about your practice teaching experience or not? How?

3-      a. What is your opinion about posting your tasks to your blog where there was an audience?

b. Approximately, how many posts of your peers did you read for each task? 

c. Did reading your peers’ posts affect you or your own posts? How?

4-      a. How many of the comments you received did you read?

b. Did receiving comments and writing comments affect your learning? How?

5-      a. How did you feel about using blogs as part of this course?

b. Do you think that a blog was an appropriate platform or not in order to think critically on your teaching experience during practicum?

6-      a. What can you say about the technical issues related to blogging?

b. Was it easy or difficult for you to adapt and continue blogging within this course?

7-      a. Would you prefer to do paper based tasks or blog tasks within this course?

b. Can you share if you think one is superior to the other with the reasons?

8-      a. During the Fled 412 course did you think back on your and your friends’ practice teaching experience? If yes, what helped you?

b. Does thinking on your practicum experience help you or not; how?

9-      During this course, have you felt as part of an online practice community or not? Why/why not?

10-   Do you think that blogging helped you make progress or not in terms of being a reflective teacher?

(Reflective teacher is smo who thinks back on his/her teaching experience critically in order to improve professionally.)

Journal Entries

TASK 7: Journal entries-Due May 30                                            

Description: A personal diary summarizes what you learn in the classroom observations. You can find reflection questions to guide these entries in the front pages of your reading package (Appendix 1). You are responsible for writing 2 entries. Post this on your blogs: 2 journal entries within the same post, seperated by headings such as "Journal Entry 1" and "Journal Entry 2". 

Label the post as "Task 7"

Name the post as "Journal Entries"

Peer Feedback and Self Evaluation

TASK 6: a. Peer Feedback & b. Self Evaluation-Due May 30

a. Description (Peer feedback): A critical evaluation of the videos of the official presentations of five peers. Two peers should be your partners and the other three from class, someone you haven’t observed before. You can find reflection questions to guide these entries in the front pages of your reading package (Appendix 6). Make sure you follow up on the comments you received from your peers. Watch your friends' videos and post your evaluation on your own blog by mentioning your friends' first names only. Please, seperate the evaluations with titles. Don't write your comment under the videos, post your peer feedback on your own blog for 5 friends within the same post with seperated headings. 

b. Description (Self-evaluation): You will be reflecting on two of your official presentations of your own choice. This should be a critical evaluation. What were the strengths and weaknesses? What could have been done differently? Any suggestions for others? What did you learn? Make sure you integrate the feedback you received from others. Post this on your blogs.

Name your post as "Peer Feedback and Self Evaluation"
Label it as "Task 6"

Video Upload

Description: Video-tape your official presentation, upload a 10-20 minute section of the most active part of your lesson to your professional blog. Along with this, include a short description of the context. Who are the learners? How many students are there? What type of school is it? What is the grade level? This description should be informative enough so that your peers in class can comment.

-Make sure you DO NOT use any school, teacher, student names in your blogs. 

Due: May 9

Reflection on the designed activity Task

First Step: Choose the students in one of your training classes as a target group. Create a class activity/task for the target group and apply this activity in one of your official/unofficial presentations. (You have already done at least one of your official/unofficial presentations. You can choose an activity from that presentation if you want.)

Second Step: Describe and evaluate this activity/task. What went well/wrong? Why? What could have been done better? Would you use this activity again? What would you change if you did it again?

Third Step: Visit your classmates’ blogs; choose 2 peers’ posts related to this task and comment on them. 

DUE: April 22

Video Editing in Windows Movie Maker

1- First, go to the start menu in your computer and search for "movie maker" or "windows live movie maker". 
2- If you can't find the software, then you need to download it. 
3- Click on movie-maker-download and get the appropriate version of the movie maker for your computer's operating system (Windows 8, 7, Vista, etc.) for free. 
4- Video editing workshop is on April 11, Thursday. 
5- If you need more guidance watch these videos which explain the basics of editing videos in movie maker.

     

Credits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzcASlpA7qg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYiIo9AfHuM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW55DRxEloI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMkhXnaOrhw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qqWhqVmg6Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On-ti-_2iFY

Classroom Management Task

Task Description: Design a classroom management tool considering one of your training classes as the target group. Describe and evaluate this tool on your blog. Talk to your cooperating teacher about the tool and take feedback from the cooperating teacher of the target class about the possible effectiveness of your tool and mention it in your post. (You don't have to apply the tool in class, but ask your cooperating teacher what would happen if somebody used that tool in that class.)

Include answers to these questions within your post:

• Why is your tool appropriate, effective and functional?
• What kind of problems would you anticipate if you applied this tool in class? How would you deal with them?

Finally: Don't forget to answer the following two questions:

• How do you plan to reflect on your own classroom management when you start teaching? How will you evaluate your own classroom management? 

Post your comment to your blog. Visit your classmates’ blogs; choose 2 peers’ posts related to Task 3 and comment on them.

DON'T FORGET TO LABEL YOUR POST AS "TASK 3"!

WRITE YOUR POST TITLE AS "CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TASK".

Due: March 28

Video-Critique Task

TASK 2: Video-Critique Task- Due: March 14

Description: Watch the teaching videos uploaded on the course blog. You can comment on both Video 1 and Video 2 at the same time or you can choose only one of them. After watching:

•          Evaluate the teaching performance(s) in terms of

                                  i.       teaching methods/ techniques /materials

                                 ii.      class management

                               iii.       task types

                               iv.       teacher-student rapport

                                v.        student engagement

                              vi.        pedagogical content knowledge of the teacher

•         What was/were the teacher(s) good/bad at?
•          How would you do things differently if you were the teacher in that context?

Post your comment to your blog. Visit your classmates’ blogs; choose 2 peers’ posts related to Task 2 and comment on them.

DON'T FORGET TO LABEL YOUR POST AS "TASK 2"!

WRITE YOUR POST TITLE AS "VIDEO CRITIQUE TASK".

Task 2 Teaching Videos

Video 1

Video 2

Credits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZQFErJn-Eg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9CZRcSVVBE

TASK 1: Critical Incident Analysis Task

Think back on your experiences as a pre-service teacher in the first semester. Did anything outstanding happen? Analyze an event of your choice critically and reflect on it. Post this to your blog. After that, visit your classmates’ blogs; choose 2 peers’ posts related to this task and comment on them.

Details of the task: 

Choose a critical episode: for example, students continually arriving late, students talking during class discussions.
• Describe the incident:
when and where it happened (time of day, location and social context)
 what actually happened (who said or did what)
what you were thinking and feeling at the time and just after the incident.

• Interrogate your description as follows.
Why did this incident stand out?
What was going on? Were there different levels of behavior or activity? or Did I bring personal bias or a particular mindset to the event? Could I have interpreted this event differently from another point of view? What can I learn from this episode? What can I do to progress a resolution of the problem(s) it suggests?

• Find a friend or teacher to: share your account of the episode, to discuss your interpretation

 Modify your analysis, where necessary, in the light of peer suggestion, advice, and perspective.

• Where appropriate, you may want to compare your analysis with the views of other key people involved in the episode (students, your cooperating teacher or other pre-service teachers)

• Don't mention any school names or teacher full names. 

In addition to these points, you are welcome to elaborate on the points which are not listed above. 

Before you write your analysis, please read the detailed information and examples about critical incident analysis here.

DON'T FORGET TO LABEL YOUR POST AS "TASK 1"!

WRITE YOUR POST TITLE AS "CRITICAL INCIDENT ANALYSIS".

Due: March 7

Scoring guide for your posts

1.       promptness: Do you make your required postings on time? 

Are you careful about due dates? 

2.       reflective quality: Do you reflect on your teaching practices, 

teaching theories critically? 

3.       content: Do your postings deal the assigned task from many aspects?

 Dou you address all the issues about the subject? 

4.       depth: Do you postings and comments deal with issues in depth or superficially? 

5.       originality: Do you have your own ideas, voice or style in your postings? 

6.       clarity: Do you make your point clear in your postings? 

7.       use of images, graphics and multimedia: Do you use alternative forms 

in your postings? Do you use them appropriately? 

How high are their quality (sound quality, visual quality etc.)? 

8.       rules: Do you follow the blog rules, comment rules and 

task requirements when making your posts? 

9.       overall: Is it easy to navigate on your blog? 

Does it look like a professional teacher candidate’s blog?

 Do you organize your titles, labels, and captions regularly? 

Guidelines for Blogging and Commenting

1-      Use only your first name on your blog. Don’t use any last names, school names (never mention your training school’s name), or personal information. You can use pseudonyms if you want.

2-      If you own another blog, don’t link that blog to this one.

3-      Check for spelling and grammar before making a post.

4-      You are free to post any links, media, information, etc. about foreign language education to your blog. However, this is a class project; keep your posts within the allowances and requirements of this class.

5-      It will be highly appreciated if you enrich your posts via using different forms of multimedia.

6-      Try to be constructive rather than offensive in your comments and posts.

7-      Edit your official presentation videos before uploading to your blog. Never post any videos longer than 10-15 minutes.

8-      Label your required postings as “required”.

9-      Use captions for images or multimedia posts and acknowledge the sources.

Optional posts in FLED 412-416 Blog

You are the owner of your blog. It is a personal professional space where you can share your own voice in teaching. Besides the required posts, you can personalize your blog with your own choice of posts related to being a prospective English language teacher. For example you can share photos of your teaching experiences or news about upcoming events, conferences about foreign language teaching. You are free to choose the media form of the posts (written, audial or visual). It’s highly appreciated if you visit as many as your friends’ blogs and share your thoughts with them in order to experience the advantages of being part of a learning community.

Required tasks and posts

1-      Critical incident analysis task + 2 peer comments

2-      Video-critique task + 2 peer comments

3-      Classroom Management Task+ 2 peer comments

4-      Uploading 2 official presentation videos.

5-      Reflection on the designed activity Task + 2 peer comments

6-    Peer feedback on two peers’ official presentation videos + 2 follow ups & Self        evaluations of two official presentations of yours.

7-      Posting 2 journal entries 

Introduction

This semester, you are invited to develop your own professional blog as part of a blog study where you will be asked to fulfill 75% of your Fled 412-416 course requirements online. This professional blog of yours is intended to be an individual space where you will be able to share your teaching experiences with your classmates, think back on them together and understand our strengths and weaknesses better among many other contributions.  You may question your teaching beliefs and you may rebuild them. 

Good luck with your new blogs!