Dear All,
Are you all aware that we have already passed the half mark of our course. I never felt that we are at the latter part, as we always are busy with the work and look forward to the next. I wonder what we will be doing after the end of this course. One thing I plan to do is, to go through all the readings leisurely and digest the material much more. We have to start practicing all these great methods with our students. I know some of you are doing it already, but for me, when I started the course it was the end of the semester and I'll have a chance to try them after the students return in December for the new Semester.
I was amazed by the concepts, methods and tools I came across during this week. I personally don't like to teach large classes as it's very tiring and you just don't get convinced, if you have done a genuine job with them, at the end of the day. But after seeing all the very interactive, innovative and thought provoking material we came across, my fear and negative thoughts vanished. I would love to take hold of a large class and practice some of these techniques to see how they work on large numbers.
The other BIGGEST challenge I had was the PowerPoint slides. As I've mentioned in my post, I normally don't use them in teaching, but students do it all the time, mainly in their academic presentations. First I never felt the challenge as I thought the instructions will lead me where I have to go. But unfortunately, my PP version is 2011 and the instruction sheet is for a older version. As soon as I realized that, I panicked as I didn't have anybody to get help at that time. Once I rang a friend, he asked me to follow the Help and I'll be fine. As he said, I referred to PP Help and ended up enjoying every moment being there. I'm happy for what I've done for the first time, but there's lot more to learn on PP. I'm thinking of all possibilities in incorporating this technique together with some interesting YouTube videos to the lessons, to make them more fun filled for the learners.
As always, I'm very grateful to Donna in exposing us to these tools like PP which are not new to most of us. But, the beauty of this learning is/was and always will be the new way of looking at the known/unknown resources and use them in a quite remarkable manner. Donna, what could we do without your kind guidance and encouragement!
Inquisitively waiting for Week 7!
Hello Chandy,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, interactivity is the essence of Week 6. Like you, I appreciate so much new concepts learned here and the weekly challenge posed on us.
We may not be experts in an instant, but with more time, exposure and practice, I am sure we'll perfect this craft.
My best regards and wishing you all the best.
REBECCA
Hi Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my Blog often and in leaving a comment.
Yes, hopefully we will be more professional at the end of this course. Its amazing, isn't it that we learn a lot within 10 weeks? I think the credit should go to the 'brains' behind the course. That's why I feel eternally grateful to our Donna.
All the Best for You too!
Chandy
Chandy,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the difficult work that large groups represent. I usually use PPT for lectures and included some animation but Donna gave some new ideas. These helped me redesign my presentations, and the blank slide worked miracles since students usually rely on visuals a lot.
Letty
Hi Chandy,
ReplyDeleteWell done for making the week count. This is the beauty of course that we have been learning amazing things. Teaching large class is one of them. I know it's a challenge to teach it. But we also never know when we are going to find ourselves in middle of such class. At least being an educator, we should equip ourselves with all the tools required to tackle such situation.
Tariq Hayat
Dear Letty & Tariq,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting in my Blog. Yes, I agree as teachers we should be equipped with everything to face the situations well. I think this course had given us enough resources and lots of thinking to do in new avenues. I'm sad to reaise we have three more weeks to go :(.
Chandy
Hi Chandy!
ReplyDeleteYou're right! Most of the reading material and skills require deeper reflection and more hands on practice. I also plan to revisit most of the things because I think I couldn't fully exploit them.
I'm sorry I couldn't join you in week 6 but I'm catching up with it now.
Muhammad Rashid
Hi Rashid,
ReplyDeleteThanks for visitng and leaving a post in my Blog. We definetly need revisitng everything to digest and to contemplate on matters more deeply.
If we don't do so, after another three weeks time, we will start to get blank moments and will feel the vaccume. So, we have to keep the things happening.
Chandy