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This is my final COETAIL course with Robert Appino at SSIS. It has been a journey of inspiration, self-reflection and sometimes exhaustion. Finding time to complete the projects has always been the challenge, but the best part of the journey is being inspired by the ideas, thoughts and questions that I have come across. The involvement with COETAIL has changed how I teach. One of the criteria I use to guide my planning is the SAMR Model. I am aware not all activity or lesson can be or should be technology-driven to reach the Redefinition stage, but the model has become a permanent item on my checklist when I design a unit or a lesson – “what students can DO with technology so they are actively engaged in learning that is meaningful and relevant to them?”
As a high school Mandarin teacher in Saigon, in addition to the mixed levels classes, the lack of authentic exposure to the target language is also a challenge. I know I should not be the only source that my students learn from; they should have the resources and skills to learn from each other and by themselves. I also know I need to differentiate in a more engaging and meaningful manner to improve their motivation and learning. The big question is How do I do it?
In February 2013, one of our COETAIL assignments was to watch the video Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November. I was truly inspired by his vision in education and I knew some changes need to take place in my classes. A few weeks later I watched November’s Ted Talk Leaving a Legacy in which he talks about letting students identify their purposes and goals for learning and giving them ownership. Since then, I could not stop to wonder how will this work in my mixed level classes and how can I use this approach to improve their motivation and learning outcomes. So, my course 5 final project is the journey that I started a year ago – “Using Personal Goals to Increase Student Motivation and to Improve Learning” inspired by Alan November.
To start, in March 2013 I took a small step by giving students free choices to either learn a song from SingChineseSong.com or 2-3 episodes from Growing Up with Chinese that they picked. They also had the choices of learning it on their own or in group. See more information about this unit in my COETAIL Course One Final Project. The feedback from students was very constructive and encouraging, they also gave me recommendations for improvement.
In addition to the mixed proficiency levels, their prior knowledge, learning styles, interests and end goals are very different. Some students need a lot of vocabulary to prepare for the IB Mandarin B program, some need help with the basic sentence structure, some learn best from songs, some need more time with the teacher to have their tones or pronunciation corrected, one wants to know everything about basketball with the aim that he can watch the basketball games in Chinese. The list goes on. While they all learn together to meet the common learning outcomes set by the curriculum. In order to address these differences, I wanted to to give them time to address their various needs with my support and feedback.
I was encouraged by the feedback from the unit of Free Choices in March 2013 and I wanted to take it to the next level: Giving them time to work on their personal goals in order to increase their motivation and to improve their learning. The first step I took was to gather resources to meet their various learning needs and interests. I spent approximately two weeks during the summer vacation to find online materials , to organize the resources at school, and to purchase books (story books for all levels, graphic novels, comic books, self-taught books) for the “Chinese Library” in my classroom.
In order to receive students’ support, at the beginning of this school year I shared with them about this new initiative by giving them the choices and holding them responsible for their own learning with my support and feedback. I also told them this is my first time implementing this approach so I will need their feedback for continuous improvement. They liked it, and the journey began!
To start this new initiative, we spent a good amount of time at the beginning of the process for them to:
1. set specific and measurable individual long term and short term goals for this year knowing they will have 30 minutes in each class throughout the school year. See Mandarin 3 planner, sample#1, sample #2, sample #3. By August 25, their goals were identified as follows: M3B, M3C, M4E, M4G
2. individually meet with me making sure they are being challenged and their goals are attainable and measurable, more importantly, to make sure they have the skills and strategy to work on their goal and using the most effective resources
In my upcoming posts I will share about the strengths and areas for improvement of this initiative and feedback from the students.
Coming back to the SAMR Model, how do I define my final project in meeting the redefinition level? This “personal goal” project would not have been possible without technology integration. Regardless of their different goals because all students use the following common tools:
Google Docs to document their learning evidence,and for me to give them feedback and comments with hyperlink to grammar points or follow up readings from other online resources that they can work on their own. The functions of commenting and hyperlinking are extremely effective.
2. Free and reliable Online Dictionary such as Google Chrome online Chinese-English popup Dictionary that provides them with immediate answer by moving the cursor to the words that they don’t understand and Nciku.com that have a large volume of words organized by themes so students can easily find the words they need.
And more, this project would not have been possible without all these online engaging and fun resources. I believe it is a Redefinition of learning in the SAMR Model because of the technology, my classroom is no longer the only place for them to learn.