Week 6 - Reflections

The highlight of Week 6 was around engaging students using technology aids from the required readings and through our application of the first step of the project. I started this week with a number of readings on using technology in teaching large classes that proved to be very useful. From the first reading I learned about priming, integrating, reinforcing, and generating/facilitating engaging and effective online discussions. From this reading I also learned that when using technology students benefit as much as three times the face-to-face interaction, and many times more peer-to-peer interaction.

The second  reading "Teaching Large Classes" took me to an enlightening article from tomorrow's professor mailing list sponsored by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning entitled "Teaching Naked: Why removing technology from your classroom will improve student learning. It advocated using technology before and after but not during class time. Several ideas were suggested to make utmost use of class time without abusing technology. 

The third reading "Enhancing Learning by Engaging Students" from Rick Finnan and Donna Shaw focused on shifting students from being passive recipients into active constructors of their knowledge. Small group informal learning activities were suggested such as Think- Pair-Share, concept tests, quick-thinks, minute paper, scripted cooperative learning, and concept maps. It was also advised that small group activities can be extended for an entire term. 

The second topic that I explored was the readings on powerpoint (ppt) to give me a better idea of its key elements and how to make it interactive. I also explored the additional readings, and I particularly liked "Interactive Lectures: A Summary of 36 Formats" that I want to add on my delicious account.

This week also marked the "lab" component of the course; all the theory that we have read about was applied this week in its initial stage. In my case, I created a class blog and posted on it the type of writing students are expected to do on it , and that it will be counted as 10% of their course grade which was 5% for journal writing and 5% for homework on their syllabus, so I thought of combining these 2 grades to give my students an impetus to write online. I told them about the blog idea in class and I asked them to check it after class for the furst assignment. As an ice-breaker, I wanted them to write about a topic that they can relate to with focus on the rhetorical mode they are studying at present: exemplification. They were encouraged to write about their opinion on the upcoming student elections (November 9) as new students and to illustrate how they are similar to the American elections. Some vocabulary words were provided in the prompt and they were supposed to choose/select few to be used in their writing. I excitedly waited for the appearance of their postings. After I saw the first one, I received few emails saying that some students couldn't get through because of not knowing that they had to open a Google account, so I replied explaining how to, then new posts followed and they seem to have contacted one another on Whats App to get help on the know-how.

On the first day, 10 students published. It was open for a week, so I was expecting more to come. The best part was when I met them in class the following session. Everyone was excited to share their experience and I felt that vigor got into those who have not written yet, for I saw their postings that night after class. The least talkative in class started sharing their ideas on this new medium. I am going to add a rubric, the one I created in this course, since they also asked how they will be evaluated. I promised I will post the rubric because one of them said, "I felt I was writing like I do in sms, but then I started correcting my spelling realizing this is academic stuff:". I assured them that my emphasis will be on their ideas first, then on the mechanics of the language used, but it has to be comparable to academic English. Another observation was that not many of them remembered to post on someone else's comment, however, I think they realize it now and I will wait for the second task to observe their application of that.

I am looking forward to the second post which is about two parallel readings that were covered in class, and I'll try to ask them to link them to their own experience.