Tuesday 23 April 2013

Getting Students Familiar with Teacher Website

image credits: memorialpto

While teacher websites appear to be more popular, I have many colleagues who lament the fact that, halfway through a semester, many of their students have never found one. In order to ensure that my students at least know mine is there and how to find it, I have several ‘homework’ assignments that rely on them personally going to the site.
Student Information Form – Can I get this information from our school’s student information system? Yes.  But…to reduce time spent on administrivia, and have useful data for me accessible from anywhere, I now have students complete their student information from a Google Docs form embedded in my site. It is required first night homework, can be accessed from school computers and must be done in order to gain entry into class the next day.
Photo/Email Assignment – I generally put up a page of interesting photos related to my subject. You can find many that are in the public domain. Recently I chose photos from my last trip to Japan. Students are required to email me (we await Google Voice and the ability to call/text here in Canada) with their favorite photo and why. I learn a bit about them – but most importantly – I now have an email address for them.
Web-Posted Homework – Once in the first 5 or 6 days of class I announce that the homework will be posted on the website ONLY. I ensure that it is already up there by the end of class so students can easily access it from school computers.
Practice Tests/Quizzes –  I frequently will post a practice test prior to assessing student’s knowledge. In my area of languages this can be an audio clip, a reading multiple choice test or a straight ‘paper’ quiz. Students know that I do this. To reward those that find it I sometimes use the practice quiz as the real one. I may only do it once a semester, but students learn that practice can make (almost) perfect.
“You have a site?” is one question that I don’t hear from my students. Requiring them to use it in Week 1 means that they know it is there!
Source: Edudemic

Monday 22 April 2013

Happy Earth Day!



Some Classroom Ideas for Earth Day Activities:


  • Six Earth Day Activities: Huffington Post author Ted Wells wrote this post in 2009, and it features some great ideas for incorporating Earth Day into the classroom.
  • Earth Day Ideas from Scholastic: There’s a few quick links here for a variety of classroom activities -- from quick science projects to scavenger hunts.
Source: Edutopia

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Formative vs Summative Assessment

photo credit: Ken Whytock via photopin cc
Formative assessment
The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:
  • help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work;
  • help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately.

Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to
  • draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic;
  • submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture;
  • turn in a research proposal for early feedback.

Summative assessment
The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:
  • a midterm exam;
  • a final project;
  • a paper;
  • a senior recital.

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.


Friday 12 April 2013

A "bad egg"

cartoon credit: Adams from The Telegraph
In a nod to Easter, this cartoon by Adams from The Telegraph portrays North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a boiled egg. The title of the cartoon "Bad Egg" is a play on words since a bad egg is someone who behaves in a bad or dishonest way.
US military drills in
South Korea have prompted a fresh round of threats from North Korea in the past week, with leader Kim Jong-un ordering that the military be on standby to hit the US mainland with missiles. The isolated communist state stepped up its pugnacious rhetoric still further yesterday by warning Seoul that the Korean Peninsula was entering "a state of war". 

Tuesday 9 April 2013

The "Iron Lady" who changed the face of Britain


photo credit: BBC Radio 4 via photopin cc
Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady", was a towering figure in British 20th century politics, a grocer's daughter with a steely resolve who was loved and loathed in equal measure as she crushed the unions and privatised large swathes of industry.
She died yesterday, aged 87, after suffering a stroke. During her life in politics some worshipped her as a moderniser who transformed the country, others bitterly accused her of entrenching the divide between the rich and the poor.
The abiding images of her premiership will remain those of conflict: huge police confrontations with the miners' union, her riding a tank in a white headscarf, and flames rising above Trafalgar Square in the riots over a local tax which ultimately led to her downfall.
During her 11 years in power, she clashed with the European Union, agreed to hand back the colony of Hong Kong to China, and fought a war to recover the Falkland Islands from Argentine invaders.
She struck up a close relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the Cold War, backed the first President George Bush during the 1991 Gulf War, and declared that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a man she could do business with.
She opposed sanctions on South Africa as a means to end apartheid and was a firm supporter of Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator.
To those who crossed her she was blunt to a degree - "the lady's not for turning", she once informed members of her own Conservative Party who were urging her to moderate her policies.
Others who crossed her path, particularly in Europe, were subjected to withering diatribes often referred to as "handbaggings", named after the glossy black leather bag she invariably carried.

"THATCHERISM"

photo credit: roberthuffstutter via photopin cc
Britain's only woman prime minister, the tough, outspoken Thatcher led the Conservatives to three election victories, governing from 1979 to 1990, the longest continuous period in office by a British premier since the early 19th century.
With Reagan, she formed a strong alliance against communism and was rewarded by seeing the Berlin Wall torn down in 1989 though she worried a unified Germany would dominate Europe.
Gerry Adams, head of the Irish Republican Army's political wing, said her policies in Northern Ireland, where thousands died in a struggle over British rule, had done "great hurt" to people there.
Her reformist - some would say radical - conservative agenda broke the mould of British politics, changing the status quo so profoundly that even subsequent Labour governments accepted many of her policies.
The woman who became known simply as "Maggie" transferred big chunks of the economy from state hands into private ownership.
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money," she once said.
Her personal credo, founded on competition, private enterprise, thrift and self-reliance, gave birth to a political philosophy known as "Thatcherism".
But her tough economic medicine put millions out of work, alienated many and largely destroyed industries such as mining.
Her combative stance antagonised allies in Europe and her intolerance of dissent eventually led to her downfall.
"A brilliant tyrant surrounded by mediocrities," was how former premier Harold Macmillan described her. "That bloody woman," was the less charitable verdict of Edward Heath, another prime minister and her predecessor as Conservative Party leader.
At the peak of her powers, Thatcher's sheer personality made her one of the West's best known figures. A workaholic, she put in 18-hour days, after which she would relax over a glass of whisky.
In 1984 an Irish Republican Army bomb attack on her Brighton hotel nearly killed her entire cabinet. She was unscathed, but five people died and some close colleagues were badly injured. Next morning condemning the bombing, she told reporters: "This is a day I was not meant to see." Within hours of the attack, and on schedule, she gave the closing address to her party's annual conference, vowing there would be no weakening in the fight against terrorism.
After 11 years in power, Thatcher bowed to a revolt and pulled out of a leadership contest with her former defence minister Michael Heseltine. A new local tax, known as the "poll tax", which had led to riots, contributed to her downfall.
"I fight on, I fight to win," she declared during the party leadership vote, but she resigned the next day.
Thatcher retained enough influence to ensure Heseltine did not succeed her, advancing the claims of her protege John Major, who served as prime minister until 1997.
"We are leaving Downing Street for the last time after 11 and a half wonderful years and we are very happy that we leave the United Kingdom in a very, very much better state than when we came here," Thatcher said with tears in her eyes.
She suffered a series of mild strokes in late 2001 and 2002, after which she cut back on public appearances and later cancelled her speaking schedule.
Her decline into dementia was chronicled in the Oscar-winning film "The Iron Lady", with Meryl Streep. Cast as a bewildered widow, the very lonely Iron Lady was left only with her memories. 

In Huff Post World (via Reuters) - slightly abridged 
By Stephen Addison and Adrian Croft
Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Giles Elgood

Wednesday 3 April 2013

Interesting Powerpoint Lectures


Picture a half-full classroom with nearly-comatose students descending into the slow death that takes place while listening to a lecture that is as interesting as the buzzing of a mosquito that one cannot find in order to squash.
It’s no secret that some teachers, even doctorates who work as college professors, suck when it comes to lecturing. Don’t let that be you!
So what can educators do to make their lectures more engaging?


image credits: Deidra Miller

Tip
Do
Don’t
1
Watch sample
Watch lectures done by speakers from whom you want to learn. Here is a lecture that contains many of the “do’s” listed here. Video by Margie Anne Bonnett (Marketing professor @ Towson University)
Watch lectures done by speakers who are not well received and then don’t do what they do.  

2
Use powerful images
Use visuals that evoke an emotional response. Students complain about dry presentations. Poor imagery is a big reason why. Ensure images are relevant to the slide’s content; otherwise, they only distract and confuse.
Words should not dominate your slides. This is boring and causes listeners to tune out.  Your voice should contain your words. Your slides should not.
3
Convey emotion in your voice
Passion ignites and an inspires an audience. Tell a story. Show you care.  Let your passion inspire and become contagious.
Don’t read in a monotone voice. In fact don’t read at all.  Have talking points and know what you are saying.  Your lecture should sound as though you are talking to someone not doing choral reading.
4
Use humor, carefully and selectively
Engaging lectures often contain a cartoon or two, and an occasional joke breaks down barriers and prevents clock-watching. Effective humor for a lecture steers clear of controversial topics and has at least some relevance to the topic. Humor can also be used to help make key points sink in.
Don’t be dry. Be human. Laugh a little to connect with your audience. When you insert humor you can connect with audiences in ways that convey that you are speaking to them not at them.
5
Remember your audience
Instead of giving a speech, engage the audience in a conversation. Make sure you make eye contact and connect with them. Ask them to participate by providing thoughtful questions for them to consider or respond to. For this to work, you must ask questions that require people to think, but not so hard as to make them clam up. Watch their reactions.
Don’t forget you are speaking to an audience. Don’t forget to look at them. See how they are responding. This is about them, not you. Watch to ensure they are connecting and adjust if they are not.
6
Prepare
You can always tell when a presenter has practiced: slide transitions are impeccably timed, explanations are crystal clear, and questions are fielded smoothly, never disrupting the flow of the lecture. Polished execution captures and sustains interest, and cannot be accomplished by “winging it.”



Don’t read off a piece of paper. Your audience will zone out and stop listening to what you’re saying, which means they won’t hear any extra information you include. Instead practice your presentation and connect with your audience.  Rather than typing out your entire presentation on a piece of paper, practice and let images, main ideas, and keywords remind you of what you are saying. Engage your audience by sharing the details out loud.
7
Watch yourself on video

Watching yourself in action is a great way to see your strengths and weaknesses. Flaws really are more glaring to ourselves than to others. It may be painful, but even a few minutes reviewing your performance on video could save your students from having to suffer through a lecture.
Don’t assume how your audience will perceive you. Be the audience by watching yourself then adjust accordingly. When you do keep the tips shared here in mind.  
8
Give tangible takeaways
After listening to your lecture, your audience should be left with some ideas that they can take away and use for their own personal success goals, learning, or to engage in concrete action.
Don’t just lecture at people without providing explicit information to them about what they can do or take away from your lecture. Your job is not just to impart information, but to directly inspire and let people know how what you have shared will lead to their success.
9
Be a story-teller, 
not a presenter
Even if you don’t really think your topic is ‘story-like’, find the story in it. Lectures that work best are funny, revealing, have a start and end, and simple, pretty design.
Don’t just deliver facts. Connect with your audience. Tell a story. Seem like you are a human, not a robot.




For example if you’re sharing a strategy, show it in action so your audience can see or imagine how this has had an impact.  
10
Memorize your talk

This is definitely one of the most challenging and fun parts of lecturing to students. If you forget what you were going to say, freestyle into something more interesting. Know your topic and practice, but leave some room for that in-the-moment energy.
No one wants a paper-trained professor. Lose the paper, get to know your material, and speak from the heart. Remember every time you present you have the chance to excite and inspire. That doesn’t happen when you are latching onto to a piece of paper. Don’t hide behind the paper. Know your talk and speak to your audience.


Source: Lisa Nielsen @ The Innovative Educator