Learning Style Quiz
After reading Dr. Baggio's book "The Visual Connection" I was interested to take the learning style quiz at the end of the book to see how I learned myself. I know I have taken these quizzes in the past, but honestly couldn't remember what type of learner I was. Upon completion of the test I discovered that I was primarily a visual learner. This majority was expected, however the next learning style I was was auditory. This was interesting to me as I always thought I was more of a kinesthetic learner.
This really makes me think about my teaching practices and how truly important it is to hit all these different learning styles. Every student is unique in their own way, and it is simply unfair to continuously teach to one type of learning modality. I found a chart that was interesting and really summed up the importance of using visuals in the classroom:
Visuals Make Learning More Permanent:
Typically in 3 days we will remember:
10% of all we hear
35% of all we see
65% of all we see and hear at the same time
This really makes me think about my teaching practices and how truly important it is to hit all these different learning styles. Every student is unique in their own way, and it is simply unfair to continuously teach to one type of learning modality. I found a chart that was interesting and really summed up the importance of using visuals in the classroom:
Visuals Make Learning More Permanent:
Typically in 3 days we will remember:
10% of all we hear
35% of all we see
65% of all we see and hear at the same time
In my classroom, the methodology requires a lot of auditory input so students are able to hear the language used in context. Any vocabulary structures we focus on during a week are written on the board with the english definition in a different color below. This visual I think is very helpful for students. We also come up with a gesture to every single structure as well. This is a tool for all those kinesthetic learners! Although we have a gesture and the word written on the board, I think I could go further with my visuals! Why not include an image to go with the word as well? I think this would only help students improve!
Capstone Project Prototype:
Collaborative Book Review- "The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That way" by Amanda Ripley
Here is a copy of the VoiceThread presentation that my group members and I created
by Kim Hughes, Terry Messmer & Alexandra AcMoody
https://voicethread.com/myvoice/#thread/6923153/36629579/37938224
by Kim Hughes, Terry Messmer & Alexandra AcMoody
https://voicethread.com/myvoice/#thread/6923153/36629579/37938224
Phase 1- Project Design
The driving question to my action research project was: Can social media websites be used to support students in target language writing while simultaneously keeping students engagement high and providing opportunities to develop 21st century technology skills? I chose to focus on social media for two reasons: 1)Social media is something completely ingrained in many of our students lives and 2) Because a challenge that many foreign language teachers face is the incorporation of technology into lower level classes. The term “lower level” refers to the criteria of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL, 2012) proficiency guidelines. The levels of proficiency include: superior, advanced, intermediate and novice, with sub-categories in each level. According to ACTFL, Spanish levels 1, 2 and 3 range between the novice and intermediate-low to intermediate-mid ranges. In the lower Spanish levels (1-3) it is extremely hard to use lots of technology in the classroom simply because they do not have the language capabilities yet to do so.The issue of how teachers can provide lower level foreign language students opportunities to use technology in the classroom while simultaneously ensuring that these technologies keep students engaged and enhance their abilities to write in the target language is foundational to this study.
The TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) methodology used at my school to teach foreign language promotes the idea of language acquisition, rather than traditional rote memorization or grammar lessons of ‘learning’ a language. This is best known as the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis. Steven Krashen summarizes this hypothesis simply by saying, “In everyday terms, acquisition is picking up a language. Ordinary equivalents for learning include grammar and rules.” (Krashen, 1981). Teaching in the target language and giving students as much comprehensible input and exposure to the language as possible has extremely positive effects on students and their language acquisition. Although language input is considered to be one of the most important strategies for language learning and teaching, language output is also essential especially in a classroom setting. As teachers we must be able to assess student learning, and if they are not required to produce some sort of output how can we effectively determine this? This question drove my study as I was interested in trying out new ways to get students to produce language and demonstrate learning.
The overarching goal for my capstone project is discovering ways in which teachers, foreign language or not, can elicit student output that is engaging, innovative and effective, especially for low-level language classes or students with limited language abilities.
The TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) methodology used at my school to teach foreign language promotes the idea of language acquisition, rather than traditional rote memorization or grammar lessons of ‘learning’ a language. This is best known as the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis. Steven Krashen summarizes this hypothesis simply by saying, “In everyday terms, acquisition is picking up a language. Ordinary equivalents for learning include grammar and rules.” (Krashen, 1981). Teaching in the target language and giving students as much comprehensible input and exposure to the language as possible has extremely positive effects on students and their language acquisition. Although language input is considered to be one of the most important strategies for language learning and teaching, language output is also essential especially in a classroom setting. As teachers we must be able to assess student learning, and if they are not required to produce some sort of output how can we effectively determine this? This question drove my study as I was interested in trying out new ways to get students to produce language and demonstrate learning.
The overarching goal for my capstone project is discovering ways in which teachers, foreign language or not, can elicit student output that is engaging, innovative and effective, especially for low-level language classes or students with limited language abilities.
Instructional Design Review
Here I have looked at a few different websites that encompass Instructional Design in a variety of ways. When looking at these sites, I tried to analyze them critically using the SITE model as my guidelines. Below is the link to some brief notes about what I observed on each site.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jYmp4R4nHKSwBMPS0Ju2NZY7xufDyr3c-g4XZfS5x20/edit
Mind Mapping Tools
One assignment was to play around with a mind mapping tool. I decided to use the website Mindomo to create a map of Twitter use in my classroom. The first mind map shown just shows a chart of what needs to be taken into consideration when using Twitter in the classroom. The second mind map below takes the same chart, but adds the learners needs using the SITE model. Below is a PDF form or you can visit my site by clicking the link below.
https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/twitter-in-the-foreign-language-classroom-f1a749fb33734b92aab40ec4a8076e13
twitter_in_the_foreign_language_classroom.pdf | |
File Size: | 21 kb |
File Type: |