I had a great time blogging this week and had a chance to interact with educators around the world and here in Japan. In fact, through Thomas' post F2F Instructional strategies and comment here, I had a great chance to reconnect with one of the first people I met when I moved to Japan 10 years ago. Also, he informed me that my globalcookbook international collaborative project appears on the Voicethread 4 Education wiki EFL & ESL page. Although I haven't worked on this project for a while, I'm happy to see that it might still be inspiring other educators.
To finish off this full week of blogging, I'd like to recommend this random collection of recent and interesting articles:
Five habits of great students: Lessons from top-ranked STEM school
Studying the humanities, developing good habits, and choosing one's own reading material
How to have the best. appointment. ever.
Be prepared before consulting a tutor (or teacher) about your writing.
The Disposable Worker
The 30 Scariest Books Ever Written
The Stranger by Albert Camus is on this list so it caught my attention. Do you agree with the author's picks?
8 New Punctuation Marks we Definitely Need
Just for fun!
Have a good weekend!
Friday, March 01, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Learner Development
In January, I went to the Learner Development SIG get together in Kobe. If you have a chance, you should consider attending the next get together in Kyoto. There are no formal presentations at these events, so participants
have plenty of opportunities to meet new people, discuss topics related to
learner development, and share ideas. On March 23, the theme will be LD related plans for the 2013-2014 school year. Check out the flyer Gretchen made with Smore for the event!
At the last get together, the theme was learner autonomy. We wrote about our definitions and experiences with learner autonomy and then discussed them in groups. Although I haven't studied much about learner autonomy, I decided to give it a go and came up with the following definition: designing learning for oneself within the context of a broader community.
During the next stage of the event, each participant made a mind map about some aspect of learner autonomy, and I chose to make mine about technology and autonomous learning. It was interesting to share some of the things I have learned about online learning through EVO and to reflect upon these through the lens of learner autonomy.
At the last get together, the theme was learner autonomy. We wrote about our definitions and experiences with learner autonomy and then discussed them in groups. Although I haven't studied much about learner autonomy, I decided to give it a go and came up with the following definition: designing learning for oneself within the context of a broader community.
During the next stage of the event, each participant made a mind map about some aspect of learner autonomy, and I chose to make mine about technology and autonomous learning. It was interesting to share some of the things I have learned about online learning through EVO and to reflect upon these through the lens of learner autonomy.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Annotation
I'm getting ready for the new school year that starts in April and I have been thinking about my upcoming lessons. One of the skills that students learn during the first few weeks of my class is annotation. While reading fiction and nonfiction texts, I encourage students to mark important information and take notes. Although each student is free to develop his or her own system of annotating, I do provide some instruction on the basic methods. In general, it seems like a skill that students tend to improve by practicing and comparing annotations. Peer and teacher feedback on annotation can also help students refine their system.
During our EVO session, Carla, Karen, and I have been discussing this general topic through blog posts and comments. Carla wrote a post, Learning by Retrieval: Forget Highlighting. I started thinking that annotating is a step above highlighting because the reader is more engaged with the text and can use these annotations at a later date to help prepare for an examination or essay. Karen's post, Are Tags the Answer further explored the ideas of marking texts and retrieving online information though tagging. Although everyone has different preferred methods, the key point is that students need to USE their annotation! By simply asking students to compare annotations, summarize main points of the text, or write review questions, they can revisit the content. Furthermore, students need to take one more step and reflect on their readings and annotations too. By engaging in class discussions, writing responses, or even dramatizing scenes from a novel, students need to revisit the text, their notes, and their understanding; these will lead to deeper processing.
I think annotating and notetaking serve several important purposes. One is to be an active reader. Another is to make thinking visible through writing questions, connections, summaries, or ideas. Annotating can even be a way to communicate with others. Most of us have the experience of borrowing a book from a friend, buying a used textbook, or paging through an old, forgotten book in the family library. These books and their notes are windows to the minds of those who read the words before us.
During our EVO session, Carla, Karen, and I have been discussing this general topic through blog posts and comments. Carla wrote a post, Learning by Retrieval: Forget Highlighting. I started thinking that annotating is a step above highlighting because the reader is more engaged with the text and can use these annotations at a later date to help prepare for an examination or essay. Karen's post, Are Tags the Answer further explored the ideas of marking texts and retrieving online information though tagging. Although everyone has different preferred methods, the key point is that students need to USE their annotation! By simply asking students to compare annotations, summarize main points of the text, or write review questions, they can revisit the content. Furthermore, students need to take one more step and reflect on their readings and annotations too. By engaging in class discussions, writing responses, or even dramatizing scenes from a novel, students need to revisit the text, their notes, and their understanding; these will lead to deeper processing.
I think annotating and notetaking serve several important purposes. One is to be an active reader. Another is to make thinking visible through writing questions, connections, summaries, or ideas. Annotating can even be a way to communicate with others. Most of us have the experience of borrowing a book from a friend, buying a used textbook, or paging through an old, forgotten book in the family library. These books and their notes are windows to the minds of those who read the words before us.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Surprises and Stories
Recently I was a co-moderator of the EVO session, Neuroscience in Education: Braining up your English Lessons. Some people asked me how I became interested in this topic and one of the reasons was attending First Annual Brain Days: Connecting Neuroscience with ELT Conference.
This event was held in 2011 (Osaka) and 2012 (Kitakyushu), and when I
attended TESOL 2012 in Philadelphia, I discovered that Carla had also developed an interest in the brain. We discussed the
possibility of developing an EVO session on neuroscience with Denise as content expert. In this post, I’ll briefly describe last year's Neuroscience
and ELT conference and make some connections to our EVO session.
At the 2012 Neuroscience and ELT conference, there were many presentations, and here is a sampling of the presentations I attended:
R. Murphy: Neuromyth-busters, Brain Anatomy for TEFL, Memory & Learning
C. Oana: Why is music helpful in teaching English: Some cognitive neuroscience evidences
C. Kelly: The neuroscience of lesson design
D. Paul: Personal Construct psychology and it’s implications in the classroom
M. Broide & I. Shiloh: Harnessing the narrative brain: An account of a learning experiment
I found Kelly’s presentation on the Neuroscience of Lesson Design to be interesting and practical. He discussed factors of learning. Students need to have physiological and psychological needs met, such as getting enough sleep and not having too much stress. Also, the lesson should be meaningful and relevant to the students and should include some emotion and challenge. For deep-processing, repetition, engagement, problem solving, and multi-sensory input can be taken advantage of. Finally, he highlighted that for brain compatibility, the lesson could include elements such as surprise and stories or songs. Audience members were encouraged to think about how to get dopamine into the class!
For me, the most interesting points from this session were surprise and stories. Since hearing Kelly’s presentation last summer, I’ve become more aware of the element of surprise in the classroom. For example, last semester, I was able to observe one of my colleagues teaching a humanities class. When I looked at the class handout, I noticed that it included some numbers and names, but there were no explanations and this was surprising! The teacher asked the students to speculate about what these meant within the context of the short story and the themes that they were studying. This led students to be curious and to engage with the material. Also, I noticed that when I’m teaching my humanities class, students are interested in novels, stories, and films when they’re surprised by the plot or characters. As previously mentioned, including a blank slide in a presentation is another way to surprise the audience. Just doing a little something different is enough to catch everyone's attention.
In addition to surprise, stories are also brain compatible. In his presentation, Kelly delivered some information in lecture style and then in story form. He asked the audience questions about the content, and everyone remembered the details of the story more readily. I think that not only telling stories, but also reading or writing stories can engage learners and their emotions. During our EVO session, Carla brought up the topic of attention hooks and stated that she often uses stories to illustrate grammar points, even keeping the same characters throughout the semester. These strategies also allow space for creativity in the classroom.
Finally, check out this information on DIY Neuro-ELT from M. Helgesen. If you remember, I blogged about his ELT and Happiness site at the end of 2007.
Karen, a participant in the EVO session, wrote an excellent post on attention hooks.
I hope to be able to attend another conference on neuroscience to continue learning and sharing with others!
At the 2012 Neuroscience and ELT conference, there were many presentations, and here is a sampling of the presentations I attended:
R. Murphy: Neuromyth-busters, Brain Anatomy for TEFL, Memory & Learning
C. Oana: Why is music helpful in teaching English: Some cognitive neuroscience evidences
C. Kelly: The neuroscience of lesson design
D. Paul: Personal Construct psychology and it’s implications in the classroom
M. Broide & I. Shiloh: Harnessing the narrative brain: An account of a learning experiment
I found Kelly’s presentation on the Neuroscience of Lesson Design to be interesting and practical. He discussed factors of learning. Students need to have physiological and psychological needs met, such as getting enough sleep and not having too much stress. Also, the lesson should be meaningful and relevant to the students and should include some emotion and challenge. For deep-processing, repetition, engagement, problem solving, and multi-sensory input can be taken advantage of. Finally, he highlighted that for brain compatibility, the lesson could include elements such as surprise and stories or songs. Audience members were encouraged to think about how to get dopamine into the class!
For me, the most interesting points from this session were surprise and stories. Since hearing Kelly’s presentation last summer, I’ve become more aware of the element of surprise in the classroom. For example, last semester, I was able to observe one of my colleagues teaching a humanities class. When I looked at the class handout, I noticed that it included some numbers and names, but there were no explanations and this was surprising! The teacher asked the students to speculate about what these meant within the context of the short story and the themes that they were studying. This led students to be curious and to engage with the material. Also, I noticed that when I’m teaching my humanities class, students are interested in novels, stories, and films when they’re surprised by the plot or characters. As previously mentioned, including a blank slide in a presentation is another way to surprise the audience. Just doing a little something different is enough to catch everyone's attention.
In addition to surprise, stories are also brain compatible. In his presentation, Kelly delivered some information in lecture style and then in story form. He asked the audience questions about the content, and everyone remembered the details of the story more readily. I think that not only telling stories, but also reading or writing stories can engage learners and their emotions. During our EVO session, Carla brought up the topic of attention hooks and stated that she often uses stories to illustrate grammar points, even keeping the same characters throughout the semester. These strategies also allow space for creativity in the classroom.
Finally, check out this information on DIY Neuro-ELT from M. Helgesen. If you remember, I blogged about his ELT and Happiness site at the end of 2007.
Karen, a participant in the EVO session, wrote an excellent post on attention hooks.
I hope to be able to attend another conference on neuroscience to continue learning and sharing with others!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Week Two: Emotion and Learning
Week two of our session, Neuroscience in Education: Braining up your English lessons, covered the topic of emotion and learning.
From James Zull book, The Art of Changing the Brain, page 58
Narrated by Mary Hillis
Images by Brazilian educator Cleide Frazão
When recording the above video, My Student Tony and Me, before the session started, I started thinking more and more about the role of emotion and learning, so for the “expanding your learning” task, I chose to research this area.
After all, I’m not only a teacher, but also a learner. I’m always learning about something and recently I’ve been studying Japanese, neuroscience, literature, and writing pedagogy just to name a few. However, since I’m a language teacher, I’ll focus on my recent experiences as a learner of the Japanese language. Actually, this is why I chose the topic of emotion and learning because I have complex emotions about studying and using Japanese and these affect my motivation and performance.
Living in Japan, I have felt frustrated when I get a cafe mocha everytime I think I’ve ordered a cafe americano. I have felt left out when I’m talking with a group of Japanese mothers. This frustration has even led me to take breaks from studying. On the other hand, these examples cannot be classified purely as negative because they helped me to identify my weaknesses and reinforced the need to continue studying. As a result, these so-called negative experiences could lead me to be motivated. In contrast with the real world, during my private Japanese lesson, my teacher is extremely supportive and creates a positive learning environment. Nevertheless, my experiences and emotions come with me every time I attend Japanese lesson.
From the various readings I’ve done recently, I’ve learned that negative emotions are linked to the amygdala and the fight or flight response while positive emotions are linked to dopamine and the frontal cortex. As the previous example demonstrates, emotions are not always easy to classify as positive or negative and there may be some interplay between the two.
For practical tips on emotion and learning, this pdf file was useful. Because I teach a literature themed course, I was particularly drawn to the following tips from the list which inspired me to consider my current teaching practice from a new perspective: emotion.
There are some other aspects of emotion and learning that I will leave for further research and many more useful resources and points to consider about emotion and learning. This is just the beginning!
From James Zull book, The Art of Changing the Brain, page 58
Narrated by Mary Hillis
Images by Brazilian educator Cleide Frazão
When recording the above video, My Student Tony and Me, before the session started, I started thinking more and more about the role of emotion and learning, so for the “expanding your learning” task, I chose to research this area.
After all, I’m not only a teacher, but also a learner. I’m always learning about something and recently I’ve been studying Japanese, neuroscience, literature, and writing pedagogy just to name a few. However, since I’m a language teacher, I’ll focus on my recent experiences as a learner of the Japanese language. Actually, this is why I chose the topic of emotion and learning because I have complex emotions about studying and using Japanese and these affect my motivation and performance.
Living in Japan, I have felt frustrated when I get a cafe mocha everytime I think I’ve ordered a cafe americano. I have felt left out when I’m talking with a group of Japanese mothers. This frustration has even led me to take breaks from studying. On the other hand, these examples cannot be classified purely as negative because they helped me to identify my weaknesses and reinforced the need to continue studying. As a result, these so-called negative experiences could lead me to be motivated. In contrast with the real world, during my private Japanese lesson, my teacher is extremely supportive and creates a positive learning environment. Nevertheless, my experiences and emotions come with me every time I attend Japanese lesson.
From the various readings I’ve done recently, I’ve learned that negative emotions are linked to the amygdala and the fight or flight response while positive emotions are linked to dopamine and the frontal cortex. As the previous example demonstrates, emotions are not always easy to classify as positive or negative and there may be some interplay between the two.
For practical tips on emotion and learning, this pdf file was useful. Because I teach a literature themed course, I was particularly drawn to the following tips from the list which inspired me to consider my current teaching practice from a new perspective: emotion.
“Discuss people’s and literary characters’ motivations”
“Incorporate storytelling, myths, legends, parables, and metaphors”
“Try role-playing, skits, and debates”
“Incorporate suspense, cliffhangers, and things left open-ended and unresolved”
There are some other aspects of emotion and learning that I will leave for further research and many more useful resources and points to consider about emotion and learning. This is just the beginning!
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