Implement the change

Hi Friends,

we are now in the 6^th week of "Building Teaching Skills Through Interactive Web ( Web skills) Fall 2013, e-teacher training . I have generally reflected my weekly experiences through my blog which is a part of our training program. Almost all the participants around the world  are actively sharing our experiences. The training has focused mainly in learning English language with the help of technology either for the language instructors or the language learners. It is proved that the invention and use of recent technology has become a part of teaching and learning . These technologies address the demand of 21^st century learning ,new learning style and new evaluation system . By the use of technology, a learner becomes free and gets autonomous environment to study .

My concern about  teaching was to manage the large classes by which many schools in our country Nepal  are not able to promote the quality  education. The students number is quite large and often uncontrolled by the teachers in terms that checking the student's homework, giving them feedback, encouraging for study. We had Teacher's Professional  Development (TPD ) module training in our training center 3 years ago and I had collected some idea to find the technique on the websites.

This training has been a milestone for my career , even all the skills I have learned in  this training can't be applied in my classroom due to the access of technology. Teaching a large class effectively is hard work.

"it's possible to do it even if you're not a big-league entertainer. If you make the necessary logistical arrangements far enough in advance, provide plenty of active learning experiences in the classroom instead of relying on straight lecturing, and take full advantage of the power of teams in both in-class and out-of-class work, large classes can come close to being as educationally rewarding as small classes. The instructor's satisfaction may be even greater in the large classes: after all, many professors can teach 15 students effectively, but when you do it with 100 or more you know you've really accomplished something."  source : http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/Largeclasses.htm  

The other site http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/index.html , I found a massive store of resources related to technology and education. The ideas associated in the sites construct a bulky volume while printing and costs hundreds of dollars to buy. But we can get free knowledge from here. Some topics are as follow

Tools to support collaboration:

·         Communication

·         Virtual Meetings

·         Email

·         Instant Messaging

·         Screen Sharing

·         Blogs

·         Voice, Video, Web Conferencing

·         Discussion Boards

·         Team Definition & Participants

·         Social Networking

·         Presence Management

·         User Profiles

·         Contact Management

·         Project Management

I am using the following methods to manage the large classes. Some techniques are new and to be applied and some I used to apply.

Collaborative Grouping 

Train all the pupils how to lead a group.

APPLE Method

Small group discussions

Questionnaires

Train pupils how to routinise classroom chores

Involve  students.

Know r students – match names with faces

Conduct interactive “getting to know” activities

Allow students to express themselves

Encourage questions and comments

Establish reasonable rules for student behavior

Besides these techniques, using printed webquest and rubrics has brought good result. I applied my webquest on" Planning a Trip" in my classroom . The students worked in groups and made a good plan. They were motivated to work but some of the students were not so active because they seem to depend other members  in their group.

Another task was to create interactive powerpoint. I have working knowledge of powerpoint for specific purposes. I can make interactive slides and no doubt, power point slides create motivating environment in large classes. I have shared a presentation  for quiz and teach  a story in this link : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9EA8Fp9zVKRUGpuNzF2eDd0Skk/edit?usp=sharing.

I can use this in small groups taking the students in computer room