Feedback

FEEDBACK CAN TRANSFORM A STUDENT’S LEARNING

Basically, feedback is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal. Effective feedback requires that a person has a goal, takes action to achieve the goal, and receives goal-related information about his or her actions.

Effective feedback is concrete, specific, and useful; it provides actionable information. Thus, "Good job!" and "You did that wrong" are not feedback at all; and teachers often tend to forget the real purpose of giving feedback. Moreover, we can easily imagine the learners asking themselves in response to these comments, what specifically should I do better next time, based on this information? No idea. They don't know what was "good" or "wrong" about what they did. Particularly, I have experienced this situation several times, and I have felt confused because I did not know what to do better next time.

The sooner teachers provide feedback, the better because in that way, students can immediately notice what they have done, and how they have done it.

I believe that providing feedback means giving students an explanation of what they are doing correctly and incorrectly; however, the focus of the feedback should be based essentially on what the students are doing right. Giving feedback means pointing out students’ strengths and weaknesses. When providing feedback, teachers sometimes tend to just point out students’ weaknesses; however, it is essential to praise and reward them every time they do anything great. 

Another important aspect to take into account when providing feedback is finding the correct moment to give it. When feedback is given immediately after showing proof of learning, the student responds positively and remembers the experience about what is being learned in a confident manner.  If we wait too long to give feedback, the moment is lost and the student might not connect the feedback with the action.

Also, it is vital for teachers to take into consideration each student individually when giving feedback.  Our classrooms are full of diverse learners, and each student has his or her own learning style. Some students need to be pushed to achieve a higher level of proficiency and others need to work slowly to complete a task more effectively.

Furthermore, students are often dissatisfied with the feedback they receive, and hence many of them become depressed after a presentation or any other activity. Others work very hard to do it better next time, and improve what they have just done.

“Feedback gives students the chance to compare their work with that done by the rest of class, which can build more accurate self-assessment skills”

Classroom questions.

What are the purposes of teacher’s classroom questions?

Questioning is one of the most popular modes of teaching. For thousand years, teachers have known that it is possible to transfer factual knowledge and conceptual understanding through the process of asking questions. Asking questions could be a tool really important in teaching because if students interact with the teacher they will acquired more knowledge and they will like to participate in the class and the more that will participate the more that they will learn.

We, teachers have different purposes to classrooms questions for instance;

-To involved students in the lesson: if we ask to the students they will be involved in the lesson and they will answer and at the same time they will be learning a little more.

-To share ideas: when we ask to the students we give them the opportunity to share ideas or to know the different points of view that they have in disscussions topics or about the lesson.

-To evaluate students learning: using classroom questions we will notice how much students have learned because we will know if they have understood what we have been teaching.

I consider that classroom questions are essentials in the classroom because it is an excellent way in learning. Besides the teacher can interact with the students and will notice what is easy and difficult to their students,

Interacting in the classroom through asking questions will help to students in knowledge, so we must to apply always questions classroom and our students will want to participate and will learn a lot.

Teachers can use warm up or something like that to ask questions to their students and doing this probably students will want to participate.

Assessment in education

What´s your call on the following? Assessment in education must, first and foremost, serve the purpose of supporting learning.

Assessment in education is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes, etc. assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learner community (class, or other organized group of learners). Assessment for learning is very important because it helps teachers to know what their students have learned and trough it they noticed what they need to improve.

Assessment for learning has different characteristics such as:

-Using effective questioning techniques; in the assessment teachers need to put in practice what they are taught their students in order to know if they have understood the topics.

-Sharing learning goals: teachers must to keep in mind that every time they evaluate their students they must know what they want to reach in learning students.

Schools and colleges could not ignore the importance of assessment for learning because it is very important in the world of teaching. If teachers gave to the assessment the importance it needs, teachers will discover a lot of things, for instance: teachers will notice what the weaknesses of students are; therefore they will know how to help students to improve. In the other hand through the assessments teachers will know what is the easiest for students, but not to all students because every single student has different weakness.

It is through assessment for learning that a teacher and student come to a purposeful understanding of the individuals learning needs. Teachers have to make use of the assessment and encourage to students to learn more.

In addition assessment can be effectively in teaching and students’ knowledge, so it needs to be put in practice by the teachers in order to help students to improve their learning day after day.

University study requires students to take responsibility for their own learning, to be more self- directed, to make their own decisions about what they will focus on and how much time they will spend on learning both inside and outside the classroom. How can you get the students up to this point by the end of the course or the year?

Independent students are those who makes decisions by themselves they know what they really want and in this case they know what they want to learn and how long it will takes. I consider that every student should take the responsibility about their own learning, but in some cases they don’t do this because they don’t take responsibility about learning. I consider that junior high school, high school and college students have the capacity to make decisions and therefore they must know what their learning will takes and what they want to achieve, but in the other hand no all the students take this responsibility and I believe that we as teachers have to look some strategies to students reach this, we have to tell them what important is that they become independent students because it will help them in the future.

I think that we, teachers, have to ask our students what they want to reach in the process of the course because it will help students what they want to reach and therefore they will think in some goals they want to reach ant the end of the course or the year. We have to motivate the students telling them what interesting is learning English and that they would get good grades. Besides students must know that they are learners and they have to take responsibility on the subject in order to reach good results.

Creating independent students could be a challenge to us because depend on us too because we have to be like a motor that encourages their lives and we have to keep in mind that independent students learning no consists about getting good grades within take the responsibility of a good learner because if they do this their learning and knowledge will be wonderful so that we must motivate our students to be independent learning students and in this way they will face the world.

DIDACTICS III

In your own words, explain how more interesting and innovating  strategies can create a positive and challenging learning environment for your or someone´s students. (Captivating your class effective teaching skills, 1 enlivening ¨A¨ Level teaching and learning).

Well I think that first able we as teachers have to look for very interesting strategies in order to caught students’ attention because if they like the activities that develop in the classroom they will be more interested in. I consider that every single teacher knows their students therefore they will notice what activities they can develop in the classroom. I think that we should use different activities in the class but at the same time we must try that every student can develop the four skills. We can develop activities such as: role plays, mini presentations, readings and we can develop some activities using music or games; if we do these activities students will enjoy the class. Class participation is a very important tool,  too because if students get involved  in their will be still better because doing this students can practice the language a lot and at the same time they can interact with other students or work in groups. Reading and writing are essential too because they can practice in the classroom or at home but they have to be interested in learning English and we have to encouraged them too. Talking English in class will increase students learning because they won’t be afraid to participate in the classroom.

In the other hand we need to know that the environment play an important role so that, we have to create an environment in which students feel comfortable with. The classroom has to be decorated with pictures, charts and the arrangement of desks have to be so original and creative in order to students have the ease to work in peers or in groups.

Using different strategies students will want to know more about learning English so depend on us, teachers. Develop interesting strategies because if we don’t do anything innovating in the class students will get bored and don’t want to learn.

We have to look for strategies that help students to learn because every student has their own way to learn so that we have to develop different activities in order to students can engage in all the activities and they will feel comfortable and therefore their learning will increased day after day.

Playing games could be an interesting strategy in learning because many students learn easily playing games so that it could be very essential in students learning.

Actually we, teachers, have the responsibility to make students learning easier and effective.