Week 6, Reflections

Hello,

We are getting there, folks!

Lots of work this week. Working with large classes is a major concern among teachers, no matter the field. Getting students' attention, keeping that attention, and above all else getting and keeping them really involved in what is being dealt with is a major challenge for teachers. I honestly struggle a lot with that. Luckily, I have not taught large classes for a while.

Nevertheless, I do not feel alone anymore. I have seen lots of tools and techniques I am sure will ease my teaching life from now on. I am glad there are people doing research about the best ways to manage them.

I think one of the key factors here is involvement. Being a lecturer for a class of fifty-five students or even colleagues is no easy task. We all know that. Audience members tend to feel relegated if there is no chance for them to get involved. After all, true learning takes place through active work not through mere reception.

PowerPoint is a great tool we can use to deal with this type of teaching-learning context. It does not have to be just a way to transmit information to a large number of people. We as teachers need to personalize it, so our audience switch from receivers to participants. We saw a lot about already-proved techniques we can put into practice to achieve this goal.

Talking about the implementation of the change, last Wednesday, all my students joined a Nicenet class I created for them. They explored this tool in detailed, guided by me. I have posted helpful links, and I am working on a forum for them to start posting. I am trying to pick topics of their interest so they feel invloved. 

Not surprisingly, my students did really well with Nicenet. They created forum topics, posted to other people's forum topics, sent each other e-mail messages, etc. with minor difficulties. In other words, they can use the Web, but not necessarily in a productive way. Our role is to guide them then.