Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

Students learn best by seeing the value and importance of the information presented in the classroom. If the students are not interested in the material presented, they will not learn it. In order to achieve the ultimate goal of student learning it is important to use a combination of teaching methods and to make the classroom environment as stimulating and interactive as possible.

Each learner differs in understanding the concept taught to them. There are students who can understand better through visual aids or through hands on activities. As teachers we are the very good example to prove this. We are the great observers of our students who can modify the lessons according to each individuals learning spectrum. Here is the importance of VAK learning styles which enables a teacher to cascade lessons according to the requirement of her students.

Every learner is different, hence there are different learning styles. We all process information in different ways.

The VAK model describes learners as VISUAL, AUDITORY and KINESTHETIC.

Let us see in detail;

Visual learners tend to:

•     Learn through seeing

•    Think in pictures and need to create vivid mental images to retain information

•    Enjoy looking at maps, charts, pictures, videos, and movies

•    Have visual skills which are demonstrated in puzzle building, reading, writing, understanding charts and graphs, a good sense of direction, sketching, painting, creating visual metaphors and analogies (perhaps through the visual arts), manipulating images, constructing, fixing, designing practical objects, and interpreting visual images.

 

Auditory learners tend to:

•     Learn through listening

•    Have highly developed auditory skills and are generally good at speaking and presenting

•    Think in words rather than pictures

•    Learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have to say

•    Have auditory skills demonstrated in listening, speaking, writing, storytelling, explaining, teaching, using humour, understanding the syntax and meaning of words, remembering information, arguing their point of view, and analysing language usage.

 

Kinaesthetic learners tend to:

•     Learn through moving, doing and touching

•    Express themselves through movement

•    Have good sense of balance and eye-hand coordination

•    Remember and process information through interacting with the space around them

•    Find it hard to sit still for long periods and may become distracted by their need for activity and exploration

•    Have skills demonstrated in physical coordination, athletic ability, hands on experimentation, using body language, crafts, acting, miming, using their hands to create or build, dancing, and expressing emotions through the body.

Benefits of VAK learning styles are:

•     Caters to every learner in a one way or the other.

•    Encourages active participation among learners

•    Makes lesson interesting (Ex: when students watch video clips, then go for group discussion or practical activity)

•    Success in learning for the individual

•    Helps in differentiation in classroom

•    helps in supporting Learning Disability Students

 

Learners learn best when;

·    they are actively involved in their learning.

·    the teachers’ instructions are clear.

there are resources and materials to support the learning.

 

Scaffolding

Scaffolding instruction as a teaching strategy originates from Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and his concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD).  “The zone of proximal development is the distance between what children can do by themselves and the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance”

Scaffolding is a teaching technique used to build connections for learners by establishing details surrounding a unit before it is actually taught. Scaffolding allows the teacher to build a bridge from the learners' current knowledge to the information being taught. Scaffolding is properly performed by a teacher by modelling a given task and slowly transferring the knowledge to the learner so he can firmly grasp the subject matter.

Advantages of scaffolding

· Motivate or enlist the child’s interest related to the task

· Simplify the task to make it more manageable and achievable for a child

· Provide some direction in order to help the child focus on achieving the goal

· Clearly indicate differences between the child’s work and the standard or desired solution.

· Reduce frustration and risk.

· Model and clearly define the expectations of the activity to be performed.

Scaffolding can be disadvantageous for teachers, because

·         It necessitates giving up control to allow learners to learn at their own pace.

·         It is also time-consuming; you might not have adequate time to complete your entire scaffolding lesson.

·         On certain occasions, you may be forced to cut short the time allocated for each student in order to accommodate all learners. This can result in frustration, and the students' urge to learn can slowly fade.

 

 

 

My focus for Module 2 is “Helping shy learners with class involvement”

Why I have chosen this is actually a coincidence, well, I have a few slow and weak learners in my class who are my target group as well. One of the girls among them dragged my attention as I found her often drowsy and not attentive in the class. To my horror, I discovered that most of her work was incomplete or rather blank, this happened at the beginning of the year.

I was really upset with the situation but looking at her face I couldn’t get angry so I tried a different technique to start giving her focus and made her the group leader. Moreover I told her in front of the whole class that I have immense trust in her abilities and I believe that she will help her group perform well. As she belongs to the Low achievers group these statement worked well. To my surprise I have never seen her reluctant or drowsy ever after and most of the time she came up with her completed work personally. I could realize that she had built up responsibility but she couldn’t show it in front of the class so I made it a point to let the class know about her progress which really boosted her confidence.

In addition to this I had buddied her with a girl from the higher ability group that too her own choice so that she feels more comfortable to approach her. She normally helps her in assisting her to complete the task as well as to clarify her doubts with the instructions for activities and task. I could find her very much ease with her buddy and now she gives instructions to her group which is really a pleasure to observe.

This inspired me a lot, to get things more in place I took appointment with her parents and discussed with them about the steps they need to know in order to help her. They were happy as they saw good progress in her so I felt my plan worked. She has been quite consistent in her work thereafter coming up with extra piece of written work for the Literacy board which was amazing, I admire her effort. This gave me enough boost to work positively with the shy learners. Later on it was an added advantage when I discovered that our CICT module 2 has shy learners focus, Wow that was coincidence.

How you have differentiated in your class in the past?

Basically the differentiation was done according to the different ability groups: children with higher ability, middle ability and lower ability were made to sit in groups and activities given to them were differentiated.

We basically differentiated as follows:

  1. Differentiation by task

  2. Differentiation by resources

3. Differentiation by support

4. Help of ICT

5. Help of buddies

 That is, for a lesson like news report the activities were differentiated i.e.; one group would make a news report and do podcasting, other would read the report in front of the class and another group would record the news as a live coverage, so here it is differentiated by task. 

For a guided reading session normally we give them differentiated text which varies from simple to difficult and the simple one given to the lower group, here we focus on the differentiation by resource. Moreover differentiation is also done with the help of support were the lower group is given some help tools like word bank for writing, clues to attempt answers, prompts cards etc.

At times differentiation by resources is also done with the help of ICT, normally during story writing, after giving the stimulus for the entire class, the lower ability would be given a part of the story in the form of video which they will continue and write in their own words. The middle ability would be given a part of the story in the written form which they will continue and the higher ability was given only situations about which they need to make a story.

In addition to this resources were used in the form of ICT, were instead of writing in the paper, the lower group were given Laptops and IPADs whereas other groups were given task like recording the story in the form of role-play and for the next group to present the role-play in the class.

Moreover differentiation by support was also done with the higher group working independently, middle group with the help of pair work and the lower group with the help of support from the teacher and their buddies from the higher group.

Eventually this was how we mainly did differentiation in our class. Apart from this we tried to give better platform and enough opportunities for all the types of learners to express their ideas which also initiated to develop their confidence.

‘Differentiation is….. the process of identifying, with each learner, the most effective strategies for achieving agreed targets’. 

As rightly said, differentiation is an approach to teaching that attempts to ensure that all students learn well, despite their many differences.

‘Coping with differences’.

‘Learning for all’ or

‘Success for all’.

It’s very essential to understand the term Differentiation in the right way. There are a number of common misconceptions about differentiation.  Some believe that it is something ‘added on’ to normal teaching and that it just requires a few discrete extra activities in the lesson. In fact, differentiation permeates everything a good teacher does and it is often impossible to ‘point’ to a discrete event that achieves it.

 It is not what is done often, but the way it is done that achieves differentiation. For this reason differentiation may not show up on a lesson plan or in the Scheme of Work.  However teachers try to show their intentions to differentiate by setting objectives in the following format:

All must….

Some may…
A few might…
Eventually if every learner achieves at their maximum rate this has huge consequences for their own lives, but also for society at large.  Social inclusiveness, welfare to work, and the reduction of crime, all require an educated citizenship and workforce. Differentiation has a lot to offer individuals, society and the economy, so it’s worth getting it right.  As teachers it’s our ultimate goal to produce a set of good citizen for the welfare of the society and for a strong generation.

 

What would you like to do in future training sessions?

I would like to learn more about

·      Strategies that can enhance collaborative learning in the class room.

·      Ways through which I can involve and ensure the participation of all the students in the class room.

·      Methods through which differentiation can be easily incorporated in the class room that can cater to the needs of all the different types of learners.

·      Methods that can enhance critical thinking among students.

·      Ways to boost up the confidence level in students.

 

 

If you could do the tasks and activities of unit 1 all over again, how would you do it differently?

As we say “Every child matters”, we as facilitators aim at providing a cordial and conducive learning atmosphere for our students despite their abilities thereby giving them the best opportunity to explore and learn through fun and entertainment. So if I get an opportunity to redo the task I will definitely focus on overcoming all the barriers and difficulties that I faced thereby building the best possible platform for my students to learn.

·      I would like to incorporate the use of different strategies that I have learned to create a good learning atmosphere.

 

·      Through the variety of questioning activities, I can engage each and every student in the class and provide more opportunity for the students to involve actively in learning.

·      Encourage lateral thinking.

·      Incorporate the use of ICT effectively to make learning exciting and challenging.

·      To give more space for collaborative learning.

·      To prepare and plan the resources well in such a way that it should interest the learners.

·       To stick on with the time slot.

·      To include energisers to remove boredom as well as to evoke the enthusiasm of the learners.

·      Be prepared with a plan B in case if plan A doesn’t work as expected.

·      Avoid the use of questioning strategies and experiment with the different types of questioning strategies learned.

·      To include hot seating along with the props.

·      To encourage the students to appreciate each other’s work.

·      Connect the subjects to real life experiences as well as to include cross curricular link with different subjects to promote critical thinking.

·      To provide maximum opportunity to involve different types of learners through activities that can equip the interest of each and every one.

·      Use different types of plenary to sum up the learning.

 

 

 

 

How did I do the Plenary through the strategies that I have learned?

Well that very exciting to have a lot of ways to do the plenary and you can try out anyways. The best part was we were doing poetry for the past week and to add on to the joy we had decided to gift the children with a Poet Café outside the classroom in order to appreciate the poems and poets. This was an awesome experience as I took my plenary with 6A while they were seated outside under the bid tree in the garden.

As the children were all ready with their poems and had enough knowledge about the poets which we asked them to research on they could do the task with ease. They were reading out their poems and appreciated each other’s work which was an appealing sight to watch. I joined them for the plenary with the WHO questions “Questions you would like to ask”. Before I started the strategy of questioning I gave a gist of the agony that a poet go through while making a poetry as I compared the same with the way an oyster makes the pearl. Then I asked them about poetry which they answered by saying “it’s a way to express your feelings and emotions.”

I started my questioning strategy by giving the definition of poetry as “A poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and it takes it origin from the emotion recollected in tranquillity”, as William Wordsworth says. Then  I had brief them on what they need to do as soon as I put them into pairs and with the boys on one side and the girls on the other side. They had to frame questions based on the poets and the poetry Café that they had discussed so far with their pair which should be done secretly as they need to pose the questions later on to the girls group.

Children were given 3mts to frame questions, once when they are finished with the task they were given turns to pose the questions to each other. At the same time, each group was given time to answer the questions as well. Children really enjoyed and loved questioning the other groups while they learned and had a quick recap on the whole thing that they discussed throughout the session. I could find the excitement when they were trying to frame the best question as possible to shot to the opposite group.

Apparently it was a wonderful session as it went on very well than I expected because it was outside in nature and the children enjoyed a lot as the topic itself matched with the scenario.