Trying New
Teaching Tools
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Post 268
For
many faculty members and instructors in various learning institutions, change
is stressful. The implementation of a new teaching tool in their classroom can
be challenging, both for the teacher and for the students. While continually
relying on the same teaching tools and practices can be part of one’s comfort
zone, as well as the learners’, it is feasible that change may also bring lots
of opportunities for deeper learning and stronger student engagement for one’s
pupils.
·
To what extent is active
learning a new concept for us faculty members?
I
would not say that that active learning is a new concept for me or for many of
my colleagues at the two places where I work and teach; it is something that in
language learning we teachers try to foster in our classrooms on a daily basis.
We just don’t want to provide learners comprehensible input for them to build
up their new knowledge, but we seek for opportunities so they can practice (and
manipulate) what they are learning. This is the concept of active learning that
is applicable to language development.
·
How are you making decisions
about your own teaching practice?
What influences your choices?
My
teaching decisions, as the ones made by many faculty members or language teachers
that work with me are made on what needs to be comprehended by students, the
necessity to build specific skills they will use to perform language tasks, and
the need to materialize competencies that will distinguish them professionally
making them more desirable candidates to be hired. The main influence in my choices
is coming from the course outline program and the expected exit profile
students are meant to have achieved once they conclude with all major’s
courses. If exit profile is respected, students will no doubt will demonstrate
what they are worth for the labor world.
·
What is your experience of
trying something new in the classroom?
And how did your students react to it?
Every
time I teach a course at the university, I base myself on what I had already
tried with other students who had been with me before. I rarely repeat the very
same learning task with another group since I tend to make little or major
adjustments to better fit their learning needs. Due to the fact that students
know I am technologically-oriented, as soon as they take a course with me they
understand that I incorporate a lot of online resources and Web 2.0 elements to
motivate them and hopefully maximize their learning. Because of this I tend to
have good reactions and reviews from learners. And I also know of many other
higher education colleagues of mine and language teachers who do the same to “spice
up” learning in their courses and in their groups.
·
What experience do you have
with implementing active learning in your classroom?
If you have not done so, why not? What are your concerns about
it?
There
should not be any kind of discussion in regards to the implementation of active
learning in the classroom or on an online learning environment. Since 2008 when
I started incorporating lots of changes in my teaching by using different
methodologies and approaches to language learning, such as PBL (Project-Based
Learning) and IBL (Internet-Based Learning), I have been able to see that kind
of language teaching professional Universidad Latina (where I currently work as
a senior ELT professor) is shaping for the sake of our country’s
English-speaking benchmarks and needs.
To conclude, as I was asked once in a
Laureate Faculty course in the Higher Education program, it is a wise idea that
any teaching professional asks him/herself the following questions:
·
To what extend is active learning a new
concept for you?
·
How are you making decisions about your own
teaching practice? What influences your choices?
·
What is your experience of trying something
new in the classroom, and how did your students react to it?
·
What experience do you have with
implementing active learning in your classroom? If you have not done so, why
not? What are your concerns about it?
Answering
this set of questions can be a great reflective exercise for any of us teaching
professionals.
Thursday, May 05, 2016
Post a Comment