As a pedagogical advisor at the Oranim College of Education, I accompany groups of pre-service teachers (hereinafter referred to as students) in their practicum in a primary school. The second and third-year students are at the school one or two days a week throughout the school year. I have been at the Beit Zeev school a day a week for four years now. On the days that I am at the school, I meet with teachers and my students and observe my students teaching classes, small groups and individual pupils. At the end of the school day, I meet with the student cohort to discuss teaching, learning, and class management…
-
-
Giving students a choice: A win-win situation
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets “We make our choices; then our choices make us.” Anonymous Giving students a choice is an effective way of differentiating my teaching. In my experience, student choice increases involvement and engagement in the course, elevates motivation and reduces stress. When learners read a list of options and identify ones they can achieve, they experience a sense of “I can do that!” empowerment. Granting choice in academic contexts also prepares learners to take responsibility for their progress. Additional benefits are learners knowing their strengths, exploring…
-
Everyone is talking about ‘back to normal’
‘Back to normal’, everyone is talking about ‘back to normal’. What is normal? Is it possible to go back after what we have experienced? None of us knows if we are in the wake of the COVID19 crisis or in the midst of another of the unfolding waves of the virus; none of us can tell if the routine we are creating at present will remain stable for an extended period. Everything is still uncertain and fragile, and we are all learning to live with unpredictability. I constantly remind my pre-service teacher students that the flexibility they are acquiring in these ever-changing dynamic times will serve them well in their…
-
Student writing: Sounds in the silence
I consider my work with MEd students a privilege. I have fifteen experienced and motivated educators, joining me weekly to learn, partake in collegial conversation, write, engage with narrative, and research their classroom practice. This morning, as they crafted a memory from their school days, I listened. What does the silence of a class of writers sound like? Colourful humming creeping in, buzzing fluorescents, whirring projector. Pen scratching, pencil dragging, pen dropping abandoned. Page-turning and turning back, another tearing, banished and thrown. Buttons clicking in search of a word. A foreign tongue drifting in, curiosity lingering. Water bottles swish, a whisper and another. Children laughing from afar, a sigh. Back…
-
Weekly emails: Helping students stay on track
Throughout the last academic year, I sent students weekly emails in each of my courses; I aimed to keep students connected during the period of extreme social distancing. Some of my courses were asynchronous, some were synchronous (via Zoom), and others were a flipped classroom format (asynchronous study units in preparation for synchronous classes on Zoom). I spent time and effort creating those emails and was determined that they wouldn’t get lost in the tsunami of correspondence that students receive from the college and beyond. I am happy to report that in interviews for my research, I heard from several students that the emails were helpful and supportive during the…
-
Chat stations: Moving a favourite teaching strategy online
I am always searching for ways to encourage my students to be active and involved in the lesson; I aim for all to be engaged in the discussion. A whole-class discussion usually means a few students contributing, directing most of the comments to the teacher ping pong style. Even if the teacher decides to hear every group member, it can only ever be a short statement because of time limitations.I follow and deeply admire Jennifer Gonzales, a teacher blogger at Cult of Pedagogy. A few years ago, Gonzales wrote a post on ‘chat stations’, a teaching strategy that resonated with me, and I adopted it immediately. The simple idea involves…
-
It’s not homework!
This morning I want to share one of the issues I grappled with this year in my online flipped learning courses for pre-service teachers. For those unfamiliar with the concept of flipped learning, here is a short explanation: Before I describe my experience, I will remind myself and my readers that this wasn’t a routine online learning situation; this was learning forced online in response to the pandemic. My students were learning 100% online for most of the year and were participating in a wide range of courses presented in different ways. Many students were struggling academically and financially, some were juggling study with small children present, and others were working…
-
Grand Finale – Goosechase in the gardens
Unfortunately, the pressures of this impossible academic year have caused me to neglect my writing and abandon my blog. Teaching and supporting pre-service teachers through the turmoil of the pandemic was challenging and burdensome, but I learnt a great deal. I sincerely hope to grapple with some of those understandings here on the blog very soon. In the last week of the academic year, I chose to close two of my online courses face-to-face with creative and active events outside in the fresh air. Both courses were didactics courses for language teaching; one was for EFL pre-service teachers, and the other was for pre-service teachers of Hebrew language and literacy.…
-
Pondering plagiarism: 30 questions
I spent last week grading assignments. In one course my task included a choice of content and questions. I was almost at the end of the forty-plus papers when I encountered one different in structure. I was annoyed to see that the student hadn’t followed my instructions. ‘Why didn’t he read the instructions; they were crystal clear? What didn’t he understand?’ I asked myself while reading. I decided to ignore the structure of the paper initially and to concentrate on the content. As I read, I could sense that the student hadn’t written the piece. Even though the course was a-synchronous with little inter-personal communication, I could feel something suspicious…
-
Building community through student choice
I have just finished teaching ‘Rhetoric Skills: Theory and Practice’. It’s the first time I have taught the semester-long course for first-year BA and preservice teachers and retraining students studying towards their teaching certificate in EFL. Due to the college closure and three periods of lockdown during the semester, I taught the course online. I have already written about my informal meetings with some of the students here. The cohort made up of 42 students was heterogeneous and included students from many Israeli cultural groups. Meeting with Jewish students, both religious and secular, Christians and Muslims from a broad geographical radius in the north of Israel, made the experience richer…
