Internet nos ofrece una gran cantidad de posibilidades y oportunidades para seguir aprendiendo como en la escuela, pero desde casa, desde la oficina, desde donde estén ubicados.
La posibilidad de acceder a videos y aplicaciones para repasar con nuestros dispositivos móviles amplian y aceleran nuestro aprendizaje, además de ser otra forma más de diversión. La mayoría de los videos y aplicaciones que usamos en nuestro salón de clase con nuestros campeones y campeonas son muy coloridos, con una melodía pegadiza, con ritmo,...
Quiero compartir con ustedes los pasos a seguir para repasar las letras.
1. Visionado completo del video.
En primer lugar invitamos a nuestros campeones a ver un video divertido, de los que les gusta cuando aprenden con Mr. Usero. Los videos suelen ser breves, por lo que el tiempo dedicado en este paso es poco y lo pueden hacer ellos solos.
Si es la primera vez que los ven, estén pendientes de que prestan atención al video, ya que las siguientes actividades están relacionadas con ellos.
Para comprobar que han entendido el video, le podemos hacer preguntas como:
¿de qué trata el video?
¿qué es lo que más te gustó?
¿cuál es tu _____ favorito?
¿me dibujas (y/o escribes, si ya saben) lo que más te gustó?
2. Visionado por partes.
En este paso realizaremos pausas. ¿Por qué pausas? Porque nos detendremos para repetir y producir los sonidos de las letras o palabras que aparezcan en el video.
En caso de dificultad, les ayudamos bien invitándoles a verlo otra vez o bien le enseñamos cómo hacerlo.
Por ejemplo en el video que ponemos de ejemplo, encontramos la primera letra: A.
Hacemos una pausa y preguntamos:
¿Qué letra es?
¿Cómo se llama esta letra?
¿Cómo se pronuncia?
(Intentemos evitar expresiones como "sabes cómo...", ya que los pequeños van a responder la mayoría de veces que sí y no las van a producir).
En caso de presentar dificultades vamos a usar la imagen (abeja), y le hacemos las siguientes preguntas:
¿Qué animal ves?
¿Cómo se llama?
¿Pronuncia el primer sonido? (o el último ya que ambas son A en este caso)
Reforzamos positivamente sus respuestas con las siguientes expresiones:
"muy bien"
"excelente"
"me gusta lo bien que aprendes"
Si, por el contrario, no tenemos respuestas positivas, intentamos ofrecer otras ayudas como por ejemplo "repite conmigo...". Con nuestra ayuda le enseñamos cómo se traza en la pantalla mientras repetimos el sonido y le nombre.
Para los más avanzados, le invitamos a las siguientes actividades-juegos:
- Veo, veo, una cosita que empieza por la letra...
Y tienen que adivinar qué cosa es la que empieza por dicha letra.
- ¿Cuántas cosas en la habitación empiezan por esta letra?
- ¿Cuántas cosas en la habitación terminan por esta letra?
- Dime otras palabras que sepas que empiecen/terminen por esta letra.
Otras variantes puede ser escribir y leer. Por ejemplo con uno de sus cuentos-libros favoritos se pueden hacer las mismas preguntas que hemos realizado para la habitación.
3- Nuevamente visionado completo del video sin sonido.
En esta última actividad vemos el video completo y le invitamos a jugar a ver cuántas letras y sonidos saben. Por cada una que se sepan (ellos solitos) podemos hacer puntos y esos puntos al final lo cambiamos por cosas que les guste. Así les motivamos a aprender las letras y sonidos, será algo muy divertido, porque cada vez más querrán más puntos y se sabrán más letras.
Ejemplo de la actividad
Una mamá ensayando en casa con una de mis campeonas. Están realizando el punto 2.
Otros videos que podemos usar para trabajar en casa con letras y sonidos con nuestros dispositivos móviles:
Every morning we work our calendar as part of the morning message.
We sing a song "Los dias de la semana", our students like it so much! They stop when the name of the day of the week appears, in this case: Friday - Viernes (in Spanish).
This is a good opportunity to learn the days of the week but letters, sounds and early reading and writing as well. Besides, it's another excellent opportunity to work in pairs -bilingual pairs and thinking pairs-. We spell "viernes", letter by letter, we learn about sounds.
At this time we are warming-up our writing skills to be prepared for our journals that's why we do air-writing.
Today, December 1st, 2017, we introduce the month of December too. It's another opportunity to work months of the year.
As part of their language development we sing (it improves their speech articulation and it motivates them since they like singing!!!) and dance (motor skill - body coordination and Total Physical Response).
As parents and educators at Roosevelt ES (Houston ISD) we are concerned about this part of the education, we have decided to work together and dedicate one day a week to work on this life-safety project. From the very first moment we mentioned to do that, they couldn't wait to come to our room and start with our Dual-Language Prek students.
Why Child Road Safety at schools?
The doors of the schools in the hours of entry and dismissal become a real chaos where personal interests are a priority to the rules of coexistence and civic behavior of road safety.
Paradoxically these behaviors of individual overprotection that we intend for our children, wanting to take them to the same door of the center, translates into risk behavior for children, families, drivers and pedestrians, in addition to a negative model for the little ones.
For all this, we wanted to pick up a decalogue with the positive guidelines that we should establish in the children's voices.
A decalogue focused on nursery schools that due to the special characteristics of the users (SRI, strollers, motor skills, etc.) are more exposed to risks and is the basis of the education, training and awareness that is intended.
The road safety of school environments is everyone's responsibility, let's begin to apply common sense and we will achieve adequate and safe environments, sowing awareness in our children to collect self-protection and citizenship in their development.According to Unicef data, thousand and thousand children from one year to 14 years of age are killed in traffic accidents in rich countries every year. The survey concludes that this is because children do not use security systems or do it incorrectly, or at home they are not well trained.
The best way to prevent accidents is education. With good information and awareness, in addition to the use of child safety system, the number of children killed in traffic accidents could be reduced by 75%. Parents should assume that they are solely responsible for the safety of their children when traveling by car, that's why their active participation is very important.
The consequences for the child of not traveling safe baby in car seat:
A strong impact can cause serious injuries to babies and children. In 80% of cases, the most affected areas are the head and neck. While for an adult the head represents an eighth of the total weight, for a child it represents a quarter, since 25% of the weight of the children is in the head. By not having well developed neck muscles, it could not withstand a violent shock, which can have serious consequences, such as injuries to the vertebrae and spinal cord.
Traffic accidents are the most frequent cause of multiple injuries in children:
- A child can suffer a traumatic brain or spinal injury, visceral injuries, or fractures of extremities.
- When a child is in a vehicle that collides with a pole or a tree, or collides with another car, if it has an adequate restraint system, it may have thoracic and abdominal injuries. If you do not have an adequate restraint system, you can die immediately or suffer a traumatic brain injury.
- When a child goes by motorcycle or bike. Children, when traveling with an adult on a motorcycle or bicycle, even if they go in a specific seat for them, can suffer injuries in the upper and lower extremities, including amputations of hands and feet.
The example of parents in terms of road safety
Children learn by imitating behavior, so it is imperative that parents are the first to set an example. If the children see that their parents are wearing the seat belt, they will also do the same and will not discuss the use of the safety systems as soon as they enter the car. There are cases in which children themselves warn their parents when they break this traffic rule. For this reason, it is very important that the elderly have the most correct behavior possible. The most convenient thing is to teach children the use of the indicated security systems, whatever the route. In this way, children will get used to using it as a rule every time they get into the car. Remember that the safety of children in the car depends on the adult.
The awareness of drivers with children
The seats or safety seats for babies and children are the most effective measure to prevent traffic accidents. Therefore, to protect the lives of babies and children it is essential to use safety seats in the car. It is necessary to emphasize the importance of protecting children. That the drivers of the children are more aware of, for example, speed. It is physically proven that at a speed of 60 km / h, no arm is capable of retaining a child weighing 18 kilos. In the event of a frontal collision, its weight would reach more than one ton.
Some recommendations
Part of this post has been adapted and translated (free and non-commercial purpose) of the article Seguirdad Vial Infantil.
Este es el primer artículo que resume los aspectos fundamentales del tema de nuestro primer encuentro en esta actividad enriquecedora que une a estudiantes, familias y escuela para lograr un objetivo común: ser multilingües y multiculturales, y donde mejor que en Durham ES de HoustonISD. Houston es una ciudad que se caracteriza por su gran diversidad, entonces ¿por qué no aprovecharlo? Únete a nuestro club!
Welcome to Hi Amigos Club!
This is the first post that deals with the main aspects and points of our first meeting of this amazing and enriching activity that gathers students, families and school to get a common goal: to be multilingual and multicultural, at the best school Durham ES of HoustonISD. Houston is a city full of diverisity... so, why don´t take advantage of that? Join our club!
3, 2, 1... Empezamos! Let´s start!
En todos los idiomas nos encontramos con fórmulas de cortesía: los saludos y las presentaciones. Éstos sirven para introducir relaciones personales y en situaciones de la vida diaria en muchos niveles como pueden ser el familiar, el laboral,… Tenga en cuenta que estas expresiones se usan tanto a nivel hablado como escrito, sin embargo podemos encontrar grandes diferencias (las veremos más adelante).
Estas expresiones son muy importantes ya que sirven para entablar relaciones sociales y con ellas podemos comenzar una conversación ante una o varias personas, ya las conozcamos con anterioridad o sean nuevas. Del mismo modo, estas fórmulas de cortesía nos serán muy útiles si necesitamos información de otra persona “Perdone, ¿me repite su nombre?” o “¡Hey! ¿Dónde me dijiste?” que suenan mejor si van acompañadas de estas mágicas palabras: “Gracias” y “Por favor”.
"El saludo es una forma de comunicarse, de introducir a una persona en el círculo de otra -al hacer las presentaciones-, bien sea de una forma momentánea y esporádica, o bien de una forma más permanente al establecer un vínculo más estrecho con ella (amistad, amor, etc.)"
A continuación, podrá ver una correspondencia de palabras, frases y expresiones de expresiones en inglés y en español.
Saludo básico
Hola
Hello / Hi
Buenos días
Good morning (del amanecer hasta las 12:00 PM)
Buenas tardes
Good afternoon /
Good evening (from 6 PM)
Buenas noches
Good evening (from 6
PM) / Good night (to sleep)
¿Cómo estás?
How are you? / How
are you doing?
Un placer conocerte.
It´s a pleasure to
meet you.
¡Hasta luego!
See you later!
¡Adiós!
Good-bye!
En este video veremos ejemplos de saludos en español:
Greetings - how to say hello in English
Watching this video you´ll learn different expressions of greetings in English.
It´s not necessary that you understand everything, please use the visual support/aid to understand the words and the situations.
Maybe it´s too basic for some of you, please share with us your experiences of greetings!
Welcome to this online part of the community of this amazing club!
We, Ms Kaplan and Mr Usero, are going to share with you many materials, resources, videos,... that will help you learn the language you want: English or Spanish. During our face-to-face sessions we will be focused on the oral skills with the help of our awesome students.
Ms Kaplan y Mr Usero compartiremos con ustedes una gran cantidad de materiales, recursos, videos,... que le ayudarán en el aprendizaje de la lengua que usted quiera: inglés o español. En las clases presenciales nos centraremos más en las destrezas orales, con la ayuda de nuestros magníficos estudiantes.
It´s going to be a good opportunity to the school community to build something important together, where everyone can add something from their experience to others with a same goal: be multilingual, be multicultural.
Esta va a ser una buena oportunidad para la comunidad escolar para construir algo importante juntos, donde cada uno puede aportar algo de su propia experiencia a otros con un mismo objetivo: ser multilingüe, ser multicultural.
Why multicultural? As an expert in bilingual education we can confirm that learn a language cannot be possible without the cultural components, that´s why we add cultural topics to our lessons too.
¿Por qué multicultural? Como experto en educación bilingue podemos decir que para aprender una lengua necesitamos de sus componentes culturales, es la razón por la que trataremos, también, temas de la cultura en nuestras clases.
I´d like to share with you all my blog maestrousero.blogspot.com where you will find lots of posts about bilingualism and other articles and researches that may be interesting for you.
Me gustaría compartir con usted mi blog maestrousero.blogspot.com donde encontrará una gran cantidad de publicaciones sobre bilingüismo y otros articulos e investigaciones que podrán ser de su interés.
We appreciate your participation and collaboration in this innovative and enriching project.
Agradecemos su participación y colaboración en este proyecto innovador y enriquecedor.
Muchos estudios hablan sobre la importancia de aprender varios idiomas y en un mundo cada vez mas globalizado y conectado saber otros idiomas nos abren puertas y ventanas.
Como docente he podido ver la incertidumbre de los padres y madres por proteger a sus hijos. Esta proteccion, en ocasiones, afecta en su educacion ya que por temor, miedo o desconocimiento a lo "nuevo" intentan frenar el avance y la mejora de sus propios hijos. Por este motivo quiero ofrecerles este interesante interesante articulo que habla sobre este tema:
Destacamos los siguientes párrafos de esta interesante publicación:
El cerebro tiene gran plasticidad y maleabilidad en los primeros años de vida, de ahí que para los niños sea fácil aprender un segundo idioma en edad temprana. Exponga a su hijo a otro idioma cuando sea pequeño y verá como lo adquiere con facilidad. Además, está comprobado que el saber dos o más idiomas desarrolla una mejor habilidad de pensamiento verbal.
También los estudios científicos concluyen una vez más que el cerebro aprende de manera óptima solo cuando el niño se siente seguro y feliz. Por eso es esencial brindarles tranquilidad para aprender. Al ser el cerebro más emocional que racional, cuando el niño se conecta emocionalmente con su profesor(a) y el material didáctico, le va a ir muchísimo mejor que cuando no lo hace.
Y lo que es muy importante: respetar el desarrollo individual y no forzar el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de cada niño/a. Añadimos a esta idea una recomendación fundamental para un desarrollo óptimo y positivo: no podemos comparar resultados con hermanos/as, familiares o amigos/as de la misma etapa porque contribuiremos a crearles una actitud negativa con imagen de inferioridad, que en un futuro dará lugar a conductas envidiosas que focalizarán sus objetivos y/o metas en los logros ajenos y no en los propios.
Esta publicacion fue escrita hace ya varios anos, y compartida en uno de mis perfiles de facebook Robotico Storyteller.
Actividad de Storytelling en inglés/español en colegios de Sevilla (España)
Mas información en otras publicaciones de este blog.
Analisis de la unidad Women's art por Francisco Usero González - sábado, 1 de abril de 2017, 13:17
La unidad que he elegido es Women's Art de "Secuencias elaboradas por el Profesorado" de la Junta de Andalucia (Espana).
- ¿Cómo se ve reflejado el trabajo con la lengua y el contenido a la vez? ¿Qué actividades lo evidencian?
En esta unidad se mencionan los contenidos del curso en la asignatura de Educacion artistica plastica y por otro lado los contenidos linguisticos, estructuras y lexico. He de mencionar que no hay mucha correlacion entre ellos, ya que en la parte de contenidos de la asignatura se hace especial hincapie en las tecnicas artisticas, sus diferentes usos, aunque por supuesto tambien el aspecto biografico e historico de las autoras que se mencionan. En la parte linguistica, exclusivamente se menciona y destaca vocabulario de pasado y de opinion, pero no se menciona nada sobre palabras especificas de las tecnicas y palabras que definan las acciones de su uso. Imaginemos que queremos hacer un retrato con la tecnica del carboncillo, no se menciona dicha tecnica, pero la podemos ver en las obras expuestas como ejemplos... En la parte final se mencionan los materiales de las esculturas, pero no las tecnicas para dar forma. Considero en este punto que es una actividad donde no se conecta la accion , la actividad y la comunicacion, en mi opinion ofreceria la posibilidad a los alumnos/as de elegir un estilo, un material, una tecnica y que mientras la desarrollan pudieran explicar parte del proceso en L2 mientras que el profesor/a puede tomar nota, tipo dictado de esta parte oral o incluso grabarlo y compartirlo en el blog de arte de la escuela. Aparte el alumnado puede crear su propia ficha digital que incluya el video, foto, y otros apartados escritos y audiovisuales que admitan comentarios como puede ser padlet.
Una actividad que evidencia la correlacion de los contenidos linguisticos y su uso es en la actividad 6 y 7 donde tienen que completar informacion. Este tipo de actividades se hacen de forma individual y en el papel, creo que se podria crear un quiz como kahoot, por ejemplo.
- ¿Que características de la metodología AICLE se ven reflejadas y de qué modo?, ¿uso de andamiaje, flexibilidad, cercano al alumno, variedad de recursos, trabajo por tareas, etc.? ¿De qué manera se refleja en las actividades de la unidad?
Realizando el analisis me gustaria comentar que esta unidad esta disenada para el alumnado de quinto curso de educacion primaria. Cuando he leido toda la unidad no veo en ningun apartado nada sobre su contexto, si se menciona el nivel de idioma L2 segun MCER A1.3. Creo que seria importante mencionar mas caracteristicas del contexto del alumnado y del centro para ver cuanto se acerca a la realidad de los estudiantes, ya que las conexiones con su entorno mas proximo son muy importantes para un aprendizaje significativo y el desarrollo de los distintos niveles de procesar la informacion y el pensamiento (thinking levels).
La secuencia de actividades no realiza un progreso, a mi parecer muy acertado en ocasiones, ya que en la primera actividad pide si reconocen las imagenes no sabemos si es el estilo, las autoras o el contenido de las imagenes. En la siguiente se hace una clasificacion de las mismas de acuerdo a la clasificacion de artistas o modelos, aqui es cuando se deja claro cual es el objetivo. Tampoco se especifican las destrezas ni el tipo de actividad, si es individual, en pareja o en grupos. En la segunda actividad hay unas "burbujas" o "bocadillos", como en los comics, pero no se menciona nada sobre interactuar o conversar con estudiantes, sino mas bien como un ejemplo de como deben realizar la clasificacion. Las actividades que siguen a la escucha y lectura, como la actividad 5 y 6, en mi opinion deberian estar invertidas, ya que en la 5 se les pide que escriban "mas libremente" mientras en la 6 deben completar las oraciones rellenando los huecos con las palabras del texto.En resumen, valoro enormemente que esta profesora haya realizado esta unidad, la busqueda de informacion y recursos, pero creo que podria haber ofrecido un poco mas de informacion, ya que hay mucha informacion que no aparece y que podria ayudar en la implementacion y desarrollo en otros centros. Otro asunto es el uso de las TICs, apenas se usan las TICs, solo unos enlaces para buscar informacion y realizar un powerpoint. Ya se menciona en el cuadro resumen de la unidad, que basicamente se usara para la busqueda de informacion, pero en esta asignatura puede dar mucho juego y puede ampliar significativamente el trabajo y la motivacion del alumnado. Actualmente hay una gran variedad de programas y aplicaciones para trabajar el arte en todos sus campos, incluso visitas virtuales a museos en los que se puede usar L2 para practicar otros contenidos, aparte del trabajo en equipo.
En general la gran mayoria de las actividades son individuales y muy tradicionales, ofrece pocas posibilidades de comunicacion reales al alumnado, asi como mucho trabajo basado en las destrezas escritas. Echaria en falta una actividad final, como he mencionado anteriormente, donde en parejas o en grupos pudieran desarrollar un trabajo de arte (desarrollo de la creatividad) final que hiciera referencia a los estilos o tecnicas de algunos de las artistas mencionadas. Antes de eso, en mi caso, haria una especie de votacion para crear grupos de trabajos, como por ejemplo cuales son los artistas que mas les gustan o que tecnicas les gustan mas. Posteriormente cada alumno votaria por el artista o tecnica y se podrian formar grupos para crear un trabajo final, pero para ello haria falta un poco mas tiempo, unas cuantas sesiones mas. No veo referencias a sus gustos y tampoco se realizan conexiones con tecnicas, estilos o autores locales, que tan importante es para la formacion global del alumnado y el respeto y valoracion de las diferencias culturales.
We know that motivation is a great part of our learning process. This video sums up how motivation affects our efforts and results when learning.
In the following document you can read about motivation and other aspects, authors and theories that contribute in Foreing/Second Language Acquisition/Learning.
First of all, we would like to start by defining the concept of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning - coined in Europe in the early nineties (Coyle et al (2010)), and those concepts and key aspects around this approach. Many of which will need to be considered when designing activities for the CLIL classroom that will not help our students develop and improve their communicative and foreign language skills, but their learning process.
Why CLIL?
The 21st Century educational landscape has undergone important innovations in the last decades, one of them is the introduction of technologies in the classroom and the other notable change is related to the teaching of languages being part of a connected and globalized world, it should be one objective that everyone in the world can talk other languages in addition to the mother tongue. This method started in Europe, due to the great language and cultural diversity of the country members of the European Union.
These two aspects, the introduction of ICT and the learning of languages are well reflected in the White Paper on Education and Training: Teaching and Learning - Towards the Learning Society published in 1995 by the Commission of the European Community and in later publications1 where Action Plans to promote language learning and the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) are established. Both points are among the priorities for the member states in the document published in 2012 Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes where the priorities are "To increase the supply of transversal skills that increase employability, such as Entrepreneurship, digital skills and languages "and" Intensify the use of ICT-assisted learning and access to high quality OER "(p.17).
I would like to highlight this excerpt from the “White Paper on Education and Training”:
“Building skills for the 21st century
Transversal and basic skills
Efforts need to be concentrated on developing transversal skills… Modern, knowledge-based economies require people with higher and more relevant skills. CEDEFOP forecasts predict that the proportion of jobs in the EU requiring tertiary level qualifications will increase from 29% in 2010 to 34% in 2020, while the proportion of low skilled jobs will fall in the same period from 23% to 18%. Transversal skills such as the ability to think critically, take initiative, problem solve and work collaboratively will prepare individuals for today's varied and unpredictable career paths. …particularly entrepreneurial skills…”
This is not happening only in Europe, but worldwide. And I would like to add something more than preparing future workers or employees as it is said, since from my point of view the socio-emotional aspects of students are empty in this document, and nowadays many researchers have proved the importance of those aspects. Learning is a beautiful part of our lives, since it opens our eyes to new landscapes and windows that go beyond our native communities. Learning lets us go beyond, above all, foreign language acquisition and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) since the current conditions of living are globalized and it is our duty to prepare good citizens equipped with a lot of skills and tools to live in this globalized world. Opportunities can be given in any point of the world and we should be ready to get them, regardless the nationality or other bureaucratic issues. I am talking from my own experience: a Spanish teacher who has educational experience in many countries besides of my home country, Spain. Nowadays I’m teaching in Houston, Texas (USA).
Multilingual programs
In this context, a great number of bilingual programs have been implemented over the last decade, many of which use the AICLE approach in Spanish: Integración de Contenidos y Lengua Extranjera; EMILE in French: Enseignement De Matières Par Integration D'une Langue Étrangère or CLIL in English: Content Language Integrated Learning. This method can be used with any language in the world.
D. Coyle et al. (2010) distinguish two main reasons for the interest in CLIL within a country or region. One of them is a proactive reason, as a way to promote the learning of a language for political, economic and social reasons. This is the case of the French immersion programs of Canada, as a way of supporting bilingualism, or the CLIL programs that promotes the policy of the European Union to strengthen relations and mobility between the countries of the same. The European Union has essentially become a territory without borders, where all citizens have the right to live, study or work where they wish; However, not knowing languages still represents an invisible barrier to free movement that needs to be eliminated and bilingual programs are one of the most effective measures.
From a pedagogical point of view there are many reasons why bilingual and CLIL programs are recommended:
First, they offer advantages for students' cognitive development (Bialystock, 2009).
They bring significant gains in the target language (L2) as evidenced by numerous studies on language immersion in Canada and CLIL in Europe.
They favor the collaboration of teachers with each other and with the administration of the center since much of the community will be involved in learning the language and content.
He observes how in the following video Hugo Baetens, referring in bilingualism and CLIL of the Vrij Universiteit Brussel (VUB) alludes to the expressed in the previous point.
This is one of my first activities to plan a CLIL unit with sports:
- Word processor to add titles, bubbles and other comic characteristics.
First of all, a design of the story is strongly recommended, I mean, what story your students want to tell. You, as teacher/parent/educator, can help them with the topic of the story.
One idea is to ask for some topics they are interested in and the do a survey with all your students. In this way you encourage them to participate as well as they feel motivated. Once your students have decided what to tell, it is time to organize the story. In my case, I teach them that every story has three mainly parts, remember that it is focused on PreK students: beginning, middle and the end. And please, try to help them with examples of stories they already know (and even better, the most recent stories told in classroom) and let them identify each part.
The story decided to tell is about the recess time, since today it had rained early in the morning and some parts of the garden were wet. I tried to help them by asking them how we usually prepare to go to the outdoor learning area. Then, one by one started to tell me how: they are in a line, the students in charge of the doors go to their positions,... other students wanted to share other ideas to use in the story. After that, I looked through the window and everything was wet, my next question was what would happen if you were in the garden. Again, help them, please, with connections to their experiences... until some of them can say something to add to the story; indeed, they gave us some ideas for the story. And eventually we got this amazing story with my "champions".
If you have a tablet with an ebook reader app you can download this file https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4elwj35ibmYNm9mLVFmX0hkMzQ/view?usp=sharing and they can read it.
Calameo is a free web that sets your documents as a traditional book. When you and your children finish your comic, you can save it as a .pdf file, then upload it on this web. There, you can have more options to choose and share it with your friends.
If you prefer to do it by using an app with music, you can use Adobe Spark Video. Open this app and add the pictures that you and your children have selected to create a comic. Besides, you can add some music.
Have you seen how easy it is? Do you think you can do one comic with your children? If so, it is going to be a good time to enjoy creating a story together.
If you want to share your beautiful and awesome story, please, leave a comment with your file.
The time has finally come for our annual EXPO, a time in which a school wide topic or theme is chosen and broken down by classroom. In the past we have done everything from life cycles, animals, countries, wildlife, etc. This year our school EXPO at Ninfa Laurenzo ECC will focus on Community Helpers.
In my classroom the students were interested in learning more in about a Comic Creator-Designer. The students with the help of their families, brought comics to discuss with their classmates and identify the parts of a comic: comic strip, bubbles, shapes, and characters.
This article comes as a summary of what our project entails, the process in which we form our project, and the final outcome
Are your students interested in learning? Are the topics adapted to their learning process? Are they active participants in their learning process? Do you take their opinions into account when planning? These questions are some of them that any teacher should ask to enhance participation and motivation.
What is PBL?
PBL stands for Project-Based Learning. PBL is an active methodology in which students carry out a research process to answer a complex question, a problem, or a change. Students have autonomy and decision-making ability in the development of projects. During taking so much time to create and complete the project, one might wonder how a project like this can be planned, designed, and developed to enable students to learn core content that align with the district guidelines. This methodology helps our students to develop the 21st century skills and create quality products and presentations along with working on skills such as collaboration, communication, and critical thinking. Through the project based learning, students learn to work cooperatively and creatively.
In project based learning, the most important thing is not the product or final result, but the process of learning and the development of the different thinking-level abilities and diversity in the classroom. In order to have a successful project and to achieve the learning goals, teachers should let the students gear their learning in the direction of their interests. A little bit of history: It emerged in the United States at the end of the 19th century at the hands of educator William Kilpatrick, a collaborator of John Dewey. The philosopher John Dewey insists that the best way to learn is "doing." Children have to become protagonists of their own learning and for that nothing better than offering them experiences that help them understand the world around them. The mission of teaching is not to fill the heads of content, but to help the student acquire a global and integral knowledge of the world.
Kilpatrick elaborated the concept and made it famous through "The Project Method". Theoretical Framework The Theoretical Framework of project-based learning is mainly composed of three pedagogical foundations: constructivism, Learning by discovery, and interdisciplinary learning.
In addition to these three, depending on the type of project to be developed, others such as Multiple Intelligences may be incorporated, for example. Constructivism, based on Piaget and Vygotsky's ideas and works, tells us that knowledge is built as a process of interaction between the information that comes from the environment and the information that the student already has, and from which new knowledge is built by itself. The idea of scaffolding arises from this interaction in knowledge formation, which is the link that allows new inputs and previous information to generate new information or knowledge. Decroly's idea is interdisciplinarity in learning. Learning concepts or units are learned together, not in isolation. Therefore, the learning units are formulated in different curriculum areas. It consists of focusing study topics on the students' interests, as their curiosity leads them to investigate and describe the parts of the whole. Learning by discovery is Brunner's contribution. This type of learning happens when the teacher presents the learners with all the necessary tools to discover what they want to learn for themselves. Research skills development is put in the foreground and has an impact on problem-solving.
Basic requirements of PBL
As teachers, what do we plan to achieve with project-based learning?
We hope that this type of learning fosters the interest and motivation of the students and therefore the desire to learn and do will be aroused. In addition, with this new methodology, teachers will innovate in their teaching skills by seeing how everything that is taught and created makes sense to students. From this learning experience, all students' skills and abilities will be improved and developed in an integral way. As a teacher if you would like to have your students think outside the box and create a meaningful project then here are some steps to consider:
Go beyond the old school
A project can not cover the same range of content, skills, procedures, and attitudes as other types of methodologies, on the contrary it allows students to work more in depth into a particular subject and explore the subject thoroughly. Therefore teachers should choose the most significant content, objectives, and skills for the project, taking into account the curriculum and what is most important from their point of view. Project-based learning arises from the need to present new alternatives, ideas or innovative experiences.
The fundamental idea of this active methodology is to keep students engaged and motivated throughout the learning process, through research. In this way we enter into a learning that stimulates their cognitive, communicative, social and emotional skills, among many others, it is a cooperative learning full of challenges with an interdisciplinary approach.
A driving question
Teachers can motivate this need to know new things and develop the project through an initial activity that arouses interest and gives rise to questions. It could be a video, a debate, a guest in class, a book … Once the situation has been raised, it is necessary to create a question to which the work is directed. It must be clear, have an open response and connect with the skills and knowledge that students must work and acquire. This element is basic and must always be present. An example. If we are working on a topic of contemporary literature: How could we share with our grandparents what we have learned about a book?
Autonomous learning
During the work, the students have to be the protagonists: to decide, to choose and to make the decisions. However, it is necessary to adapt this general approach to the reality of the classroom. So different levels of "autonomy" can be established:
Lowest level. Students can be told which subject to study and even how to design, create and present the final products.
Intermediate level. Give a series of options (limited) to prevent students from being overwhelmed by the possibilities.
High level. All decisions are for students, for example what product to do, what process to follow. They can even choose the topic and the initial question.
21st Century skills
These skills are: collaboration, communication, critical thinking and use of new technologies. They must be taught explicitly (giving guides, advice, materials) and also offer opportunities for students to put them into practice through the tasks and activities proposed in the project. That is to say, to create a virtual resource (a map for example) we can give the students a tutorial on how to create them but also our project should contain a task in which the students create a digital map that serves to present contents, support some exhibition , Perform a collaborative work ...
Explorers and discoverers
Real research takes place when students follow a process like this: they raise their own questions, seek resources and respond to those questions, they generate doubts and question, review and draw conclusions. This research brings with it real innovation: new questions, new products and new solutions emerge.
The new doubts that arise must be incorporated gradually. It is all about promoting the generation of doubts, criticism and collaboration.
Review and feedback
While working, they review each other's work by reference to the rubrics and examples.
It is necessary to teach students to evaluate the work of others by reference to rubrics. We can even use external experts and collaborators to evaluate the work. For example, if we organize an exhibition on health Why not invite medical staff from the medical centers in the area?
Show and Tell
Once you and your classroom finished the project, you should present it not only to teachers and colleagues but to a general audience. It can be done to an exhibition (with the aid of a presentation, a video) in the classroom but also to create a web page or to make an exhibition of works to which are invited parents, students of other centers ...
PBL and Bloom’s Taxonomy
Once we put a challenge we can ask so many questions about the development of our students’ skills and learning process. To overcome the proposed challenging task, the students have to find the information, process it, elaborate it and share it. In addition, the students have to apply all this information to the solving part of the problem or challenge. Therefore, all the process will be significant and has a purpose for our students, improving their motivation, attitude and participation.
If we compare this way of learning with the traditional one, we can find more ways of treating the information and our relationship with it, that is, our students can go beyond understanding and memorizing concepts. Indeed, with this active method that implies exploring and discovering, our students will work out their skills to find out information and its source, they will be able to choose, discuss, apply, make mistakes, correct them,... This can be a good opportunity to understand other ways of interacting with their learning process, a more active one.
Types of learning styles in PBL
Everything will depend on the characteristics of the class groups with which we work. PBL is effective in all levels and subjects. It is applicable in regulated education but also in other forms of education and training.
-Meaningful learning
This type of learning is characterized by the fact that the individual collects the information, selects it, organizes and establishes relationships with the knowledge that he already had previously. In other words, it is when a person relates the new information to the one he already has.
-Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is a type of learning that allows each student to learn but not only, but with their peers. Therefore, it is usually carried out in the classrooms of many educational centers, and groups of students usually do not exceed five members. The teacher is who forms the groups and who guides them, directing the action and distributing roles and functions.
- Collaborative Learning
Collaborative learning is similar to cooperative learning. Now, the former differs from the latter in the degree of freedom with which the groups are constituted and functioning. In this type of learning, it is the teachers or educators who propose a topic or problem and the students decide how to approach it
-Emotional learning
Emotional learning means learning to know and manage emotions more efficiently. This learning brings many benefits mentally and psychologically, as it positively influences our well-being, improves interpersonal relationships, promotes personal development and empowers us.
-Observational learning
This type of learning is also known as vicarious learning, by imitation or modeling, and is based on a social situation in which at least two individuals participate: the model (the person from whom one learns) and the subject who observes of such behavior, and learns it.
-Experiential learning
Experiential learning is learning that results from experience, as its name implies. This is a very powerful way to learn. In fact, when we speak of learning mistakes, we are referring to the learning produced by our own experience. Now, experience can have different consequences for each individual, because not everyone will perceive the facts in the same way. What brings us from simple experience to learning is self-reflection.
-Discovery Learning
This learning refers to active learning, in which the person instead learns the contents passively, discovers, relates and reorders the concepts to fit their cognitive scheme. One of the great theorists of this type of learning is Jerome Bruner.
This information has been translated into English, adapted and selected from this article about the ways of learning..
Roles in PBL
In opposition to the traditional methods of learning, the role of the learning components change:
The students don’t have a passive role, but an active one. They don’t wait for the teacher’s speech, they participate actively on high-level thinking like problem recognition, information research, comprehension and interpretation of data, making connections and associations, drawing conclusions and critical revision of their ideas and believes.
The teacher is not the source of information, but a facilitator, is a mediator in the learning process, who guides students. He/she can help students solve some situations and difficulties, control time, and observe, assess and evaluate his/her own work, students’ work and the project.
The information and knowledge is not a possession of the teacher that the students wait to be transmitted. Within PBL information is searched, must be understood as part of the learning process. This information and knowledge are elaborated by the students by their questions and conclusions.
7 Steps to Create a Project
How do we create project-based learning?
First of all we must put aside the textbook and immerse ourselves in the wonderful world of research and experimentation. The concerns and interests of our students will be the engines of their own learning, in which they will acquire knowledge and skills in a motivating way.
1. Selection of the guiding question.
Part of real situations or that reflect reality.
Lean on personal or real experience.
Use sources such as audiovisual media, newspapers, magazines, to get ideas.
It involves the educational community: teachers, families, students, …
The more involved they are in the selection of the project, the greater their motivation and participation.
2. Specify the curricular objectives.
When designing, be clear with the objectives, skills and knowledge that you want to develop.
From news or cases to design the project.
The project can be very motivating and at the same time it updates the curricular contents.
3. Contextualize the project.
Relate the project to reality
Where does the idea of the question guide come from?
Why is it important?
4. Establish the curricular areas involved.
The more areas or subjects, the more enriching the process and the more complete the end result.
Add an intercultural and multilingual dimension to your projects.
5. Final product with brainstorming
Collaboration, collaboration and collaboration: key to the success of the PBL.
Coordinate with other teachers and experts from the areas you are going to develop.
Develop a mental map that serves to debug and consensus the project, activities, criteria and evaluation tools and the definition of the final product.
6. Sequencing of the 4 phases: analysis, investigation, resolution and evaluation.
It elaborates a project timing, specifying what resources, references, activities and digital artifacts will be used in each phase of the project.
Give meaning / purpose to all activities and prepare the way to the final product.
7. Critical analysis on the quality of the project.
Self-reflection and critical collective reflection on the success of the project and on whether it conforms to the principles of the PBL:
Does it motivate and appeal to students?
Is it based on a real situation?
Is it appropriate to the cognitive and emotional level of the students?
Are your multidisciplinary goals holistic?
Does it cover the didactic objectives of the subjects involved?
Is it well structured?
Do digital activities and artifacts make sense and provide something necessary to reach the end product?
