Third lesson (Sep 27th)

In today's class, we talked about the creation of a rubric to assess our own participation on the course. Wouldn't it be interesting to do this with high school students? I think that getting students engaged in the creation of the rubric you will use makes them feel the assessment is 'fair' so I'd like to give it a try. 

The author of this article refers to rubrics as motivational tools, and suggests that students who participate in the creation of rubrics feel more empowered,  more intrinsically motivated, and understand better how to reach the expectations set upon them for the task.

Similarly, Liz Prather on her article The Power of Student Built Rubrics points out that after years of being assessed with tools designed by someone else (by teachers), students lose their intrinsic sense of quality, which eventually affects their autonomy as learners.
After starting a project for her students to create rubrics, Liz asked them to reflect on the process, and these are some of the things they said:

• Some rubrics may be set up to give certain pieces better grades even if they really aren’t.  A piece could get a higher grade, even if it’s not a better piece.

I absolutely agree with this student, I think that is one of the most challenging aspects of rubric construction. In the first place, teachers (and students if they are getting involved) need to pay close attention to the coherence between what they want to assess and what their rubrics are actually assessing. Secondly, rubrics must be assessed to make sure that the grade they provide actually reflects what's on the labels and descriptors because, as the student pointed out, a piece of writing could get a high grade without being particularly good if the criteria in the rubric is poorly written.

• I liked it because I’m setting goals for myself. I can only go as low as I’ll let myself go and as high as I let myself go. Plus, since I made the rubric, I’ll care about it more. It made me be very thorough about what I wanted to achieve.

 This is something I've been thinking about. As mentioned above, rubrics can be a great motivational tool and I think that what the student pointed out--about setting personal goals--is essential in language learning because it motivates you in the long term; in that sense, the objective of a certain task is reaching a particular goal you established instead of going for the immediate reward that could, for instance, be represented as a grade.

My only concern with student-created rubrics, is that (according to what we're experiencing in the course) it is very hard to get everyone involved. In the end, very few do participate in the creation of the rubric so the benefits aforementioned are only enjoyed for a few.

Second lesson (Sep 20th)

In today’s class we talked about classroom management, in particular about establishing rules when we start working with a new group of students. 
Our first task was brainstorming about classroom management so these are some of the things my classmates and I could come up with:
>> Large classes
>> Behaviour
>> Motivation throughout the lesson
>> Engaging students
>> Seating arrangement
>> Voice projection

One of the suggestions was not to establish the rules necessarily during the first lesson because that opportunity should be devoted to getting to know one another but definitely it should be done soon afterwards.

More information here

I found this image online in which the teacher did not create Rules but rather Expectations. This is designed for middle-schoolers and I think it could be easily adapted to our context (EFL in Chile) because it is pretty straightforward. 
In that sense, I feel it is very student-friendly because the labels and the descriptors are very concise and concrete so students actually know what is expected from them.

More information here

Similarly, another teacher suggests creating a chart like this with our students. I absolutely love this idea, especially for younger students whose thinking is more concrete. Besides, it provides a nice organisation that, in my opinion, is clearer (and prettier?) than a list of rules.

Mountain pose: for confident teachers

During last class, we had the opportunity to practice the Mountain Pose. The idea was to make us feel more grounded, strong and confident so that we could really use our space in the classroom and consequently be more effective (and happy) teachers.

I found this image online that explains the pose really well. Besides, in the original post, the author explains how this pose works as the foundation for many other poses in yoga so it is definitely worth reading.

Now, is this a resource for healthy teachers or for healthy students? I'd say both. On the one hand, it is great for us as pre-service teachers (and any teacher, really) because we tend to feel a tad insecure when facing 35+ students, right? but on the other hand, confidence is not something that schools are addressing right now in Chile. That's why I'm sure that this could also be super helpful for our students to develop more confidence and more awareness of their own body.

More information here

I also found this variation of the pose together with some other yoga poses for children. I don't really know much about yoga so hopefully once I've done some research, I'll write more about yoga for children. 

I think this image would make a nice classroom poster, maybe I'll include something like this in my final practicum.

First lesson (Sep 13th)

This was a lesson mostly devoted to getting to know one another and understanding the nature of the course.
One of the activities we did was ‘Talking while walking’ and we were expected to talk to someone we hadn’t talked to before. Honestly, I feel very anxious in that sort of situation but I’m working hard to get myself out of my comfort zone so the activity was a great opportunity to do that. In the end, I realised that walking actually helps with the anxiety so I started feeling more and more comfortable as we moved around and shared our experiences as pre-service teachers.
I searched online and read on different websites that walking can relieve some anxiety symptoms because it forces us to regulate our breathing. 
I would really like to do something like this with my students because I know that sitting for too long in the classroom can be very unappealing and make the learning process harder.

More information here

Another activity we did was reacting to statements in different posters that were attached to the walls. I think this activity is especially useful when students must interact with someone they don’t know very well because if someone doesn’t know what else to say, they can always return to one of the statements provided and shift the topic.
I found a very interesting post in which this technique is described, it includes explanations on how to do it and some classroom management concerns.




I'd really like to include both activities in my final practicum (provided that there’s enough room for the number of students) because they are a much more interesting and engaging way of doing the typical pair or group discussions and they provide a great opportunity for kinesthetic learners to get engaged in the lesson.

Welcome!

This blog is my virtual portfolio for the course 'Healthy teachers, healthy classrooms.'
In the following posts, I will be presenting different activities and reflections about the ways in which teachers can improve both their health and their students'.
The main idea is that a teacher who is healthy and balanced can not only inspire his/her students to become healthier, but also explicitly conduct activities that aim at improving their students health.
I invite you to read my posts and follow the links to different articles and videos that I provide there.