#UnityInDiversity
In delivering a meaningful lesson, individual difference is a first consideration. Designing varied lessons, techniques and activities is a challenging task. Seeing your student enjoy and succeed in their classroom tasks, through their own learning styles, is the greatest achievement! Here are some of the classroom activities I designed this school year. Below the slide show are links for the downloadable files.
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Not all students will get the computations, analysis and descriptions readily. Also, some cannot go to school daily due to personal reasons like health, financial and personal. Indeed, some student needs special attentions. To address this, we can spend our spare time conducting remedial classes and enrichment activities for learners who are at risk. Also if the case is getting worse, there are times that we need to visit their homes and see their condition. We should always show fairness and consideration to all learners, regardless of socio-economic backgrounds.
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. -Audre Lorde |
#ContentAndPedagogy
The heart of teaching lies on how you mastered the content and performance standards that the learners should acquire through your instruction. As a teacher, there is a need to deliver accurate and updated knowledge using appropriate methodologies, approaches and strategies. Through different seminars and training, knowledge of the content and strategies on how to improve teaching can be acquired (See page of the seminars I attended this school year). Here is a summary of the different approaches, methodologies and strategies I employed last school year.
Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is most important.- Bill Gates |
In teaching science, integration of other discipline in the lessons is inseparable. Language, literacy, numeracy skills and values should always be incorporated in the learning activities coupled with the strategies in honing the science process skills of the students.
Also, we cannot ignore the role of technology in instruction. Use of ICT resources in planning and designing teaching-learning activities can make the life of a teacher easier and on the part of the students, lessons are becoming more enjoyable. Videos that are available in Youtube, for free, are used in priming activities and enrichment lessons (Watch the video I used in teaching typhoons). Below are downloadable slide presentation I used in teaching earthquakes. With the advent of various platforms that offer free online services like virtual classrooms, learning science becomes accessible 24 hours, 7 days a week. Quipper School is one of the best virtual classrooms that I had my students use this school year. Feedback from my students showed that they enjoyed reading the lessons and answering the questions for it is very relevant to the topics we are discussing inside the classrooms.
A good teacher is a master of simplification and an enemy of simplism. -Louis Arthur Berman |
#EvaluationAndAssessment
In assessing student's achievement, we should not only base it on the scores they are getting in written tests. We can include appropriate non traditional authentic assessments that will measure student's knowledge and skills through relevant tasks. Every quarter, I ensure that the students are performing varied activities that will show their learning (See activities designed using GRASPS). This may include role playing, oral presentation, informative materials, and the like. Here are some of the rubrics I used in evaluating the tasks of my students.
Level of proficiency of our students are determined through the grades they got from the learning activities that measures their knowledge, process/skills, understanding, and performance. I ensure that accurate record of grades/ performance levels of learners were checked by our head teacher and is kept for future reference.
Every quarter, a Red Letter Day is conducted wherein teachers and parents get to meet and discuss the progress of the students in school. For parents who are not able to visit the school during the assigned date, I set another date for the reporting of the student's performance. If again the parent did not arrive, a letter of notice is given to the parent stating their preferred date. If again the parent did not arrive, a home visitation is done. |
Use of formative and summative tests. The main purpose of giving tests is to provide feedback and motivation for continued improvement of learners, teachers, and even to the educational system. For every topic, in a module, I administer a formative test (usually 5 to 10 items). This is the tool I use in determining whether I can proceed to the next topic, enrich the current topic or even reteach it if the index of mastery target is not reached. This is a bit tedious but it can assure me that no student will be left behind with the topic. For students who are not on the same pace with that of the majority, learning remediation activities are conducted (See learning remediation activities above). Before the end of the quarter, a summative test is administered. These tests are reported to the parents of the learners through the test booklets below that is specially designed for my students.
To be better equipped for the tests that the year will bring-- read a textbook. To prepare for the tests that life will bring-- read a book. - Mokokoma Mokhoana |