Meaning from the book

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Formative and summative assessment – assessment can be defined as the collecting and interpreting of a range of evidence to make a judgement of some kind. We as teachers may use assessment to establish what pupils have learned at the end of a unit of work, for example, through the completion of a test (commonly referred to as a summative assessment), it is certainly possible, however, to assess pupils before this, that is, while they are still learning.  This type of process-based formative assessment can be in the form of, for example, day-to-day observations of, and learning conversations with, our pupils. The purpose of the formative assessment is to support and encourage learning through the discussion of next steps; summative assessment is to record the overall achievements of pupils.  

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Strong learning environment- multiple components contribute to optimising the learning process. One of these components is motivation. Research shows (Kaplan&Maehr, 2007) that it turns out that students learn more when feeling motivated and involved in the learning process. As a teacher, you can influence this by creating a learning environment that benefits the involvement and motivation of students.

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A strong environment is easily recognised by watching the students' behaviour. When students are at their best; happy/pleased, and actively working on their assignments, then that is an indication about the quality of the environment. Decisive for the strength of the learning environment is the well-being of the students and the degree of involvement of the students.

A student's well being is determined by how they feel in their learning environment. When they feel happy and safe, their environment improves of that; however, when they feel unsafe in the learning environment they are in, then this will also affect the environment more. But sometimes the students well being can be affected due to events outside of the learning environment (such as the passing of a grandmother or – father) As a teacher, you won't have any influence on the event. However, you can choose to deal or not deal with this issue.

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The degree of involvement tells us something about the intensity with which the student is engaged in their activity.

For a student to feel comfortable and thrive in the learning environment, you will have to meet their basic needs. To do this, we distinguish the following three basic needs:

• Competence: the student must have the feeling that they can handle/ accomplish the task (see Vygotsky - zone of proximal development) ;

• Relation: The students need the feeling of belonging in their own class;

• Autonomy: the student must partly be able to make his own choices—student involvement.

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Learning (definition)- a mental process whereas a result of learning activities a relatively stable behavioural change will take place.

 

Working of the memory- we can distinguish three kinds of human memory; the sensory memory, the short-term memory, and the long-term memory.
Information initially enters through our senses. The main task of the sensory memory is to briefly hold the raw information that is presented, to compare it with already present information. Only the information that is recognised and therefore has meaning gets to access the short-term memory.

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Information passed through the sensory memory ends up in short-term memory. This is also called the working memory since this is where the information is processed: the new information is brought into contact with already existing information from the long-term memory. The short term memory has a limited capacity. Research has shown that about seven information units can be kept under attention for a short period of time in short-term memory. When offering new information, it is therefore important to ensure information processes that support each other, such as listening to texts while viewing a picture. Other ways that support the information process are offering new information within a meaningful context or activating prior knowledge. Control processes also ensure that information is retained longer. The main active control processes within short-term memory are repetition and coding.

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Information that has entered short-term memory but is not included in long-term memory is lost. Obviously, we don't want this to happen with the learning content we want to transfer. So we have to ensure that the new information ends up in long-term memory. You promote this through repetition, among other things.

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Behaviourism- Behaviorism was a reaction to the way psychology was practised around 1900. Psychologists during this period were much concerned with the study of consciousness. A common way of researching this was the subject's own observation: subjects were trained to report their inner experiences using the research method of introspection or systematic self-observation. Behaviourists focused on studying observable behaviour that you can observe objectively.

 

Two important principles of learning theories that are inextricably linked to behaviourism:

• the concept of classical conditioning as described by the Russian researcher J.P. Pavlov, related to the two patterns established by Thorndike. Classical conditioning is also called emotional learning. A drooling response to burning lights is, after all a conditioned emotional response. This is a result of what we call stimulus generalisation.

 

• And the operant conditioning, especially known through Skinner's experiments. He takes spontaneous behaviour (behaviour that is not linked to a particular stimulus) as the starting point for his theory of operant conditioning, which takes place through the response of the environment to the behaviour of the individual. The individual thus shows certain behaviour of his own accord, and that behaviour can be reinforced by systematic stimuli (such as rewards). With his experiments, Skinner drew attention to the importance of rewarding partial actions in teaching complex behaviour. He called shaping the systematic construction of this behaviour with the help of operant conditioning.

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Behaviourism has taught us multiple things which are still used in today's classes, we have discovered and learned that;

• The experience of success has a positive effect. This is still essential. Pupils who experience experiences of success are positively reinforced in their learning process. These positive experiences stimulate the learner's intrinsic motivation, which across the board, promote the learning process.

• Positive reinforcement of student behaviour is more effective than negative reinforcement. Students are more likely to change their behaviour if they are rewarded for desired behaviour with compliments, rewards, and appreciation than if they are punished for undesirable behaviour with penalties, reproachful remarks, and suspensions.

• And finally, punishments that are too late are ineffective.

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Cognitivism-  Cognitivism has made an important contribution to our knowledge of the acquisition and processing of information. Unlike behaviourism, cognitive psychology does not see the student as merely a passive figure who responds to stimuli. The cognitivist picture is based on an active learner who creates order in all stimuli presented. Just like computer processes raw data, people are also seen as an information-processing system.

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Metacognition- how learners understand and control their learning strategies. Philip Adey and Michael Shayer have demonstrated that learning potential is increased if pupils are metacognitively aware, i.e. if they understand and can control their own learning strategies. These strategies include techniques for remembering, ways of presenting information when thinking, approaches to problems and so on. So, if you cue pupils into the specific skill being learned and encourage them to reflect on its transfer potential, this will extend their strategies to other tasks and subjects. It has become fashionable to refer to metacognition as 'learning to learn, and whole systems explaining how to achieve it are available. It seems then that the higher-order cognitive skills of Piaget's stage of formal operations can be promoted and encouraged through a focus on metacognition.

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Vygotsky (zone of proximal development)- The starting point of the Russian learning psychologist Lev Vygotsky is that only the right challenge ensures the optimal learning process for the student. He distinguishes three zones:

• The zone of current development.

• The zone of proximal development.

• The panic zone.

The zone of current development may seem optimal: the student who has to solve a problem already has previously found solutions. In other words, the student's knowledge system meets the demand. For the student, this zone feels pleasant and is therefore also called the comfort zone. However, it is not beneficial for learning. After all, nothing new is taught.

The importance of the current situation is that it reflects the initial situation from which the child can continue to grow in the zone of proximal development. The idea behind this is that the student can only learn if it connects to what she already knows. If the learning content is limited to what the learner already knows, then no knowledge is acquired, but if there is no common ground with what the learner already knows, then nothing is learned either. The zone of proximal development is, therefore, the most ideal, because it meets the conditions necessary for learning. However, if you ask too much of your student, and it does not match the current zone, the student will end up in the panic zone. This panic zone is not a favourable position to be into learning, and it leads to apathy, panic or aggression in the student.

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Piaget (cognitive development) – Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who applied Gessell's (1925) concept of maturation (genetically programmed sequential pattern of changing physical characteristics) to cognitive growth. According to Piaget, the stages through which the child's thinking moves and develops is linked to age. Piaget thus provides a criterion-referenced, rather than a norm-referenced, explanation of cognitive development (Shayer, 2008). Piaget believes there are four stages humans go through with their cognitive development, the first one being the sensory-motor stage. From birth to two years, children understand the world through feeling, seeing, tasting, and so on.

As children grow older and mature, from about two to six years, they begin to understand that others have a viewpoint. They are increasingly able to classify objects and to use symbols. Piaget termed this the preoperational stage.

The third stage, identified by Piaget, from six to about twelve years, is the concrete operational stage. Children are still tied to specific experience but can do mental manipulations as well as physical ones. Powerful new internal mental operations become available, such as addition, subtraction and class inclusion. Logical thinking develops.

The fourth and final stage of development sees children manipulating ideas in their heads and able to consider events that haven't yet happened or think about things never seen. Children can now organise ideas and events systematically and can examine all possibilities. Deductive thinking becomes possible. Piaget suggests that the final stage, called the formal operational stage, begins at about 12 years of age.

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Constructivism- Constructivism is a learning theory that assumes that students construct their own new knowledge, rather than being 'poured' into the minds of students.
Constructivism is not so much a well-defined theory, but a set of fundamental principles. The learner has an active role. Constructivism emphasises the active role of the learner in processing information and acquiring knowledge. After all, the pupil has to search for information on his own and also perform activities himself to process the subject matter constructively actively. This constructive element of learning is also recognised in other schools of thought, but constructivism goes further than other learning theories.

In 'active construction' new learning material is offered within a certain context and in the form of appealing examples. In the view of constructivism, the existing prior knowledge of students must be linked to the new subject matter.

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Learning styles (Kolb)- The most popular model on learning styles is that of Kolb. He distinguishes:

• Doers;

• Spectators;

• Thinkers;

• Decision-makers.

Besides, he distinguishes four phases in each learning process, namely:

• Experience concretely;

• To observe reflectively;

• Abstract conceptualising;

• Experiment actively.

In Kolb's model, according to Kolb, each of these four steps is followed in each learning process, in a cyclical process.

Multiple intelligences (Gardner)-

Criteria effective lessons-

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The 4 C's

Connections

Challenge

Concepts

Changes

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Week 2

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Meaning from the book

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Learning objectives- There are different categories in which we can place our learning objectives. We can divide them among; open skills closed skills, knowledge, and concepts. Each category has a different implication for teaching.
Open skills learning objectives can result in a differentiation of achievements, other than closed skills learning objectives which only have a right or wrong answer, and can only be achieved in one way, making differentiation by task necessary. Knowledge-based learning objectives are known as long-term learning objectives; however, when overfocussing on knowledge rather than the related skills means that nothing is left when students are unable to achieve them. Concept-based learning objectives will need to be broken down for lessons, for they need more investigate learning.

It has become more clearer throughout the years of teaching that when the learning objectives are unclear for both students and teacher, the student cannot begin to carry out the required learning effectively. Muddled learning objectives lead to mismatched activities, which may not fulfil the learning objective. They also lead to inappropriate focus and awkward success criteria.

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Success criteria- success criteria are usually created by the teacher to help students along the way when facing a long-term learning objective. The criteria can either explain what is expected of them (or their product) when achieving this long-term learning objective. Also known as product success criteria.
However, students also sometimes need to have learning objectives broken down in smaller steps, for individual lessons, this will then create process success criteria. This can help them while they are engaged in the task. The process criteria summarise the key steps or ingredients which students need to fulfil the learning objective. You can also see process success criteria as a helping or planning for the students that they need to fulfil step by step to get to the end product. And the product success criteria can be seen as a checklist.

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Context- It was mentioned that it is best to separate you’re the context from your learning objectives. The context is merely a tool to learn the learning objectives, a tool that can have different topics. For instance, the learning objective is to present a reasoned argument, including “for “ and “against” positions. The context that you can use to learn about this objective can be “the feminist movement”, “the pros and cons of the industrialisation in Britain”, or “the guerrilla war between Ireland and England”. Suppose you want the students to learn about the context. In that case, it should simply be part of the learning objective within an activity; however, when including the context in your learning objective, there is a chance the students focus. Perhaps also the teacher’s will dwell too heavily on the details about your topic instead of the learning objective and the skill it represents.

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Bloom’s Taxonomy-  the taxonomy shows the connection between the different cognitive levels, which can be especially helpful in creating summative assessments. The taxonomy provides insight into whether there is a good mix of questions at different knowledge levels. This prevents an overly one-sided test policy so that students are presented with complex test questions in addition to reproductive test questions.

The taxonomy also makes it possible to ensure that the cognitive levels are build and connected. After all, students must first know facts, as their first level,  before they can come to understand and apply these facts.

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Schemes of work- when planning for pupil learning schemes of work will be your long-term plan. It is also known as ‘the programme of the study’ and is usually designed at the department level. However so, the purpose is the same – to devise a long-term plan for the pupils’ learning, usually across a term, a year or period of years. The purpose of a scheme of work is to create a certain continuity of pupil learning and build on the learning that has gone before.

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Units of work- just like a scheme of work, a unit of work is used when planning for pupil learning, it is considered a medium-term plan. A unit will normally provide a plan for pupils’ learning from a few weeks to an entire term. Units of work are often informed by a department’s scheme but will generally be written by an individual teacher. Both the schemes of work and unit of work will plan for the development of pupils’ knowledge, skills, capabilities, understanding, and attitudes to ensure effective progression in learning. Within a unit, a teacher will plan multiple lessons that fit the means of the unit.

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Lesson planning- the lesson plan provides an outline of one lesson within a unit of work. As a teacher, you can consider this as a guideline of your plans for one lesson or multiple. Even though you try to plan out every detail in your lesson plan, it is best not to see it more than a guideline, since anything could happen that can jeopardize the planning. When following a lesson plan, it is best to keep a cool head with an open mind. When planning a lesson, it is useful to use a model or framework of which are available in multitude online or in different teaching books. Some consider it to be useless to create a lesson plan since a lesson never seems to go according to plan; however, when you create a lesson plan, you consider everything that might go wrong. This leads to creating a plan B, C and perhaps even a plan D. Lesson planning can also help make it clear to the teacher what the exact learning goals/ objectives are of this class, lesson planning help beginning teachers, and student teachers, focus on student and – teacher activities. It helps the teacher connect different classes.

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Direct instruction- There are many ways to give instruction. A sound way of giving instruction is the so-called direct instruction, in which you, as a teacher, have a great influence on the performance/execution. Many teachers experience this as pleasant. Moreover, this model provides the necessary guidance for a new teacher.

Direct instruction can be briefly described as presenting, practising, applying. We distinguish seven phases in its efficacy.

1. Placing the students focus on the learning objectives of the class and connecting it with their prior knowledge.
2. Provide information and, where necessary, explain or demonstrate.
3. Check whether the most important concepts or skills have been conveyed.
4. Giving them the instructions to start working on their materials.
5. Practice under supervision.
6. Practice independently.
7. Go through the core concepts of the new subject matter with the students.
 

Direct instruction is a beneficial and needed tool for every teacher. It is a fundamental work method, which makes it easy to personalise in your own teaching style as long as you make sure you carefully observe each of the above phases. When well prepared, you will be able to reduce this extensive instruction to a short and concise description during your classes.

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Differentiation (instruction)- As a teacher, you will use the curriculum as your base and guideline to what your students will have to know at the end of the semester/year. However, not every student has the same learning abilities. When experiencing different levels of readiness in learning, as a teacher, you will have to create different activities and strategies that attract to these different levels and gives students different possibilities to achieve the learning goals. This way, the students can choose an approach of their liking to achieve the goals of your class. This can include taking steps/ scaffolding (one taking small steps, the other being able to do two steps at a time), flexible grouping ( where students will work together in different ways and with different people which can enhance their skills and abilities), pre-assessment (this helps you to understand what the different stages are in your class and where the gap between the students lay). I do believe that when taking a pre-assessment that it is important for the students to feel safe, especially when students temped to be nervous or anxious when taking a test unprepared.
After a pre-assessment, you will also be able to separate the highly able learners from struggling learners. With these students, you want to avoid them becoming bored and not get any stimulation out of the lessons. For these students, you can choose to either give them an extra job, such as assisting or moving them in alternative activities that can offer enrichment (compacting). However, it is still important to include them in the class instead of completely separating them from the rest.

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The 4 C's

You will notice in my key terms of this week that I did add some of my own opinions in certain techniques that were explained. Especially in differentiation wherein the Cards I read about compacting and pre-assessment. Especially in compacting, I found it important to mention that even though some groups within your class need either extra work or extra attention it is still important to avoid creating different groups in your class, making the one feel better, or funnier, or cooler than the other can disturb the social safe place in classes.

The text also proved to me what others still tend not to do, which is lesson planning and why it is so important. The text mentions that many teachers deem it to be unnecessary because lessons never go the way you plan them, however, by planning them they do prepare you and kick start your thinking of the possible ways that I could go wrong. This showed me that I should not worry that I “still need” my lesson plans, but that others should start to consider doing it more often than just for their portfolio’s.  Other than that, I have also learned more about learning objectives and how you can and should be using them (without context, and the different categories of learning objectives).

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This weeks text also showed me names of techniques which were either used on me as a student or others in my class, such as compacting, extra work, success criteria. With these connections, I can place my own experience and ideas in these techniques, and it can help me decide whether I would want to use these techniques in the same way, or my own classes.

The connection that I made with success criteria even helped me better understand the meaning of this and the way you can work with it as a teacher.

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With all this in mind, the main ideas and key concepts that I will be taking with me in the future and further reading is especially the different ways of explaining success criteria to your students, the different categories of learning objectives, how to improve student activities in a way that I can easily include differentiation, and direct instruction. With that, I will be paying more attention learning objectives when making my lesson plans, check if I already have been able to give correct direct instruction, and can create pre-made activities that are ready-made for my internships.

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Week 3

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Instructional conversation (classroom discussion)- During the instructional conversation (classroom discussion), the teacher sets a cognitive goal in advance. (A cognitive goal is what the teacher wants to teach the pupils.) The teacher wants to achieve that goal by discussing the subject with the whole class and stimulating the pupils with questions to discover the new knowledge themselves as much as possible.

Prior knowledge is key in this method, making it an ideal way of introducing a new theme to the subject. It activates and refreshes various prior knowledge to which the new subject matter can be related. Besides, it lends itself well to round off a theme, in which everything is reviewed, and the students themselves are rephrasing the material.

A good instructional conversation starts with thorough preparation. After the teacher has established the cognitive goal, they come up with relevant questions related to this goal intending to get students thinking. Eventually, they are capable of constructing the intended new knowledge themselves. The thinking process of the students determines the order of the questions.

Having a classroom discussion can be challenging, for there is no “beaten path” which we can follow. Furthermore, you depend on the answers of the students and therefore, do not know how the conversation will go. It is helpful if the seating arrangement is shaped in a U-shape; this way, everyone can see each other, making contact easier.

The cognitive goal of an instructional conversation can only be achieved when focusing on the students' thinking. You do this by listening carefully to what the students answer. So you can

- gain insight into the thought process;

- give different perspectives a chance;

- taking the answers given as an incentive to think further

The chances are that the students will not answer the questions completely in one sitting, and not exactly as you had in mind. You should therefore not see the questions as a quiz but as an invitation to brainstorm. All the knowledge that comes to the surface is useful for the students to construct the ultimate cognitive goal.

If all goes well, students are enthusiastic because they have been able to contribute their ideas to the answer(s). It gets better when they understand that, as a group, they see that they complement each other in thinking steps and are thus engaged in constructing new knowledge together.

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Questioning – intended cognitive level – Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom verbs)-   Teachers must always think of asking answerable questions. In other words, teachers will have to tailor their questions into the correct cognitive level. Tool teachers can use the different thinking levels for questions derived from Bloom's taxonomy. With Bloom's taxonomy, teachers can arrange questions into six levels of complexity and abstraction.

• Knowledge, being able to remember information;

• Understanding, understanding the information (insight at the lowest level);

• Application, being able to use the information;

• Analysing, being able to investigate a subject systematically, unravel it into parts;

• Evaluate, being able to justify a stand or decision;

• Create, being able to produce new or original work.

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The taxonomy was revised in 2001, changing the two final stages from synthesis and evaluation to evaluate and create.

Lower-level questions usually demand factual, descriptive answers, whereas higher-level questions are more complex and require more sophisticated critical thinking from pupils.

Research indicates that pupils’ cognitive abilities and levels of achievement can be increased when they are challenged and have regular access to higher-order thinking.

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Asking questions effectively-  A technique used in the scaffolding process to actively engage students in their learning is questioning. Effective use of questioning is a valuable part of interactive teaching. However, if not handled effectively, students misunderstand and/or become confused. To understand how to ask questions effectively, you will require planning for you will need to consider:

• What type of question(s) you are going to ask;

• How you are going to ask the question(s);

• The timing of your question(s);

• The reasoning behind your question(s);

• Whom you are going to ask a question, your expectation of the answer, how to respond if your student does not understand the question or gives an inappropriate answer, and how long is the waiting time for an answer.

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However, you cannot plan your questioning too rigidly and follow a pre-set agenda, as this may result in pupils asking fewer questions themselves, demonstrating confusion, and perhaps also frustration.

There are multiple reasons for a teacher to ask questions. Questions are asked because for example, to gain the students’ attention or to check if they are paying attention, to check to understand, to encourage thinking and problem-solving or to develop a discussion. This is what makes it complicated because the goal and reason to “why a teacher asks questions” has to be clear for both the teacher and students.

Also, keep in mind that it is also good to consider when you shouldn’t be asking questions! For instance, if the students do not acquire enough prior knowledge or information, and instead of getting questions thrown at them, they are better off getting informed and themselves being given a chance to ask questions to the teacher. Another example of when it is best not to be asking any questions is when students are at work. In moments like these, the teacher should observe and listen to what the students are saying among each other, perhaps finding your moment to help then add something to their research or work to help.

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(No) hands up-  It has been normalised in the classroom to raise your hand to be allowed to speak or answer a question. What usually happens is that the teacher will be asking different questions during their class and that the same students will continuously raise their hand because they know the answer. However, normal this has become; it is not an effective way to get all your students involved nor create a high participation and thinking environment in the class. As mentioned in the Formative Assessment book (quote), raising hands actually stops the thinking process of multiple students. When the teacher asks a question and hands are shooting up while other students are still in the process of thinking, it will stop this process immediately, for they know they will not be picked since they have not been able to raise their hand yet. Many students have had this classroom experience so many times in their lives that, when a question is asked, they don’t even begin their thinking process.

A process called ‘comparison effect’ will eventually take place among these students whose thinking process have been continuously stopped or simply aren’t active anymore. They start comparing their own capabilities with those who can participate in class. This causes them to lose motivation and avoid putting effort into the subject, eventually opting out altogether.

When informing the students at the beginning of the class that no hands can be raised when question are asked, students will start to understand that anyone can be picked to answer a question. Which naturally raises the level of focus in the classroom. This can seem stressful at first, but if the teacher stays consistent, the class and teacher will get used to it, which will avoid confusion. With that, the teacher will also have to include a certain amount of waiting time before they start naming names. If the teacher picks a student who doesn’t know the answer, the teacher has multiple options;

• They can pick someone else instead until they pick someone that does know the answer,

• They can break the question down and guide the student towards the answer,

• The teacher could ask the student to pick someone who would be able to help them to answer the question.
   

Waiting time- it has been researched that teachers wait approximately one second before answering a question or pick someone to answer a question. This can lead to student decreasing student involvement and thinking process and can increase the knowledge gap between the more knowledgeable students and the students who struggle more. Teachers can extend their waiting time by asking for ‘no hands up’, asking for talking partner discussions for a given period of time before talking responses, asking students to write down their answers for a given period of time, or simply leaving more time for the students to think about their answers. If the teacher is consistent in their ways, the student will be able to get used to this, and there will be noticeable differences. Such as;

• Longer answers

• Failure to responds decreases

• Responses are more confident.

• Student challenge and/or improve the answers of other students.

• More alternative explanations are offered

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Talking partners (think-pair-share)-  another strategy teachers can apply in their class is to include talking partners in the waiting time. After the teacher asks a question, the teachers allow the students to talk to their neighbour for the next 30 seconds to discuss the question and its possible answer. The answers are then gathered from multiple pairs, having one student per pair acting as spokesperson, while no hands are being raised. This way, the shy, less confident students have a voice, and the over-confident students have to learn to listen to others. The benefits, therefore, stretch to a more respectful and cooperative environment.

This strategy takes away the over-focus we place on individuals in class and replaces it with teamwork.

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Verbal communication: gaining attention, voice, the language of the teacher- there are many different ways in which verbal communication is used in teaching. Explaining, modelling, demonstrating, questioning, and discussion are all types of verbal communication and core pedagogical tools for teachers.

Explaining is one of the things you are 200% sure of to be doing when you become and will be the one thing you will be doing the most as well. At times, it can be the main form of activity in a lesson, thus being able to explain something effectively is an important skill to acquire. Students learn best when they are actively engaged in the lesson; however, if they find the explanation to what they need to do to become more engaged, then this will only lead to confusion. A good explanation helps start the learning process and can gain and maintain their attention.  However, there are different ways of constructing a good but also bad explanation. If it is the teacher who keeps on talking for a full hour, then it is not strange to start seeing students looking out of the window, playing with their writing equipment, or talking to their peers towards the end, or even sooner, of the class.

To keep students engaged you need to keep your explanation clear and well structured, if you know it will take more time to explain than to work on activities, then make use of tools such as questioning, classroom discussion or others. Explaining provides information about what, why, and how. It describes new terms or concepts or clarifies their meanings. Students expect teachers to explain things clearly and become frustrated when they get confused about the explanation. When explaining something new, teachers need to considerate the students' prior knowledge, use of language that students can understand, and relates new work to concepts or work the students already are familiar with.

Teachers often reinforce their verbal explanations by providing the students with a visual aid, such as a demonstration, a model, or a presentation.

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A teacher’s voice is a crucial element in classroom communication. When using it right, students will be an appreciative and responsive audience. The most obvious way you can vary your voice is by altering the volume. However, you do need to pick your times on when to use what volume. Of course, you need to be heard, but by raising your voice, that doesn’t mean that people will listen, nor is it healthy for the one who is screaming. To be heard, you need to project your voice. This requires careful enunciation and breath control. If your voice is projected well, then you can bring considerable volume to your voice without resort to shouting. Another thing that can help our verbal communication become more clear is our speed. Speed variations give contrast to delivery. You can plan in short pauses to create an effect. It shows confidence if you can hold a silence before making a point or answering a question. When having achieved silence, do not shout into it! Equally, have the patience to wait for a student.

So to use your voice effectively, these factors of volume, projection, and speed need to work together. For instance, you do not communicate effectively if the pitch of your voice is right, but you are not enunciating clearly, or the volume is wrong.

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While finding the correct way to use your voice, you should also consider the language that you use. As an international teacher, you will be working with students from a variety of backgrounds and with different language needs. To effectively support students with English as an additional language, for example, requires specialist knowledge and skill for teaching within the mainstream context in a way that promotes language learning alongside content learning. The learning of English for students with EAL takes place in every class as it does in the English subject matter, which implies that all teachers are teachers of language.

It is easier for students to understand a new concept if you make a comparison or make use of examples, metaphors, or references to which they can relate. Where appropriate, use a variety of words or explanations that ensure the meaning of what you intend to convey is understood by all students. As a teacher, your language must be concise. When you are speaking, you stress or repeat important words or phrases.  

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Closed and open questions- Closed questions are question that requires only one right answer. The student either knows the answer or they don’t, limiting the scope of the response. A short session of just closed questions might be used to reinforce learning, refresh pupils’ memories or provide a link to new work. Meaning they can be used to check prior knowledge and to connect the prior knowledge to the new information that they are being given during the class.

 

The opposite of this is open questions that have several possible answers, which broaden the scope for a response. It is even possible to be unsure rather an answer to an open question is truly correct. These questions are often used to stimulate and challenge the students thinking process to frame their ideas in words.

Because of the way that open questions are meant to extend a person’s understanding of a topic, It also makes them more complex than closed questions. To be able to answer them, the respondent has to think and manipulate information by reasoning or to apply information and using knowledge, logic, creativity and imagination.

You can ask closed or open questions or a combination of the two as a series of questions. When combining the two, it is best to start with relatively simple closed questions that build-up to the more complex open questions. When creating a series of questions, you need to realise that they take time to build up, especially when they are an integral part of the learning process. Therefore, they must be planned as an integral part of the lesson, and not to be used as a time-filler at the end of the lesson where they lose their effect.  When you ask questions at the end of a lesson, try to keep them closed. For usually closed questions are used at the end of a lesson as a recall exercise to help students remember what they have been taught in the lesson.

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Active listening-  hearing is when you are waiting for a gap where you can respond in or take your chance to start talking, listening is when you can let go of what you want to say and listen to what is being said.

As a teacher, it is important to listen actively to your students' responses and answers. For effective communication, being able to listen actively and take account of their given response is as important as being able to send the message effectively. Learn to recognise and be sensitive to whether or not a message has been received correctly by a pupil; for example, you get bewildered look or an inappropriate answer to a question. As a teacher, you need to be able to respond appropriately; for example, repeat the same question or rephrase it. However, also consider why the communication was not effective the first time? Was the pupil not listening to you? If so, why? Had the pupil ‘zoned out’ in a boring lesson or was the question worded appropriately? It is all too easy to blame the student for the absence of his attention, but it may be that the teacher had a large part to play in the breakdown of the communication.

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It is also very much distracting to the pupil to know that the teacher is neither listening nor responding to what is being said. Also, you may convey boredom or a lack of interest, which harms the tone of the lesson. Effective listening is an active process, with a range of verbal and non-verbal response that conveys the message to the pupil speaking that you are listening to what is being said.

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Effective listening is associated with conveying enthusiasm and generating interest by providing reinforcement and constructive feedback to pupils. These include looking alert, looking at the pupil who is talking to you, smiling, nodding, and making a verbal sign to show you have received and understood the message or to encourage the student to continue.

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Non-verbal communication: presenting yourself effectively; enthusiasm, confidence, caring-  Non-verbal behaviour can have a great impact on the listener as the spoken word. What people do not understand that a lot of who we are and what we look like is a part of our non-verbal behaviour—for example, your appearance, gestures, posture, facial expressions, and mannerisms. Our non-verbal behaviour can either support or diminish our verbal communication, depending on whether or not our verbal and non-verbal signals match or not. If you are praising someone and smiling and looking pleased or reprimanding them and looking stern and sounding firm, then your verbal and non-verbal signals are inline and supporting one another. On the other hand, if you are smiling while reprimanding someone or look bored when praising someone, then you are sending conflicting messages that cause confusion and misunderstanding.

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However, non-verbal behaviour can also be of considerable impact without any verbal communication to support it. For example, when you look at a student slightly longer than you would normally, communicate your awareness that they are talking or misbehaving. Or teachers who stand in front of the class with their arms crossed waiting silently for the class to become silent. Or the way a teacher sits and listens actively to the problems of a specific student. The meaning of our communication through our body is clear, and there is no need to say anything during these moments, thus demonstrating that our actions can speak as loudly as our words. Illustrating that non-verbal signals are important for good communication, classroom management and control.

Another thing we need to watch out for is our mannerisms. It is little things like saying “Uhm” every two sentences or flicking your hair every minute, that can take all the focus away of the students. This reduces or prevents effective communication because they tend to focus quicker on a mannerism than what is being said, and the chances are that they will start counting and creating a game out of your mannerisms.

As mentioned before your enthusiasm can be expressed both verbal and non-verbal; however, you will need to be able to sustain this enthusiasm throughout the entire lesson. It is important not only to show enthusiasm when presenting your material but also when you are commenting on a students’ work, especially when they have persevered or achieved a goal. There are three principle ways in which we communicate enthusiasm, both verbally and non-verbally.

• Facial expression: a person who is involved in their subject and is enthusiastic about it, will produce a stream of facial expressions during their lesson. Some expressions are extremely brief, only highlighting a particular word, whereas others might last longer. A speaker who is the opposite is noticeable by the lack of expression in their face.

• Use of voice – see Verbal communication: gaining attention, voice, the language of the teacher.

• Poise and movement: an enthusiastic speaker has an alert, open posture, accompanied by speech with appropriately expressive hand and arm gestures.

When creating a clear connection between your verbal and non-verbal behaviour, and show enthusiasm in your work and students, it shows the students also a part that as a teacher, you care for them. It was reported that a multitude of students preferred teachers who are ‘understanding, friendly, and firm’ instead of teachers where ‘efficient, orderly, and firm’ or even ‘understanding, friendly, and sympathetic’. This shows us that students need a balanced teacher, for they do not mind when a teacher is firm as long as this teacher is also understanding. Our commitment to the students' well-being and learning should be evident in all aspects of our manner and self-presentation. The teacher also needs to be aware of the fact that they need to be able to be sensitive and flexible.  It shows us that it is actually the teacher who has to modify their behaviour in response to the students, instead of the students who have to fall into line with everything asked for by the teacher.

Our non-verbal behaviour could sometimes betray how we truly feel to the observing eye. Making it more important for us to be aware of how we present ourselves (dressing appropriately), our comfort that can either reduce or support our confidence, and our health, making sure that we have enough energy to perform clear non-verbal behaviour and to have a strong attention span so you can focus on names of students, their work and progress and be prepared to listen actively when a student suddenly needs you.

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The 4 C's

I enjoyed reading about the different ways we can enhance the waiting time before asking for answers from the students. Especially ‘talking partners’ It was a very new strategy to me.  It mentioned how it gives the more shy students a voice and helps the more confident students to learn to listen to their peers. However, what if they won’t learn? What if you set up a shy student with a very talkative and slightly arrogant student who simply thinks for themselves and stills tries to get credit for the work by themselves. This leaves the shy student to feel even worse, and it is very much the opposite of what you are trying to add as a learning objective. So even though I think I would really enjoy trying out this strategy, I do think a lot of planning needs to take place beforehand.

The text recommended to enhance our waiting time and to avoid using hands up. The waiting time and hands up are actually very much connected. The reason for this is, there will always be at least one student who knows the answer (if your explanation was effective), and the reason why teachers barely wait after asking a question, is because it is visible to them that a few already know the answer, so their fastest way to respond to this is to accept their raised hand and let these students answer the question. Even if we wait longer and ignore the first raised hands, not many will add if not being part of the first group raised hands. The reason behind this is that peoples’ thinking process is being stopped abruptly after seeing others respond quicker than them.

Which I can recognise from when I was a student myself. At times when I was feeling very insecure, I barely engaged in class because I was unable to answer the teacher’s questions straight away. Bloom’s taxonomy is also nothing new to me except for the older version which I did not know existed. When creating my learning objectives I always made use of Bloom’s Taxonomy since this gave me a better understanding of how to create learning objectives, and how to ask questions effectively and on the right level. Another thing that was mentioned is how students should and can construct their own questions. Which I still have a really hard time accepting this and getting this to happen in my lessons. The reason behind this is because I am scared to not be able to answer their questions.

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As mentioned before I really enjoyed the strategy “talking partners” And thanks to also previous classes I have come up with some of my own ways of enhancing my waiting time. Because I stand behind their ideas, that we as teachers are not giving these students enough time.

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