Teaching Young Learners

The age of students is a major deciding factor where you decide how you teach and what you ask them. If you are teaching young learners it’s not the same as teenagers and adults, the strategies and the methods which you will use will be totally different. For instance, if the you’re teaching young learners you will be worried about their interests. As you start to teach young learners first you have to make the learning process fun, this doesn't mean to make learning boring for teenagers and adults but young learners should have fun while learning to stay engaged and motivated which is challenging for teachers.

      Activities need to be changed regularly and with a lot of structure. Teachers has to pay careful attention to students’ attention span where she has to change the activities every now and then to keep students concentrated and on the track.

      Kids will stay focused when activities are interactive. So, the teacher has to be clever enough by implementing different strategies, and methods while teaching these kids because as we all know this age is very critical because it's where we plant the seeds of knowledge, and develop their self-esteem and we work on adding to their repertoire.

“Children are good learners. They first learn to act what they hear and see.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

     When it comes to young learners we have to make sure that we are providing them with the most convenient comfortable environment. They have to feel safe to make mistakes and to express their own feelings and thoughts because this the only way the learn and develop their learning abilities and repertoire. Because their attention span is really short we have to work on activities and ways to grab their attention before we start and to keep them focused.

ISG Experience

It all started at October 15, 2016 when I started my first teaching at Saudi Arabia. As it was my first experience I was more than worried. The environment was totally different from the one I know. Being in an international school is something different, working with different mentalities, different cultures and having a new program depending only on workshops was scary for me. 

It was hard for me at the beginning because I started as a sub-teacher for grades 9 &10. I had boys and girls in the same class which is not normal in KSA. I had in the class Japanese, Americans,Indians, Lebanese and many many nationalities which make the task harder for me as a fresh graduate. 

Students were misbehaving they didn't want to listen to me and some of them were impolite. I cried a lot and every morning I used to say I want to resign this is my last day. But with more patience and believing that I can do it and these students will love me everything changed.I taught grades 9&10 for four months then their teacher came from her vacation, after that I taught grade 6 for 2 years.

My Second Family(Middle School)

Lovely picture with grade 6 students

We've spent an amazing year together because I believed in myself and because I believed that these students will change with me.

Your philosophy of teaching and your expectations as well as your beliefs are such  important factors in teacher's life.

Classroom Decoration

Yesterday I was checking my Facebook account and one post stopped me.
This post was named Dos and Dont's of classroom Decorations".

After that I started to think about the importance of decorations in the classroom and their

effect on students' learning.

When a student first steps into a room they will make a judgment about the type of class
they are going to be taking. They will look to see how desks are arranged.

They will notice what is hanging on the walls. The way in which a teacher sets up their class
allows them to communicate with their students non-verbally.

Decorations help students to memorize what they were taught better.
It's important to know that decorations play an important role in learning where students are exposed
to all the to the posters in the classroom.

The setting of a classroom can also have a huge influence on whether students feels comfortable
and included in the learning environment.

Classroom design is very important and can affect students’ behavior in the classroom.
Students need to be in a classroom that is designed to benefit them by making sure there are
minimal distractions and maximal opportunities for quality learning.

Time saving tips for teachers.

As teacher we always worry about the time, and if we are able to finish the curriculum on time, the task and the explanation. But sometimes things happen the opposite that why it's really important to pay attention to following points:

1. Behavior Management
2. Classroom Management
3. Classroom Organization 
4. Homework
5. Planning
6. Working with Others 

“Time is an illusion.” 
― Albert Einstein

I will give you some tips that can help you to save some time:

Behavior management is crucial to save time because when the teacher controls and prevent bad behaviors she will save her time. Put a good dicipline plan at the beginninng of the year will help you a lot.

Classroom Organization: Get your teaching desk organized and have all your papers placed according to their use, that saves loads of time the moment you want to find something quickly.

Homework: -Use Google forms for homework

-Print homework for the entire of the year in the beginning of the year.

Planning:- Always have a B plan
-Prepare your material before class.

Work with others: -your Co-Workers should be your friends .

-Ask for help when you need, never think that it's inappropriate to ask.

These are not the only tips that the teacher can use. The teacher must be wise and aware of her students and class in order to know what fits and what not.

Feedback For students.

     It is important for students to know how well they are doing as they learn. This is because the knowledge that they are doing well give students a sense of achievement which motivates them to learn more.

     Similarly, it is also important to let students know when they have made a mistake so that they will learn from it and take corrective measures. Hence, it is absolutely essential for teachers to monitor students’ learning and give them feedback.

      Feedback can be given to individual students, to a group of them, or to the whole class. It would be more efficient if the whole class can share in the monitoring process and the feedback.

     In some cases, even the failure to provide feedback is a form of feedback; it could be saying, 'You are not important enough for me to spend my time on.

However, teachers should correct wrong answers tactfully, and encourage the student to rephrase or revise the answer. If a student needs assistance in answering a question, teachers should look to other students to provide help rather than providing it themselves.

 In fact, consciously or unconsciously, we are giving students feedback all the time: facial expressions, tone of voice, and especially words all say a lot about our expectations and the quality of the responses to those expectations.

    Feedback should also be given to students as frequently as possible. Ideally, a student should receive feedback for each and every assigned task in the process of acquiring proficiency with new material.

    Teachers should try to give feedback in a positive manner as positive feedback not only provides more information than negative ones but it also helps to strengthen a student’s motivation and self-esteem.

     

     

    

Maximizing Student's Memory

Webinar's summary:

Dr Judy Willis explained that the brain is designed to learn and remember when predictions are made and feedback is received. When you increase as a teacher student's prediction opportunities you can correct their misconceptions and strengthen their accurate memories.

She mentioned that curiosity promotes interest and attention which will help students to predict and as a result activate their memories.So, prediction sustains attention and constructs memory.

When students give right predictions their Dopamine increases. When prediction is made the memory network  used to make predictions sits right where the dopamine is delivered.

Timely feedback is needed to provide students with the accurate information with which to change their misdirecting neural network.

At the end she said that we need opportunities to use the revised network and build understanding to maintain the correct long term memory.


Reflection:

Webinar provides us with thousands of videos that can improve us as teachers and support us in our journey. You will be able to enrich your self with amazing ideas and explore new method in teaching and you're sitting ion your house.

Actually this webinar was really helpful for me as a future teacher. we have to be aware of our students respect them and give them opportunities to learn comfortably and to express themselves without being afraid. This will help the students to remember things faster as Willis mentioned.

learning will not occur if we are not giving students feedback for what they are doing, they need to learn and correct their mistakes and errors without feeling embarrassed that "I did a mistake and the teacher will scold me in front my peers" . We should encourage students to participate freely and confidently.

Students should feel safe enough to take the risk  of participating and being smart. They should take the risk of making mistakes and to predict safely, and when they feel safe the dopamine will increase and their memory will become active "long term memory".

All what was mentioned will help students to maximize their memories and as a result they will become better in their studies and learning process.

New Start

     The decision was really hard after leaving the university for two years, getting married and having a baby girl, the new start was hard a little bit. For now we completed two weeks and it seems good so far all the instructors  are really helpful and understandable. 

I' m taking four courses Dynamics, Advanced methods, Philosophy and Media & technology. I'm really enjoying all the courses because they're taking me back to my two years in the classroom with my students and my school in Saudi Arabia. 

     Each course has it's unique taste that makes it special from the second one. Philosophy Course with Dr. Wassim helps you to shape and build your own philosophy of education, it helps you to rethink of your belief as teacher.

     While Dynamics and Methods with DR. Rasha Halatare something different. These two courses enlighten you and prepare you to your students and classroom with variety of methods and techniques of teaching. 

     The fourth course is Media and technology with Dr. Amal Farhat. This course is the reason why I'm writing right now without it I wouldn't be able to explore and Know about the blog and many other things.

     All the courses that I'm taking are really wide and important for us as teachers. It's true that having your B.A is great but when you start with your TD(Teaching Diploma ) you feel that you're ready to enter a class and to start your career confidently.