✅10/13/2020 💗 Week 6 CATESOL Conference Reflection
Since the COVID-19 quarantine started, it feels that we spend all day on Zoom, but it is amazing to keep connecting with everyone. Regarding the CATESOL conference, although this is not my first time to participate, it is a new concept for me to discuss in a virtual setting. When we attended the CATESOL meeting last year, I still remember clearly that each of us circled the courses of interest on the schedule before the discussion started. After class, everyone gathered and shared the main critical takeaways. This year, we might not share feelings directly after each meeting due to the virtual meeting format, but we can still discuss our notes and thoughts by blogging. Besides, the virtual conference might lack opportunities for group discussion and interaction. Still, participants could post their thoughts or questions in the comment area at any time, which built the bridge between the speaker and the audience. Honestly, the new technology that has helped me feel a real connection to people over video conferencing.
Virtual meetings also have unique conveniences. For example, in face-to-face conferences, when we are interested in two or more sessions in the same period, we can only choose one of them without the superpower of "clone." But the recording function of the virtual meeting can help us solve this problem. We can watch the same discussion multiple times or participate in various meetings that were initially in the same period. Network meetings save us time on the road as well. As long as we have a laptop or tablet, we can freely participate in the discussion, and we don’t have to save a whole day to come to the meeting site.
Class 1: Spice Up Your Zoom Class with Four Simple Games
I chose this module because when I first saw the topic, I believed it was related to our EDUC 548, also focusing on interesting technical tools. Interesting warm-up sections are essential for helping students move into a learning frame of mind to focus, participate, and learn effectively.
1.word search puzzles(https://thewordsearch.com)
There are many puzzles with different themes to choose from, such as animals, movies, food & drinks, etc.
steps for teaching:
A.Teachers can choose modules suitable for students according to the lesson.
B.Students can locate the word list at the side of the screen.
C.Try to find all the words from the word list in the puzzle grid.
D. Words may be found going forwards, backward, up, down, or diagonally.
Khoot! (https://kahoot.com)
A game-based quizzes tool that we often used last semester! What attracts me first is this is a free website, and easy to use! Questions are shown on a shared screen, while players can answer the questions with their smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
Secondly, the teacher can set the time for each question when making a quiz, increasing students' sense of participation, and promoting students' thinking and whole-class discussion. But the scoring ranking system may make students nervous.
Pictionary -"You draw, I guess" Activity, an interesting word-guessing game.
Steps for teaching:
1. Divide students into different groups and give one of them an English word through the chatbox.
2. Let the students who got the English words draw them.
3. Other students communicate and guess the word.
“Taboo”- “You describe, I guess” Activity
Taboo is an excellent English word guessing game, suitable for both children and adults to check vocabulary mastery at the end of each unit. Tabo also provides an opportunity to help students practice using synonyms, proper nouns, and daily oral communication.
Steps for teaching:
1.create a PowerPoint (1 picture per slide)
2. Assign students in groups (3-4 students per groups)
3. Share the PowerPoint with students in zoom.
4. One of the students in the group needs to cover her/his face, while teammates describe the picture for her/his to guess.
Class 2: Engagement, Interactivity, and Grammar! It Can Happen!
Students will inevitably think of boring traditional learning methods such as formulas, translation, cloze, and reading comprehension when it comes to grammar learning. Thus, creating an engaging learner-centered grammar class experience is also a question I have always wanted to study further.
"Nearpod" (https://nearpod.com), as the online education website mainly introduced in this session, provides an online engagement learner-centered platform for students and teachers. Teachers can create an entire learning lesson plan on this website. In the class, students can interact and cooperate with peers, and teachers can "supervise" students' learning outcomes and get feedback simultaneously.
*Something that attracts me:
1. The concept of website design is especially suitable for the current trend of online teaching, and the login step is straightforward to follow. Students can log in to the website via phone, laptop, or tablet.
2.The website page design is very stylish and simple. Teachers can choose to create lessons, videos, or google slides.
3. With comprehensive functions, the entire website includes courseware creation, activities, and quizzes.
4. Formative assessment runs through the entire course. Students can test their knowledge mastery by challenging various interesting activities, such as Draw it, Collaboration board, Polls, Matching, Quizzes, etc.
(⬆️ We tried matching activity together in the meeting.)
（⬆️Through “Draw it” activity, students complete the teacher’s task by drawing. )
(⬆️ Teachers can also set multiple-choice questions and sentence-making exercises.)
5. Teachers can check students’ answers at any time to understand students who answered correctly and who need more explanation.
* Something needs further consideration:
1. The website only offers a free trial to get you started, but the program or department would need to purchase a license.
Class 3: Connecting the Classroom to the World through Pictures
(https://padlet.com/alannacarter/zy7wtwmy0vl96bub)
The key words discussed in this section are "classroom", "world", and "pictures". The "pictures" here have more roles: web pictures, real photos, or even videos. Making a real-world connection is vital in our students' learning process, and realistic images help them understand better. This method is especially suitable for ELL learners. For example, when we teach students to distinguish the two words "subway" and "train," no matter how much effort we put in, they may still not fully understand because these two words have no connection with their lives. Thus, real photos or real objects are needed. When the teacher shows them, students may suddenly realize that they have taken the subway before. But how can we combine the course with the "real picture"? Here are three interesting methods of giving assignments:
1) Module 1 Assignment:
For this assignment, students will create a portfolio of pictures and sentences that show the language you have come across in your daily life.
2) Students need to provide images of the following tasks, they can look for these pictures from their everyday life, such as billboards, magazines, newspapers, ads, and books.
A.Single words representing each of the four parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) (one example of each)
B. Simple sentences (three examples)
C. Imperative sentences (three examples)
3) Write ten simple sentences explaining how this affected your thoughts and feelings on the language you're learning in class.
Students' works:
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