Hello back! I am aware that it's been a long time no post here in this blog but I am back with a PhD research study which is conducted by the researcher Melda Yılmaz. I am one of the participants of this study about 21st century teacher training and I'll be posting my reflections about the each week of the training for a while. I hope that it will be beneficial for some who are interested in such a topic.
First of all, we started with the critical thinking skills to the class. Learning in depth about the critical thinking was interesting since if we are going to be teachers or even academicians, we may have such a skill and know how to make use of it. Before the first class, we took a critical thinking skills test to test our skills and to seek the answer whether we are critical thinkers enough or not at all. The results were not that bad at least each one of us is familiar with the concept of what a critical thinking is. After talking on the topic for a while, we moved on to the breakout rooms so as to share our opinions and stances on certain terms and we had the chance to elaborate upon our bases.
Although it was the first class of critical thinking, I must admit that it was an eye-opening experience already. I hope to improve my skills more in the later sessions. The skill actually has many aspects, one can not mention about himself if he is biasing his own judgements due to his own preferences or just because 4 people are against your stance you shouldn't give up on supporting your idea with judicious reasons, do not go with the flow stand still and defend your point.
In the second half of the class, we discussed the globalisation of the English language. How it acquired such a label? What actually is needed to be a global language? Should there be a global language? and so on and so forth.
My point of view about this part did not vastly change since I already was aware of the power of English and what brought this power to it that much. One point was highlighted with the discussion that we had: English -as Crystal states- was not just at the right place at the right time. English had more than that and the status that it gained through the years was not only the result of a luck.
The digital literacy, that almost all the teachers or prospective teachers should at least be familiar to was included amongst our topics of discussion. To be honest, I was not that skilled about the digital tools two years before. With the class that I took called "Instructional Technologies and Materials Design" I improved myself a lot and since then I am able to use many digital tools and create materials with them. So I was totally agree with this part of the training. Contemporary teaching surely needs the partnership of digital tools.
I would like to thank our trainer here since the two tools that she used with us during the class, were super practical and fun. One of them is Edpuzzle which enables you to answer some questions while you are watching a video. It is a very efficient tool since the video mentions about something and that thing is being asked to you very immediately. The video stops at certain moments to direct you a question both open ended and multiple choice are available. The other one is Poll Everywhere. If you as a teacher want to collect very quick answers or to get your learners brainstorm about a topic, this is the tool which may save you. You can also prepare some questionnaire and implement it as a competition in the class to fire up the motivation.
I was pleased to great extend with the first week of our training. I hope the rest will continue on like this as well. I'll be sharing my experiences here each and every week. - Till then!
Bilge Güral xx
Comments
Post a Comment