Technology and Teaching

I think that in this course we tried to improve our digital teaching and I can say that it improved a lot. Before the pandemic and this whole distance learning started, I had no idea how to even listen and react to a distance learning classroom. I had some troubles with it last year but this year with the help of this course, and practicum, of course, I feel like I can make a living out of it. We learned theories, we learned how to give feedback online, we learned materials and tools that will help us in the future. On top of that, reading the chapters and discussing them with our peers before the lessons really helped us out too. It was actually a brilliant idea because, from my personal experience, I had Covid for 1 and a half weeks and couldn’t get myself to read anything for 2 weeks after that too. But with the help of the discussions that we do, I managed to catch up with my friends. As for the digital teacher part of things, weekly readings and discussions with our peers improved a couple of my abilities. One of them is talking non-stop for at least 3 to 4 minutes. I never had that opportunity before in a digital platform and I can say that it helped me out. In the future, it will be crucial for me because I will be talking non-stop. Another one is like I said learning about theories etc. improved my digital teacher identity. I feel like I am a resourceful teacher that can turn around any bad thing that happens in the classroom. Especially in the digital platform because of this course.

First of all, the experience that I gained from discussions, like talking non-stop for 3 to 4 minutes really helped me out in my classes. The first week of my practicums was really harsh and I was anxious about it. But discussions helped me get over it. Tools that we learned during our lessons already helped me out in my practicum lessons. I already used three or four of them if I had time to spare in those lessons. Some students actually came to me for feedback as well because I think I had really good relationships with three students. We talked about a lot of things and giving feedback was one of them. At the end of our last lesson with my favorite classroom, one of the students asked me for websites that can help him improve her English. I gave her the sites that I learned from this lesson.  But on of the most important thing that changed through my practicum lessons were the way I organized my lessons. I can say that with the help of blending and flipped techniques I managed to create a lot of joyful lessons for me and the students too. I think just from this lesson and from the things that we learned, not only my practicums were affected, I can definitely say that it will affect my early teaching career in the future. I always had anxieties about my first year as a teacher, but actually learning something from this lesson, even if it’s mainly about digital teaching, was a great help. I always thought that in this school we were always taught things that we shouldn’t do, not the things that we should do. So, I believe when I say this, this lesson was the most informational lesson for me. Thank you so much.

During these 4 weeks, we read and discussed four different chapters about online education and distance learning. All of these topics and subjects have a great role in online education. Basically, we discussed the place of technology in online education, creating a sense of existence, fake engagement, and the importance of the flipped learning approach in online education.

In our first week we talked about technology in online education. We talked about how technology helps teachers and students. For teachers the chapter mentions some approaches that teachers can use when they face a difficulty in an online setting. Şevval and I discussed the important topics of the chapter and after that I explained how I felt about online education. For me having a physical classroom and learning in an actual school will always be better. While I don’t believe that video conferencing students improve their languages, Şevval believes that it’s similar to a classroom environment and thinks that students can improve their languages. I mentioned my practicum and said that high school students don’t really care about what’s going on in the classroom. For Şevval, it was different, her practicum went really well. After that we talked about our experiences with online education for three or four minutes. We concluded our discussion with talking about how video conferencing isn’t for every student. Because not every student is suitable for online teaching and online learning. Some students are shy in classrooms and don’t want to participate.

In our second week we talked about sense of presence. We explained what it means and what it implies. Then we talked about how sense of presence affect participation in lessons. One of the questions were what kind of problems occur when there is no sense of presence. We discussed this question by starting with teacher’s presence. I said that when a teacher doesn’t have a presence, students would be bored and just listen or don’t listen at all. If a student’s presence is not there, there won’t be any participation and it would be a boring class. Because no one wants to be there. After that we talked about how interactions can improve sense of presence. Then I asked Şevval how a teacher can have a presence in the classroom. We said that asking questions in the classroom, they can hear their student’s opinions, interact with them, and open their cameras so the social presence occur via camera. We tried to give examples from our experiences from our practicums. And lastly, we talked about technology as a disadvantage. I mentioned that not every person is a technology literate person. This can be a disadvantage for students and even teachers. Not being illiterate in technology could affect presence as well.

In our third week we talked about fake or real engagement. We started to discussion with explaining what fake engagement is and the difficulties that it creates in classrooms. Then we talked about dimensions of engagement. Behavioral, cognitive, and affective. We talked about each one of them. Şevval also talked about her experience with a student’s fake engagement in her practicum. We talked about if a student is uncomfortable in a lesson, they don’t want to participate at all. Şevval gave another example talking about her past about being shy and couldn’t participate in the lesson. I agreed with talking about having an intrinsic personality. Then we talked about why student’s have fake engagement. Being bored, or having a problem outside of the classroom like having family issues etc. Lastly, we mentioned forms of involvement getting confused with engagement. We also gave examples for each of them. Being a hypothetical or ones that we experienced.

In our last week we talked about the flipped language approach in classrooms. We started the discussion by explaining what a flipped language approach is. Then we mentioned the positives sides of the approach. Both of us gave some examples for the positive sides of the approach but we both agreed that we don’t like this approach in our classes. Then we started to talk about the negatives of this approach. It was mainly about the teacher’s role. I personally believe that the teacher’s role in this approach is too important because the teacher needs to be instructed about it. I don’t believe that every teacher can use this approach in their lessons. We mentioned couple other things like having a poor video quality etc. Then we concluded our discussion with talking about how hard it is to use this approach but how successful can it be if it is used right and instructed well.

In conclusion, online teaching and distance learning are new terminologies that we started to learn and experience for a year now. There is clearly a need for technology in online teaching but how much of that technology is useful and how many of the students that are listening to you in that classroom is actually listening and learning is another topic that should be brought up in discussions. If we add approaches and presence in this equation, it almost feels like a real classroom. Creating a sense of presence is different in online teaching, flipped learning is a lot harder when it’s in an online setting. I think that teachers need to know about and instruct themselves about. It’s a new era and we as the teachers need to adapt, develop, and survive.

References

·         A systematic review of research on flipped language classrooms: theoretical foundations, learning activities, tools, research topics and findings (Di Zou, Shuqiong Luo, Haoran Xie & Gwo-Jen Hwang)

·         Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching (Rosemary M. Lehman Simone C. O. Conceição)

·         The Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning

·         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLOUlbAgs0

• Multiple choice and Short answer questions (JQuiz)
• Matching exercises (JMatch)
• Ordering exercises (JCross)
• Gap filling exercises (JCloze)