[ola] Re: Kahoot...
- From: Martin Kathryn <kmartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 19:37:13 +0000
There is a Zen saying: "If you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye
on the path."
Focus on the path, and you will reach your goal!
From: ola-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ola-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Nanosh Lucas
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 9:49 AM
To: ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ola] Re: Kahoot...
I think that the goal in both cases is to do something relevant to the
students. The 2nd conversation starter is authentic in the sense that I'm
telling my own story, and I'm also looking at ways to keep the conversation
going should students be uninterested in the question. I guess I'm focusing
less on the past or present than to see how long I can get students to practice
the art of uttering speech, so that they can move from novice mid to high, then
to intermediate. My understanding is that this will happen less with a focus on
what verbs students can conjugate in isolated situations but on their overall
ability to communicate an idea. At the Spanish 2 level, I am not expecting
students to master the preterite at all. I'm going to watch the ACTFL webinar
on that same subject (leveling from novice to intermediate) that Arnold
Bleicher gave, which will probably give me some more insight, and I'd be glad
to share what I've gleaned from it and applied in the context of my own
classroom.
Meanwhile, I attached a PDF of a Powerpoint I made for my Spanish I class. I
used a mini roulette table and gave out candy to students whose numbers were
called, and then I had students switch places in the circle and talk to
different people using those questions, all the while trying to push them to
extend their length of speech (Example: ¿Cuál es tu comida favorita y DÓNDE te
gusta comerla? (What's your favorite food and where do you like to eat it? -
then perhaps compare pizza @ Abby's with pizza @ Pizza Hut). I had a Spanish 2
give me new questions to replace the old, which was VERY awesome - I got a lot
of repeats, but one person said, "Would you rather have a cat with no tail or a
dog with no hair? Another student, who prides himself on being the guy who
blurts out, "AMERICA!" in class to establish his distaste for learning anything
about another culture, contributed what I thought was the most valuable
question: "Do you like hanging out with your guy friends or girl friends?" We
expanded that to, "Can guys and girls be friends?"
I thought the roulette table was awesome because instead of having students bet
money, I had them put a little card with their name on it on a number of their
choosing. This made it easy to see who was absent in the class very quickly,
and I could also quickly make groups by grabbing the little cards in order from
1-36 (usually class sizes don't exceed this number).
Additionally, Kahoot is really awesome - y'all should check it out. You can
make fun competitions with not very much technology.
Lastly, here is an article on the pitfalls of goal setting. I read this and it
has been changing my life on an hourly scale. I am not advocating against
setting goals, but it talks about how if we focus on daily habits, the goals
will reach themselves. I made it a goal to make class somewhere I want to be
every day. It has been almost two days, and I feel a huge difference in my
enjoyment of teaching. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230333
Have a great day.
Nanosh
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