My own opinions and experiences on "Blending Language Instruction, Online Feedback Practice, Online Formative Assessment, Innovative Digital Tools for Four Language Skills"
Improving digital teacher identity more tough than improving teacher identity. Because in online environment it is difficult to engage and interact with students. For this reason, applying innovative digital tools into lesson, assessing, and giving feedback correctly crucial in online environment. As a teacher in online lessons, teachers need to be more active, creative, energetic, and patient rather than they act and behave in face-to-face education. If a teacher knows the key terms that are important both in online and face to face education, she/he can be ideal teacher. Knowing the importance of key terms is not enough to contribute your own digital teacher identity. It is more important to know how to apply this topic and terms into your lesson. So, in lessons, weekly readings, and discussions I have learned both importance of the topics and how to apply them into my digital teaching process. In short, with readings first I have learned the topic the important key terms about the topic, also all the readings I have learned many tools that I can use in my teaching. After readings in discussion videos, I discuss what I learn and what I think about the topic, and my friend and I shared our own experiences from our own learning experience. This sharing helps me a lot because I have time to think on my own learning’s positive and negative side. For this reason, I can change my teaching style to not look like and look like to my own teachers. In short, reading articles and discussion videos and lessons contributed to my teacher identity. The important thing is not knowing the terms, the important thing is knowing how successfully apply these terms, such as blended approach, formative assessment, feedback in online education. There are many applications for using in online education, but it is crucial to find appropriate and useful one for the classes. Being prepared and having willingness for the online education help teachers to have successful lesson. Using and applying appropriate technology very important in online lessons. Because technology helps students to keep motivated and keep learning after the course. As a teacher being prepared and prepare students for the online lesson is key for the effective online education. Additionally, I think that discussion sessions contributed to my teacher identity more than others, because in discussion session we both speak about what we have learned, and we connected the terms our own learning and teaching experiences. Talking with someone and listening her opinions about the topics help me a lot because I learn different teaching strategies and styles other than my own teaching strategies and styles. To give an example, in our discussion videos we always refer to prep school and our university teachers. Additionally, we give examples from our own practicum experiences in our discussion videos. This help me to remember how my teachers apply formative assessment, technological tools, and feedback to their teaching, and I take as an example their teaching styles for my future teaching experience.
As
a teacher I think that blended learning will help me to engage my students
after the class, especially after face-to-face learning, out of the classroom
they will continue to practice what they have learned with technological tools.
Instead of giving traditional homework, such as from books or giving writing
homework to the notebooks, technology motivate and entertain students. This
help shy and unwilling students to build confidence and willing to the
learning. In my future classes, I will try to use blended teaching. The first
thing that I will do is to train my students for blended learning. Because it
may be difficult for the students who get education in traditional classroom.
Second, I will try to increase my student’s willingness and motivation for
blended teaching. Because if students do not work after class and do not
prepare for the class or do not have willingness for the blended learning, as a
teacher my preparedness and willingness will be useless. Also, I have pointed
this topic in my discussion video with my friend, especially in Turkey it may be
difficult for the teachers to apply blended teaching, because students in Turkey
prefer doing nothing after the course. They expect everything from the teacher,
and they want to learn everything at lesson from the teacher. Still, I believe
that technology in blended approach help learners to be more eager and autonomous
for their learning, also the reason it creates opportunity for differentiation,
student may feel more motivated for the learning. To give an example, in my
classes if some students do not like to speak in front of the classroom may
record themselves in front of a camera. Giving freedom to the students to
choose the technology they want to use may help them to feel more relax and
motivated. Also, last year because of covid 19, we had to move our education
online. One of our teachers wanted us to make presentation, but all my friends
did not want to make presentation in live lesson so that we recorded our
presentation in VoiceThread application. For this reason, in online lesson it
is good to make differentiation for the students for creating safe learning
environment. Whether being teacher in face-to-face environment or in online
environment, it is important to give appropriate feedback for the learners. I
know that positive feedback can build confidence. Being confident and build
confidence for the students and create safe environment in the classroom is
crucial in language learning. In online classes, as a teacher I will use online
applications to give individual feedback. During my practicum experience, I
have used directive feedback for the students for good use of language and for
correct answers, such as very good, great, well-done, good job, good answer,
bravo. Also, I use positive emojis after their answers. For correcting the
students’ errors and mistakes, I use positive tone and provide correct form for
the students’ mistakes. I try not to demotivate students because of their
mistakes. In online lessons as a teacher in the future I will use applications
for feedback. For instance, for writing
homework and writing feedback I will prefer google drive. Because both there is
automatic correction and, I can add my own comment for student’s mistake. To give
audio feedback I can use audacity, krovio, even I can use WhatsApp voice
messages to give individual and collective feedback. Additionally, I think it
is important to give individual feedback to the students because correcting
mistakes and errors in front of the whole class may demotivate students and
decrease participation so that it is important to give individual feedback to
do this, I can get help from Edmodo. There are many applications we can use,
also we can suggest our students to use to get feedback for their mistakes and
errors. As a teacher, not only in online education, but also in face-to-face
education it is important to give effective, positive, and correct feedback. On
the other hand, it is important to find the gap for giving feedback. Formative
assessment helps teachers to find the gap between what students have learned
and what they have not learned. As a teacher, it is important to find ways to
see what students know, what they have learned in the lessons. There are many
online tools to use for online formative assessment to check for
understandings. I think in online education it is better to use online
applications for formative assessment. For instance, during my practicum we
have used zoom for the lesson, and I have used kahoot for formative assessment
at the end of the lesson to check my students’ understandings. When I have
shared the code for the zoom, I encounter that in the lesson there are more
than 30 students but in kahoot there are only 10 students’ name on the screen.
This help me to see that I can only assess 10 students because they are the
only one who listen the lesson. For this reason, during online lessons it is
important to use extra applications for assessing students. If I do not have
chance to use extra application, I can use chatbox by asking short questions
that will show students understandings. Also, polling, rating activities help
me to assess my students’ understandings. The reason formative assessment is a
process, as a teacher I should always ask questions, assess students’ understandings,
and in online lessons I will use technological tools, such as flipgrid, kahoot,
Edpuzzle, padlet, poll makers, quizlet, quizizz. At the same time with the help
of one technological tool, as a teacher we can both assess our students, help their
learning, increase their motivation. There are many technological tools, but
the important thing is how to and when to use them in the lesson. To give an
example from my own practicum experience, I taught weather and emotions, at the
end of the lesson to assess students understanding I used the app wheel decide.
With the help of this tool, I both assessed my students understanding and, we
had speaking practice. In my last practicum experience I used the tool
mentimeter, I asked related questions about the topic and I both assessed their
understanding and their writing. For this reason, with the help of
technological tools we can achieve two goals at the same time. To sum up, with
the help of readings, discussion videos and lessons I have learned many important
terms and I also try to perform them in my practicum. Using technology in
online lesson is more crucial than using in face-to-face lessons, because distraction
is easier in online lessons than in face-to-face lessons. Also, technology keep
students concentrate and motivated. I always try to use technology in my practicum
experience, also in my future classes I always use technology and keep learning
new technological tools.