Blog+selections

Tumblr Blog selections

= Selection #1 = = This first selection was made on July 16th at the end of the first week of MATSL. = = Susan's blog on thinking together =

Part A- After a week of working on the theme of silence and voice, I have come to learn that there is an abundance of literature that clearly expresses the theme for this summer in our Spanish content class. Some of the topics within the theme of silence and voice have been about the Spanish Civil War which was of course during General Franco’s regime and the Maqui’s (guerrillas who fought against Franco’s government and lived in the mountains in Spain). The other topic we worked on was about the people who disappeared in Mexico Did you know that all through latin America there were people disappearing because they spoke their mind about the government. If anyone heard them, they would either be killed or put in jail. One of the pieces of literature I liked was called La voz dormida (The Sleeping Voice) by Dulce Chacon. The fact that a woman was sent to jail for feeding someone who spoke up against the government seems so very unfair. The author actually interviewed women who were in jail. A fact that totally blows my mind is how the Catholic Church was with the government during all of these injustices. The jail the women were in was run by nuns. Part B- I am truly shooting in the dark here but if I were to analyze the languaculture and discourse of our Spanish content course I would first have to include the artifacts and resources used in order to acquire the knowledge. First of all the literatures we have read have been pre-posted on Moodle to enable easy access to the material. The significance of the materials or the significance of accessing the material through our technology has helped immensely instead of always waiting for a copy. After each piece of literature is followed by a discussion which before this week I would have only seen as a discussion. Now looking at it through new eyes it is more of moments of interaction or communication among a community of practice. Other tools that we have used are charts, movie, writing essays and moodle to reflect on what has been learned whether pedagogically or content wise. Some of the interactions are among small groups creating lessons or completing assignments connected to the reading for the day. Many of the activities have encouraged and promoted communication and interaction among the students. Another thing that promotes interaction is the communicative context in which the group is located. The students all sit around a large tables which forces everyone to face each other and the professor also sits at the table giving it a more informal feeling in the room where everyone s at the same level.

Discussion #1: e first selection or artifact is from my first week of blogging on tumblr. I thought I should reflect on Spanish Culture and Pedagogy because it is one of the main reasons I am here at Bennington College. I believe that as teachers we are lifelong learners. We are always trying to improve our craft in order to teach our students better. One important part about our Spanish class that I truly enjoy is that we have a ot of interaction and opportunities to hear everyone's perspective on teaching, thinking and creating lessons. Last year I wondered whether using essential questions inthe classroom were worth my while. I have truly come full circle with that although I still have trouble creating the questions but now I see how important they are to my units. The essential questions keep the lessons grounded and guides you to the outcome of what you want the students to go away with. Another change in my teaching perspective is that I want to implement more technology in my lessons as well as create more content and culture rich lessons. Also having the students rely on eachother to discuss ideas or concepts helps them see others perspectives. The affordances are that there was scaffolding as they helped eachother adnintextualization, interlanguage and intralanguage.

= Selection #2 = Heading towards true north Artifacts created that describe communities of practice interacting could be a way to guide me towards true north. Seeing evidence of communicative practices through our observations and photos and our interactions with technology. Evidence of communicative practices among 3 students of MATSL: The following is an observation of two people interacting using specific instructions with the technology. Before beginning to work, both Solange and Autumn are reading the directions. There are smiles while reading the blog and I am taking it upon myself that it could be because both actually speak French and understand what is on the blog website. The observer (Susan) is the only one without the ability to speak French. Checking what the activity is the blog mentions in [|www.globster.com]raised eyes from Autumn. Solange is looking at the program also. The two of them are discussing whether or not to register for the site. Solange is reading the directions. Both are intensely reading and typing. All is quiet. Autumn says, “That globster is pissing me off”… very vocal about program that wouldn’t sign up for it. It says to create a name and it rejected her. Happiness in Autumns side, she got in. Solange is still signing in. «Wrinkled eyebrows». Autumn, “This is different from Facebook but it is another interactive website”. Trying to figure out how to use this website with the students and smiles and likes the website. Solange agrees and is showing Autumn that it could be useful. Solange still can’t register so autumn invites Solange to look onto her computer. Autodesk homestyler. They are discussing how the website is all in English but it is a cool way to possibly assess the students with their vocabulary. Solange moves over and watches on. She is still trying to get on the website. They are trying to include the third person into the discussion by showing the person the website and what can be done. Since Autumn knows French they have begun speaking in French. There is interlingua, pedagogy, debate,. Ø Technology can play a major role in enhancing learners contact with target language. (Blake Ch.1 p.2) Ø People’s interaction with computers is social and natural just like interactions in your life. (p.3) Ø The internet is not monolingual. Authentic language learning materials are obtained. (p.4) Researchers say computers are useful because: o text-based medium that amplifies students attentions to linguistic form\ o stimulus for increased written L2 production o less stressful for practice o a more equitable and non-threatening forum for 2 discussions o expanded access to create global learning networks Frustrating if technology doesn’t work. Interactions stopped because they were both trying to log into program. Text in another language would be frustrating. A lot of communication Scaffolding as Autumn helped Solange and vice versA Intextualization ( the computer is a form of text and they were interacting with it)
 * After reading Blake we found that the following is true according to the interactions observed.**
 * Affordances and constraints during interactions:**
 * Constraints**
 * Affordances**

Discussion #2: This artifact is of a session with two of my classmates where I wrote down everything I observed them do as they followed a set of specific directions. I think this was a great activity and I enjoyed observing them even when they spoke French and had no clue what they were saying. There was alot of interaction between the two being observed. there was only a minute of silence due to the trouble they each had getting into the program assigned. Later there was more interlingua going on. Technology does play a major role in enhancing learners contact with the language. One person is a Spanish teacher while the other person is a French teacher. The web is multilingual which allows both teachers to search for items. They worked together sharing their perspectives. The only constraint I found is that they got frustrated because it took a little longer than expected to load the program.

= Selection #3 = Susan’s Principles Re-blogged The following are the principals used in my teaching. Some may be absent from this artifact however, these are my basic ones. The activities my students will be working on allows the students to work in collaborative groups creating their small community of thinkers. Although the big questions is Who has the freedom to express themselves? and What are the causes of silence? The activity from [|www.youtube.com] introduces the emotions into the lesson. Then the students will be working in collaborative groups learning information needed for the topic and posting what they have learnied. The third step entails tying it all together with the questions posted on Google Docs to keep them focused on the information they need to search for. Hopefully, this will help them create their own perspective as they listen to their partners perspectives as well.The students will be researching a topic and answering key questions that will be posted on Google Docs. The activities are aligned with central question and purpose. The design allows students to be thinkers ina community as they work together to shape, sharpen, focus andpresent their perspective or thinking. This perspective will affect the way they think about concepts so sharing those perspectives will allow them to shift thier thinking. As scaffolded lessons are being created, we also have to keep in mind that the lessons need to be challenging enough for all of our students. 1. Aligned with central question and purpose- conceptual. 2. Design so that students are compelled to think together in community, participate with others to shape, sharpen, focus, and present their thinking. 3. Perspective affects everything we do and can be enriched/developed by interaction with a community of thinkers. Compel students to not only take perspectives but to recognize them and recognize others, and to be able to shift to a new perspective intentionally through changes in langauge. 4. Being diglossic requires a new multi-modal form of thinking. Design activities to encourage students to do new multi-modal thinking, such as being diglossic (using different ‘languages’ and /or different sign systems (visual plus language e.g.) 5. All activities should be designed in ways that scaffold learning by providing resources that allow students to out perform their confidences. 6. Using multiple texts and multiple scales. Go back and forth, brainstorm, generate ideas, get immediate feedback, build some meaning, and build some emotion. Arguments start forming. (this is done later on in the unit when the students discuss the topic in class.) 7. Requires disciplined perspective taking which means mucking about and putting it all together to reach that moment of understanding or clarity. 8.Raises questions related to the frog - identities, connections, significance, politics, relationships, sign systems and knowledge, activities develop literacies that include taking and recognizing perspectives out of varying and contrastive sociocultural contexts. EG, they might transform a text produced by ne identity into one produced by another. =Discussion #3: 3 is a charm I am told. This is the third try and I think I finally got it.= As I looked through the principles I found that there were others I could've added but I only needed eight of them for this round. My goals for this year are to incorporate several basic practices I've learned here or that I knew about but just haven't used in a log time. Having the students work collaboratively so they can create their own community of thinkers is one. Incorporate the essential questions into my units. Talk to the technology administrator and the principal and try to add more technology into our lessons. Allowing students to create their own perpective as they discuss and compare important events, culture and daily news throughout the Spanish Speaking world.