REFLECTION 4: RULES TO EFFECTIVE USE OF POWERPOINT FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Hi everyone!

I'm back with new a topic to be discussed today. Hope you guys will enjoy reading it!



WHAT IS POWER POINT ? HAVE YOU GUYS USED POWER POINT BEFORE THIS FOR YOUR TEACHING AND LEARNING?


I'm here today to share some rules of using PowerPoint effectively for teaching and learning. First of all, let me tell you what is PowerPoint. PowerPoint is a complete presentation graphics package. It gives you everything you need to produce a professional-looking presentation. PowerPoint offers word processing, outlining, drawing, graphing, and presentation management tools- all designed to be easy to use and learn.





RULES TO EFFECTIVE USE OF POWERPOINT FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING


❶ MORE IMAGES LESS TEXTS

• Heavy word slides can be difficult to read from the back of the room.
• People can only listen and read at the same time for a very short period.
• The presenter will be out of sync if the audience decided not to read the slide and just end up with listening to the talk.

❷ ASK YOURSELF IS THAT YOUR PRESENTATION WORKING WITH YOU OR AGAINST YOU ?

• Images are nice to look at, engaging, enriching and can support your story
• People can look at images and listen to u speak at the same time, no problem
• But most importantly, images help people learn
• Learning is improved when narration occurs simultaneously with relevant images.

❸ MAKE THE MOST OF IMAGES BY HAVING IT AS LARGE AS YOU CAN

• This will attract audience attention

❹ MAKE ONE POINT PER SLIDE

• It is better to have many slides in which each slide contains one points
• Allows audience to digest
• Important messages with different colours

❺ AVOID USING BULLET POINTS

• It causes all sorts of problems
• You tend to read all the point aloud
• There is no point to write the points on slide if you're going to say the same thing

❻ KEEP THE SLIDES SIMPLE

• Do not use too much of transitions, animation, and templates
• Just focus on what you are going to present.

❼ CHOOSE READABLE FONTS AND COLOURS

• Do not use light colour for fonts if the background colour is very bright
   

❽ DISTRIBUTE YOUR HANDOUTS

• Makes audience life easier
• If they cannot see the slides, they can refer to the handouts given to them
  
  
  That's for today 😃😃

REFLECTION 3: DESIGNING LESSON PLAN

DESCRIBE FOUR POSSIBLE MISTAKES A TEACHER MIGHT MAKE WHEN DESIGNING A LESSON PLAN?


Hello everyone!

I'm back with a new post today. What is lesson plan actually? Why do the teachers have to prepare lesson plan before teaching and learning session? I'm sure these types of questions had crossed your minds before and are wondering what does the lesson plan for. No worries. I'm here today to give some brief explanation about lesson plan.

A lesson plan is the teacher's road map  of what the students need to learn and how it would be done effectively during teaching and learning session. Before planning the lesson plan, the teacher have to identify the learning objectives for the class meetings.Then, design an appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan should include :

• Objectives for student learning
• Teaching and learning activities
• Strategies to check student's understanding 

LESSON PLAN STRATEGIES

Back to the question above. There are many mistakes commonly done by the teachers in preparing their lessonplan. Here are the some examples of mistakes that a teacher might make when designing a lesson plan:

1. NOT HAVING A CLEAR OBJECTIVE. Meaning that the teacher give the lesson's objective which does not specify what the student will actually do that can be observed. So, the teachers have to give a clear objective so that the students learning and understanding can be observed.
2. IRRELEVANT LESSON ASSESSMENT. The lesson assessment is disconnected from the behavior indicated in the objective. An assessment in a lesson plan is a simply description of how the teacher determine whether the objective has been accomplished or not. The assessment should be based on the objectives given. Anything else is flawed.
3. PROVIDING AN INEFFECTIVE ACTIVITIES. This means that the teacher have provided or prepared activities which is not really based on the objective. The teacher shouldn't prepare activities that makes the students busy but should contribute in a direct way so that the objectives are accomplished.
4. PLANNING BEFORE GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CLASS. Among the three mistakes mentioned above, this are the main mistake that usually done by the teachers. A teacher should get to know her students first before starting her/his teaching and learning session. This is very important because the teachers are going to teach their students not themselves. Teachers should bare in mind that whatever that they are teaching should  draw their students attention and interest. When this are done, the teaching and learning can be carried out very smoothly.

And that's all from me today. Hope you people enjoyed reading my blog. Thank you. Meet you guys soon with another interesting topic.

Thank you :) 

REFLECTION 2: TEACHING PEDAGOGIES

Hello everyone. In my last post, I have shared about the schools of thoughts and today I'm going to share a little bit about teaching strategies that I would apply to teach Mathematics for Form 4 students. There are many strategies that can be used to teach mathematics but I prefer to use direct learning, inquiry based-learning and cooperative learning.

DIRECT LEARNING

Direct learning is the use of straightforward and explicit teaching techniques which usually used to teach specific skills. It is a teacher-directed method meaning that the teacher will stand in front of the class and disseminate knowledge and information.

I choose this method to teach mathematics is because it is not easy to make the students understand what is the teaching. For example in Trigonometry, I will give an introduction to this topic as the students did not learn this topic before. Then, I will give clear explanations and examples on how to solve the question. After that, it comes to guided practice whereby some task is given to the students to be completed after teaching the particular topic. In order to make sure the students understand topic, I will bring the lesson to a conclusion by highlighting (revising) what was covered. At the end of class, homework is given to the students based on the topic taught and it is being collected by me on the next day. The homework is then checked by me and will evaluate how far do the students understand the topic taught.

INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING

Inquiry-based learning is a teaching method that focuses on students investigation and hands-on learning. In this method, the teacher acts as facilitator by giving guidance and support for students through the learning process. This method falls under student-centered approach in which the students play an active and participatory role in their own learning process.

 Inquiry-based learning works best after the direct learning approach. As i said earlier, the students are given some question to be answered after teaching a particular topic. Inquiry-based learning takes place when the students do not understand what is taught by the teacher. The students tends to seek for help to solve question in which the student will ask the teacher personally how to answer the question or will ask their peers to teach them. Through this learning, the students will discuss some question together and this will ensure they understand that topic. This approach also will bring understandings among their peers.


COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Cooperative learning is a teaching method that uses small groups to maximize the learning of each of those group members. In this approach, I will give the students some problems to provide them with opportunities to practice or review mathematics skills or concepts. When the students are given question to be solved, they will discuss in their groups and come out with some solutions for the questions. A research has done on this teaching method and have demonstrated positive result for improving high-order mathematics concepts . So, this method proved that it gives a positive outcomes to the students.


All the above are the teaching methods/strategies that I would practice in future for my students.
Will be back soon with another post. 
Thank you.

REFLECTION 1: SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS

In the subject Pedagogy in Education, the schools of thoughts are divided into three which is behaviorism school of thought, humanistic school of thought, and cognitive school of thought. Before I reflect on my weekly reflections, I would like to some facts about each school of thoughts.

Behaviorism school of thought

IVAN PAVLOV

B F SKINNER

BENJAMIN BLOOM

JOHN B WATSON

• The images above are the person who contributes for behaviorist theory
• Behaviorism is a worldview that operates on a principle of "stimulus-response"
• Assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to external stimuli
• Behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement
• Below are the examples of behaviorism

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

By: Ivan Pavlov

OPERANT CONDITIONING

BY: B F SKINNER

BLOOM'S TAXONOMY

BY: BENJAMIN BLOOM

Humanistic school of thought

• Believes that human beings are different from other species and possess capacities that are not found in animals
• Focused on individuals free will, personal growth, and self-actualization
• Humanist thinkers are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

  
  
  

Carl Roger's Self Concept

Cognitive school of thought

• Cognitivist - Jean Piaget, Albert Allies, Aaron Beck
• Importance of thoughts and thought processes
• Perception, thinking, memory and language

Jean Piaget's Theory

Zone of Proximal Development

By: Vygotsky

REFLECTION QUESTION : IF YOU WERE A TEACHER OF YOUR SCHOOL SUBJECT MATTER, WHICH SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS WILL YOU PRACTICE ?

IF I WERE A TEACHER FOR MATHEMATICS SUBJECT, I WILL PRACTICE BEHAVIORIST SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS. THE REASONS WHY I SAID SO IS BECAUSE MATHEMATICS IS A SUBJECT WHICH CONSISTS LOTS OF CALCULATION AND SOMETIMES STUDENTS HAVE TO MEMORIZE FORMULAS. AS WE ALL KNOW, IN BEHAVIORIST THE STUDENTS WILL FOLLOW OR IMITATE THEIR TEACHERS OR PEERS. FOR EXAMPLE, THE STUDENTS WILL FOLLOW THE STEPS TO SOLVE A MATHEMATICS QUESTION AS HOW I TAUGHT THEM. THIS IS HOW BEHAVIORIST THEORIES WORKS. BESIDES THAT, REWARD  AND PUNISHMENT SYSTEM ALSO WORK BEST IN THIS APPROACH. WHY I SAID SO IS BECAUSE THIS SYSTEM WILL ENCOURAGE AND GIVE SOME MOTIVATION TO THE STUDENTS TO PERFORM WELL IN THE SCHOOL. FOR INSTANCE, GIVING REWARD IN TERMS OF PRAISE FOR STUDENTS WHOM PERFORMED WELL AND FOR THOSE DID NOT DO WELL I WILL GIVE THEM PUNISHMENT IN POSITIVE WAY LIKE GIVING EXTRA EXERCISE OR ASK THEM TO DO THE PARTICULAR QUESTION MANY TIMES. THIS EVENTUALLY WILL ENCOURAGE THEM TO PERFORM WELL.

IN A NUTSHELL, THESE ARE THE REASONS WHY I WILL CHOOSE THIS SCHOOL OF THOUGHTS FOR TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN FUTURE. I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY READING MY BLOG.
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THANK YOU :-)