Reflection on Week 5

Like the previous weeks, week 5 also has brought new surprises in my life. I have got the opportunity of reading the articles on rubric, alternative assessment, project based learning and webquests. As I am quite used to in traditional way of teaching, I found them quite amazing and become a bit skeptical whether I could apply them in my context or not.

The article on alternative assessment gave me insight on the use of alternative assessment while evaluating students work. The very interesting part of it is, it fosters the learner-centered classroom; these methods give learners opportunities on their linguistics development and their learning processes. As the features of it are solely based on students’ performance and evaluation, it provides enough opportunities for the students to participate not only in their learning activities but assessment as well. I think incorporating alternative assessment with traditional forms of testing will be quite useful and effective in ESL/EFL class.

Article by Susan Gaer has given me much more idea on making the project more effective. She sheds a light on making students learning more effective by involving them in their work. Unlike traditional teaching and learning, students identify the problem and moves forward for the solution in project based learning. They create their own issues and if needed teacher facilitate in their task. Her suggestion on the projects: The project must be geared to the population, the students must see value in a project and flexible timeliness helps teacher to determine the project work where as it gives the students the impetus to activate themselves for the work they are doing.

Another task, we went through was webquest. Going into it, I feel like I have found the treasure in Treasure Island. Webquests, in my opinion, can be very useful for my students and me as well to manage the project based learning and bind my students in track. The very features of it like introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion, credits, teacher page, and students’ page can be a complete package for the teachers and students. I think this web tool will be helpful to my students to know what their task is, what they have to do from their part, what could be the evaluation model, what are the resources links etc. I think it will prevent students digressing from their task goal because they do not need to go beyond the webquest and search the material for their projects as the materials can be made available by the teacher in webquest in advance.

This week as a project work, we dealt about the problem that we face in our class room along with the possible solution. In my class, I found my students quite oblivious in learning English it’s because they find it difficult in getting the authentic materials. I think the problem of my class can be solved by the introduction of Nicenet class which could be helpful in providing them links of the websites for their study.

Finally, I had a comment on Claudia’s blog. I liked her train metaphor. Like her, I also have found the journey on webskills amazing with new surprises each week. I feel like I am growing each day.

Sitaram