Tag: edtech

Cognitive Challenges of Language Learners in the Digital Age

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

We must keep in-mind the unique challenges that new technologies create for all of our learners: especially those who are learning a new language, or who are attempting to access a mainstream curriculum via a second or additional language. Today, I’ve invited Tatyana Cheprasova (Senior Lecturer and EFL/TEFL instructor at Voronezh State University, Russia) to give her expert analysis of the situation, along with many excellent suggestions that we can all take on-board going forward.

This blog post has been beautifully illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati 

With digital technologies rapidly taking over various spheres of our lives, a new pedagogical environment for acquisition, processing and transferability of knowledge and skills has been created. These digital shifts will inevitably affect the educational sector as one of the aims of any educational paradigm is to prepare learners to face the challenges of the real world which now cannot be conceived without digital imprints and influence. This article aims to explore the cognitive challenges this new educational reality places before language learners in the Digital Age. It also attempts to provide EFL teachers with insights into how their teaching procedures can be altered in order to meet the cognitive needs of ‘digital native’ learners.

In order to develop the right understanding of the factors affecting cognitive processes (such as perception, learning communications, associations, and reasoning) and the behavioural consequences for digitally native learners, it is deemed essential to explore the new educational environment within which they operate and develop.

The new pedagogical reality which integrates digital language learning (DLL), as with any educational paradigm or teaching tool, can have its own advantages and deficiencies which become visible and apparent when the context which coined a new pedagogical phenomenon is carefully scrutinised. The pedagogical settings we now operate within and which incorporate DLL need to be viewed as the natural evolutionary result of the educational development we have witnessed in the last few decades. According to Warschauer (2004:10), at the early stage, within the language learning domain of the final decades of the 20th century, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) or Structural CALL was strongly influenced by the behaviourist paradigm which shaped this type of DLL as merely stimulus-response, drill-based programmes which enhanced the learning of new vocabulary items or grammar under rigid teacher supervision. The ensuing transfer from a behaviourist to a communicative approach to language learning where meaningful interactions were given the priority also affected the whole nature of CALL design, giving rise to Communicative CALL which implied the use of computers to engage language learners in communicative activities (Warschauer, 2004:11). Finally, with the onset of integrative ICT, the technologies within the new educational paradigm have moved into the era of Integrative CALL which relies on agency and interactive communications (both of teachers and students) as an effective pedagogical tool to solve real-life tasks and problems in a community of peers on the internet (Warschauer, 2004:11).

The widespread implemetation of Integrative CALL which has soared in the field of ELT in the last two decades has been seen by many researchers as a mainly positive trend which has a lot to offer ELT practitioners in various educational contexts (Li and Lan, 2021). Thus, as argued by Grosjean (2019) and Al-Ahdal, (2020), the incorporation of AI and Big Data used in various language applications can facilitate ELT in that it provides learners with real-life language use settings as well as helping to trace down their language progress via the analysis of learners’ errors in L2 writing procedures. Additionally, the use of AI can lead to a more individualised, rather than one-size-fits-all, approach to language teaching where the pedagogical strategies and procedures are designed to meet learners’ requirements and profiles at its best (Li and Lan, 2021). Finally, mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) and game-based language-learning (GBLL) have been regarded by many scholars as possessing high teaching potential in terms of EFL outcomes as they provide students with language learning opportunities at their fingertips, anytime and anywhere, stretching beyond learning a language as limited to only traditional classroom settings (Shadiev, Zhang, Wu & Huang, 2020; Li and Lan, 2021).

Notwithstanding all of the above-mentioned advantageous implications DLL can offer as the new pedagogical dimension, both ELT practitioners and researchers have started to question its overall positive effects on learners’ cognition,  psychological and speech development, and their flux of consciousness, thus approaching the issue from both cognitive and social perspectives (Warschauer, 2004; Komlósi, 2016, Voulchanova et al., 2017; Chernigovskaya et al., 2020). The impacts these DLL-driven pedagogical settings can have on language learners are going to be discussed below.

At this point it is worth mentioning that the whole nature of the concept of ‘knowledge’ seems to have radically changed as the Cognitivism learning model has given way to the Constructivism Paradigm. Apparently, when learning occurs within a particular teaching model, the nature of knowledge evolves on the basis of how new data is generated and pedagogical assumptions about which strategies comprise the educational process, as the following comparison illustrates (see the table below):

As it is illustrated above, knowledge is no longer approached as a monolithic unit transmitted from a teacher to their students but rather as a dynamic heterogeneous construct characterised by boundless hypertextual structure where the reader (or a knowledge receiver) acts out as the author (or knowledge co-constructor) (Warschauer, 2004; Chernigovskaya, 2020).

This innovative type of knowledge might inevitably affect learners’ main cognitive processes. Indeed, as argued by the famous Russian neurolinguist Tatyana Chernigovskaya, the hypertextual nature of knowledge leads to the formation of an innovative learning environment, which she refers to as “shared consciousness”, where learners have to rely not on their memory capacity to recall various information quanta but rather on their ability to remember the source of the particular data storage, which, in turn, can seriously weaken working memory, especially that of young learners. Additionally, the hypertextual characteristics of the new type of knowledge  are believed to affect the development of learners’ reading skills as this process now implies the inclusion of critical literacy at the very early stages of their cognitive development. This represents a challenging task for young learners whose abilities to compare, contrast and analyse, as well as to make inferences, are not so well-formed as those of adult learners (Warschauer, 2004; Chernigovskaya et al., 2020). These factors might lead to the formation of new and superficially scrutinised skills of digital knowledge management which will need to be specially addressed when teaching L2 reading comprehension.

More importantly, according to Zou and Xie’s (2018) research on the integration of MALL in language learning, this new format of learning, although enhancing personal learning processes, can seriously impede learners’ attention: shortening their attention spans for learning, and therefore, affecting learners’ ability to concentrate and control their attention. In the same vein, as argued by Hsu et al. (2019), adolescent excessive use of mobile devices might have adverse effects on their abilities to integrate scientific knowledge and to make inferences, thus leaving them with a rather distorted, disintegrated and mosaic-like scientific worldview.

Furthermore, as stated by Komlosi (2016:167), the onset of DLL will urge researchers to reconsider and revisit the essence of communication as the new digital teaching paradigm has introduced radical changes in social cognition and communication in the new form of digital culture, which implies that its members operate in connected networks constituted by several types of ‘cognitive identities’. This newly coined term refers both to human and non-human social actors that function smartly and are expected to operate within a highly interlocked framework of multifaceted information flow and exchange. The agents of info-communications in the digital world are related to each other not by commonly shared cultural narratives, as negotiated within the traditional cognitive cultural anthropology, but by fragmented narratives revealed through spontaneous and rather unstable shared interests in networking, information construction and exchange, thus facilitating non-linear, multidimensional communicative interaction which can seriously impede the traditional vertical, authoritative and declarative patterns of cultural knowledge transmission (Komlosi, 2016:167). This change in the social cognition and behaviour paradigm might have adverse effects on learners’ cognitive skills as the long evolutionary process of linear information processing typical for any culturally coherent human community is now challenged by parallel and connected network-based information processing: making use of fragmented, encapsulated information chunks provided by a plethora of information sources, which, in turn, forces learners and educators to seek new strategies of information management and info-communications in novel contexts (Komlosi, 2016:168).

Conclusion

At this point, an important conclusion which can be drawn is that the wide incorporation of DLL we are witnessing now needs to be approached as an irreversible process offering a new perspective on information processing and knowledge management of language learners in various contexts.  Notwithstanding its obvious advantageous effects, DLL has already signposted certain cognitive, behavioural and communicative challenges for learners. More research providing evidence of direct comparison between learning from others and learning from digital tools is required to develop a better understanding of the standard modes and channels of language transmission in in the digital age and to conceive the cognitive and behavioral consequences of learning in digital ecosystems.

References

  • Al-Ahdal, A. (2020). Using computer software as a tool of error analysis: Giving EFL teachers and learners a much-needed impetus. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change , 12(2), 418–437.
  • Chernigovskaya, Tatiana & Allakhverdov, Viktor & Korotkov, Alexander & Gershkovich, Valeria & Kireev, Maxim & Prokopenya, Veronika. (2020). Human brain and ambiguity of cognitive information: A convergent approach. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies. 36. 675-686. 10.21638/spbu17.2020.406.
  • Grosjean, F. (2019). A journey in languages and cultures: The life of a bicultural bilingual. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  • Hsu, C.T., Clariana, R., Schloss, B., & Li, P. (2019). Neurocognitive signatures of naturalistic reading of scientific texts: a fixation-related fMRI study. Scientific Reports,9(1), 1–16.
  • Komlósi, L. (2016). 13. Digital Literacy and the Challenges in Digital Technologies for Learning. In D. Dejica, G. Hansen, P. Sandrini & I. Para (Ed.), Language in the Digital Era. Challenges and Perspectives (pp. 162-171). Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter Open Poland. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110472059-015
  • Li, P., & Lan, Y. (2021). Digital Language Learning (DLL): Insights from Behavior, Cognition, and the Brain. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1-18. doi:10.1017/S1366728921000353
  • Shadiev, R., & Yang, M. (2020). Review of studies on technology-enhanced language learning and teaching. Sustainability, 12(2), 524.
  • Sidorova, I. (2019). Learning Via Visualization at the Present Stage of Teaching a Foreign Language. Astra Salvensis, 6 (1), 601-607.
  • Vulchanova, M., Baggio, G., Cangelosi, A., & Smith, L. (2017). Editorial: Language development in the digital age. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11, Article 447. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00447
  • Warschauer, M. (2004). Technological change and the future of CALL. In Fotos, S & Brown, C (eds.), New perspectives on CALL for second language classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 15–25.
  • Zou, D., & Xie, H. (2018). Personalized word-learning based on technique feature analysis and learning analytics. Educational Technology & Society ,21 (2), 233–244.

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5 Ways to Prepare Students For Exams

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati 

Accompanying podcast episode (audio version of this blog post, read by Richard):

Examinations really are the most visible culmination of what we do as teachers. They offer a no-nonsense assessment of student competency in particular subject areas and their results are still to this day considered to be the ‘gold standard’ of many schools: forming the basis of rankings’ systems, such as league tables, in many countries.

Whether we like it or not, the reality is that grades matter. They matter to parents; to the students taking the exams; to universities; to colleges; to employers and, unfortunately, to the teachers who are supporting the students (who may themselves be under pressure to raise attainment and get ‘good grades’).

I could have chosen to write about the great debate surrounding the real importance of grades, and the gracefully-aged topic of ‘skills vs knowledge’. That may be a good topic for another blog post, but today I’m going to get right down to the cold, hard-truth of what you really need to know: how to best prepare your students for their exams. So strap on your seatbelt: this is going to be a exhilarating ride!

Tip #1: Do past-papers under timed conditions

This is tip number one because, quite simply, it is the very best way to prepare your students for upcoming exams. Of course, you will have to have at least covered the content in-class before giving past-paper questions, but make sure that at some point your students do those questions!

Past-paper questions really give students the crucial experience of dealing with examination language and style – an experience that they can’t really get from any other source. You may wish to give past-paper questions covering a single topic for homework, or make your end-of-topic tests out of past-paper questions (highly recommended).

Available on Amazon now!

One technique I have started using with my IGCSE Physics students is the 20-10-20 technique: the students do 20 minutes of questions (which equates to 20 marks, in my case), followed by 10 minutes of peer-assessment using the official mark schemes. After this, I do a 20 minute review of the questions, going through each part in-detail.

This technique works for me because my lessons are all 1 hour long, so I can fit a 20-10-20 session into selected slots each week. For you, you may have to adapt this strategy to fit the timeframe of your lessons.

It is crucial that, at some stage, your students start doing past-paper questions under the same time-conditions of the exam. This will train them to write quickly and concisely – a massive key skill, as many good students lose marks simply because they run out of time in the real exam.

Tip #2: Use exam-prep software and websites

We really have to take advantage of all of the EdTech tools out there: many of which are available for free! Here are some great generic websites that I recommend (these can be used for any subject area, and all are free to use too):

  • Quizziz: Try the ‘live quiz’ and watch your students jump with joy as they compete with each other to answer examination questions. Quizziz contains many pre-prepared quizzes so you may find that you don’t even need to create one from scratch.
  • Quizlet: This is really awesome for reinforcing key words and definitions, and has a number of integrated games within the system that students can play (Hint: Try the ‘Match’ and ‘Gravity’ games – they’re awesome!). Don’t forget to try out Quizlet Live, which can be done in teams or as individuals – again, just like Quizziz, students compete with each other for points by answering questions.
  • Kahoot!: This is a great multiple choice quiz-based system: another spin on the Quizlet and Quizziz concept, basically. Again, students can compete as individuals or as teams.
  • BBC Bitesize: An old classic for a good reason – it’s awesome! The site contains some of the best revision notes on the web, and topics often have a multiple choice test at the end which is usually out of 10 (allowing for a quick percentage calculation). BBC Bitesize notes now have questions integrated into the notes themselves, making the website more interactive today than ever before.
  • Seneca Learning: I love this website! It’s like BBC Bitesize but more interactive, in my opinion. Students log in to the site (it’s free, but sign up is needed) and go to the course they are currently studying (e.g. GCSE German). Notes will then be displayed on-screen with questions throughout to test knowledge and understanding. One reason I love Seneca is that notes are divided by syllabus section and Seneca’s database keeps getting bigger each year (they now have some IB Diploma courses on there, for example).

Tip #3: Project work

Give your students revision projects to do: such as creating a Google Slides that covers a particular topic, and then presenting that to the class. Just make sure that when you do this you specify a strict time-frame and assign roles: does each member of the group know what their job is?

I recently did such a project with my Year 11 Physics students. They had to create an audio clip, Google Slides, worksheet and model answers covering the Magnetism and Electromagnetism topic in the syllabus. Every person had a distinct role (e.g. one person made the audio clip, one person did the worksheet, etc.) and this was a great skill-building task, as well as a great revision activity.

Tip 4: Offer designated revision time with suggested techniques

If you have time, then you may wish to use the lessons on the run-up to tests and assessments as ‘revision lessons’. This can be time in which students make flash cards, create Mind Map summaries, record audio notes, quiz each other or perhaps work through a Seneca section (see earlier notes). You might want to give your students some training in effective revision techniques prior to the session, and supplying materials (e.g. for making flash cards) is a good idea too.

Tip #5: Do a practice exam before the real thing

This is an awesome idea which I don’t think is used enough for low-stakes assessments. Even with younger learners who have an end-of-topic test coming up, a practice test can be a great way to offer a stark ‘wake-up’ call: shedding light on areas of strength and weakness, as well as providing the students with essential ‘exam technique’ experience. Students should be relaxed during this process and should know that this is not the final test, but is still important as it will inform them of what to focus on in their revision. For students who don’t finish on-time, it will offer a good opportunity to discuss strategies to speed-up, such as avoidance of ‘waffling’ and the importance of reading each question thoroughly (so that they don’t ‘go off at a tangent’ in their answers).

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Hybrid Teaching Apps, Ideas and Strategies

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati 

Many schools are now facing an unprecedented challenge as the world learns to ‘live with‘ COVID-19: the need to teach students who are in-school physically and online at the same time. This is called ‘hybrid’ teaching.

I was surprised to discover during my research for this blog post that hybrid teaching has been around for quite some time – decades before the novel coronavirus even surfaced, in fact. In addition, the practice was initiated in a sector outside of education – business. As far back as 1993, astonishingly, companies around the world were holding seminars, workshops, meetings and training for employees who were both on-site and online at the same time.

In today’s blog post I’ll be drawing upon some of the hard-earned expertise that has come from the business sector when discussing some practical strategies for making hybrid teaching clear and effective. In addition, I’ll be describing a number of apps that I am currently using to great effect to keep my online and on-site students focused and stimulated. And the best part – all of the apps I will describe can be used at high functionality for free!

Hybrid teaching apps

  • Nearpod: This is one of my all-time favourite hybrid teaching apps. Nearpod is basically a very interactive slideshow application in which the teacher can add various activities, such as drawing tasks, multiple choice questions, fill-in the blanks questions, picture/word matching, a noticeboard and so much more. Moreover, it takes a matter of minutes to upload a slideshow to Nearpod (multiple file formats are accepted) and add the various activities. Once your lesson is ready, students simply go to join.nearpod.com and type in a code that you have shared with them. As a bonus – when the teacher moves from one slide to another, all of the students’ devices will show the slide transition too! It really is an awesome app, and one of the most popular among teachers who I deliver workshops to. Check it out!
  • Classkick: One of the most irritating things I find with using Google Docs/Slides with students is that the teacher cannot see all of the students’ work in real-time, in one place – you have to go into each student’s work separately to see what progress is being made. Well, some good news – Classkick solves this problem. Students log in to a classroom with a simple code and within seconds they are given a blank sheet in which they can add pictures, text, drawings and even voice clips! Additionally, as a teacher, you can see every piece of work in one place, in real-time, and can therefore easily see which students are not doing the work, or are working too slowly. It’s a great app for any kind of creative project that you would like your students to do, such as infographic creation, cartoon storyboarding, revision summaries or anything else that comes to mind.
  • Whiteboard.fi: Another legendary app that’s very simple to explain – it’s a virtual mini-whiteboarding app in which the teacher can see all of the students’ mini whiteboards in one place. It’s super cool, and again – students are able to log in within seconds by typing in a simple code.
  • Kami: This app turns static documents (e.g. pdfs) into interactive documents. Again, this app is super simple to use – the teacher uploads a static document, such as a revision booklet, and students can log in with a simple code and write all over the document. One amazing feature of Kami is its text-to-speech function – students can highlight any words within the document you’ve uploaded and the app will turn those words into an audible computer-generated voice. This is great for students who are learning how to verbalise key vocabulary.
  • Padlet: This is a very well-known and respected app for a reason – it’s simple to use and very customizable. Padlet is basically a noticeboard in which students can quickly log in (again, with a simple code) and post answers to a question, a summary of what they’ve learned that lesson, or anything the teacher chooses. Students can even post comments on each other’s posts (if that functionality is activated by the teacher). Filters for profanity can be activated and teacher-approval can be set up so that all posts can be checked before publishing. Check out the little-known ‘Shelf’ function on Padlet – this allows the teacher to post a sequence of questions or activities that students can complete at their own pace during a lesson. Here’s a screenshot of a very recent Padlet I created for my Year 11 Physics’ class – in this case I asked students to post a summary of what they had learned that lesson:
A recent Padlet I used with my Year 11 Physics class

Practical hybrid learning tips (from the corporate sector)

This great, free pdf book outlines some logistical enhancements that can be made to hybrid learning classrooms:

  • Remove background noise: Be aware that if your system isn’t on mute then eveyone can hear you rustling through papers, typing on your keyboard, drinking/slurping coffee, coughing, tapping on your desk and a variety of other noises. Some video-conferencing apps do have noise-reduction features built-in, so definitely activate those features if available.
  • Prepare: Do a test-run before the lesson begins. Make sure you know how to use the technology/apps you want to implement. Do you have a back-up plan in case something doesn’t work?
  • Consider lighting: Avoid bright background light (which can make you look like a silhouette on-screen). Test the camera to make sure that your students can clearly see your face.
  • Default to mute: Keep your microphone on mute, and unmute just before speaking, to avoid unwanted audio feedback.
  • Think about your location: Your desk space, background and location may be on display when you are video-conferencing, A messy space can reflect badly on you, so consider using a custom background image or moving the camera to a more favorable location.
  • Adjust your position accordingly: Make sure your head isn’t ‘cut off’ in the camera frame – position the equipment so that your face, neck and shoulders appear in the middle of the frame (if at all possible).

Your questions answered

Question about Nearpod from Mirian (via Facebook):

Sorry to ask but Nearpod seems to be really useful. Is it an app I have to download or a webpage? Because I logged in but then I couldn’t create my lessons or it didn’t generate a code for my students. Probably I didn’t do things properly 

Answer:

It’s a website. You’ll need to create an account, upload a slide presentation (as a pdf – just click ‘save as’ on your ppt and convert to a pdf.). Once your slide show is uploaded and saved (Nearpod will ask you to choose the subject and age level), you then need to click on ‘Live Lesson’. This will generate a code. Share the code with your students and you are good to go.

I have made a video describing how to create an awesome, free Nearpod lesson here:

We welcome you to join the Richard Rogers online community. Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter for daily updates.

5 Ways to Use The School Library With Your Students

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati 

Accompanying podcast episode (audio version of this blog post, read by Richard):

One often overlooked part of the school is the library – a place where so much deep learning, joy and enrichment can take place when visits are planned properly.

I, like so many of us born before the widespread introduction of the internet, can personally recall experiences of going to local libraries, or school libraries, to do the necessary studying and research needed to succeed in our exams. Back then, we kind of had to find the information we needed in books – we didn’t have many alternatives, unlike today’s digital natives.

My local library in Flint, North Wales, was (thankfully) well stocked with great books. My Easter strategy in 1999, when revising for my GCSE exams, was simple: Spend every day at the library using every textbook I could find to revise every topic I could.

Flint Library: The place where I made my dreams come true

In today’s connected world, libraries can still fulfill a number of important purposes and there are still many, many ways in which teachers can utilise library space and time with their students.

Tip #1: Individual or group reading time

This might sound like a old-fashioned activity, but it’s actually never been more important to be mindful of students’ screen time:

  • A Dutch study involving 10,000 participants in Rotterdam concluded that smartphones are causing nearsightedness in children. This has also been backed up by studies and observations in Canada, America and Ireland.
  • The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health caused shockwaves in 2016 with the conclusion of its study: that smartphone and tablet use correlates strongly with obesity in teens. Similar findings have come from a number of respectable sources, including a massive, global joint study between Stanford University and the American National Institutes of Health which was concluded in 2015.
  • Sleep-deprivation is a common side-effect of smartphone and tablet addiction. Research from the Division of Cardiology at the University of California (San Francisco), for example, has found that the use of mobile devices near bedtime is connected with low-quality sleep. 

Of course, it’s unrealistic to think that some time spent in the library each week doing some reading (of physical books) will solve these problems. However, if reading time is planned properly, then students can develop a love and passion for reading as time goes by – and this is important because reading physical books is associated with many, many benefits:

  • A 2010 study by the University of Liverpool found that reading can alleviate the symptoms of depression and improve overall wellbeing.
  • A 2015 research summary by Professor Alice Sullivan presented strong evidence to suggest that “encouraging a love of reading has an important role to play in promoting learning both in childhood and in adult life.”
  • A fact that teachers have known for a long time: that extensive reading improves language acquisition and confidence in the use of technical/key terminology. This is supported by lots of research, including this excellent and thorough 1997 paper by Paul Nation of the Victoria University of Wellington.

Tip #2: Collaborate and create!

Set up times, or clubs, in the library, where students can read to each other and perhaps generate some kind of creative output – perhaps building a model of what they’ve read (e.g. for Design Technology), calculating and mapping the frequency of different words (Mathematics) or even creating the costumes the characters might be wearing (Textiles). When reading becomes an active process, students realize that there’s actually a lot of ‘juice’ one can squeeze from a book, or even a short segment of text.

“An AMAZING book!”

The possibilities for collaboration in reading, coupled with creative outputs, really are limited only by one’s imagination. In fact, you may wish to ‘crowdsource’ ideas from the children themselves, perhaps by using a worksheet/prompt like the one below:

If you like the above tool, then you can download it as a pdf here.

#3: Use the library as a base to host reading and reading-related competitions and events

Some ideas to consider are:

  • Celebrate World Book Day by allowing students to come into school dressed as their favourite book characters. Perhaps offer special prizes for the best costumes, or even run a fashion show on the day. Award plus points/merits/whatever your school’s ‘reward tokens’ are for students who bring in their favourite books on the day.
  • Invite a local author to come into school to talk about their work. As an author myself, I know for a fact that the author will love the opportunity to gain some exposure, and if you ask politely you may even get some free, signed books for school out of it.
  • Run book clubs or events by genre – specialization can generate more interest in reading. Have a day for self-help books, one for non-fiction, one for animals – anything that the students are interested in.
  • Take the students to a reading-related place, such as a local library or actual location from a book. Students will often be unaware that these places exist in the first place, and their discovery may set in-motion some profound changes that result in a love of reading. My primary school took me to my local library as child, for example, and that place became my study-hangout in my teens. I just loved being surrounded by all of those books. It’s a feeling that’s very unique.

#4: Do a library scavenger hunt

Do you know what a library scavenger hunt is? If you do, then great! To my shame and embarrassment, however, I only recently learned what such an activity involves.

The idea is pretty simple: Draw up a list of different types of book for your students to find – for example, information books, picture books, books authors with the same initials as them, books that cover certain topics – and award points for each one they track down.

You can also create a scavenger hunt for really young children who can’t yet read by giving them pictures of things to find: like a book, a desktop computer, a magazine, a bean bag, and so on.

#5: Do a book-related quiz

This is a simple, yet effective, idea. Divide your students into groups and provide them with the textbooks needed to answer questions in a quiz/worksheet you give to them. Different groups could cover different topics, and report back to each other (e.g. as in a market-place activity), or all groups could cover the same topic but with different books as resource material. This will teach students how to look up information in books, whilst providing a fun, competitive environment at the same time. The fastest team to complete the worksheet could win the competition, or perhaps points could be assigned to each question.

Further reading (no pun intended):

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6 Reasons Why Education is Important

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

richardjamesrogers.com is the official blog of Richard James Rogers: high school Science teacher and the award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know. This blog post is illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

We all understand the importance of developing ourselves professionally – whether that be by improving a particular set of teaching skills or by learning new ones. Sometimes, however, it’s important to go right back to the core fundamentals by considering why we do what we do in the first place. This week, I’ve invited Kat Sarmiento (content writer at Katreena’s Content Studio) to share her thoughts on why education is important in the first place.

Why is education important? To many of us, we learn the value of education from what the adults say. As children, not everyone understands why do we study, go to school, spend our free time with homework and learn. As we grow older, it becomes more and more necessary to receive the right level of education.

Learning is among the best habits of successful people. It creates future leaders, builds a polite society, and moves forward the future of humanity. If you or someone you know is questioning why they need to study, show this to them. Here are 6 reasons why education is important not only to you but for everyone.

#1: Education Teaches Independence

Education is not about learning random facts that you can’t use in real life. Whether you’re slaking your thirst for knowledge or you’re doing it for something more practical, education makes you independent. Early education molds you as a crucial, functioning member of society, no matter your age.

For younger children, education is there to teach them the basic skills necessary to survive society. For adolescents, proper education arms them with tools that can help them take advantage of opportunities. Higher learning like uni and post-grad demystifies the world further.

All these teach independence – from how the mechanics of how the body works to knowing what to do in a job. Independence is a matter of learning how to succeed after failure, how to protect yourself from opportunists, and how to deal with life in general. Life can be hard but education equips you with the right ways to make the most out of it.

#2: Education Provides More Employment Opportunities

With 7 billion people on Earth and around 330 million in the United States, finding a job is not easy. If you want a job that pays above the minimum wage, you usually need to have at least higher learning, if not more. Even at entry-level, you need to compete with hundreds of applicants vying for the same position.

Learning higher education, with the right teaching techniques, can give you the edge you need. You can differentiate yourself and fulfill a job demand within society. The world can never have too many data scientists, engineers, scientists, and more.

As you go and specialize even further, you expand your job opportunities and find more specific job opportunities. Depending on what you do, not only can you improve your chances of getting hired, you also stand out even further. Educate yourself, graduate, improve your skills, and get more qualifications to get ahead of the competition.

#3: Education Helps Us Connect

In many situations, those who don’t educate themselves are the ones who don’t understand other people. Education helps breed culture, and the lack of the former can result in an apparent lack of the latter. Education helps you understand people better, especially those who are different than you.

Education teaches you more about geography, history, and social sciences, which are crucial to know how to deal with multiple walks of life. Prejudices and discrimination according to race, gender orientation, physical ability, and more come from the lack of knowledge over many things that you learn at school.

The more we understand about the world and the people who are different than use, the better we can put ourselves in their shoes. It allows us to appreciate the good things about other cultures and help curb negative stereotypes that divide us as humans. We also learn more about our surroundings.

Education helps us empathize. It gives us a better understanding of the world and become better citizens of this world. It familiarizes things we don’t know and takes away potential prejudices we have towards them.

#4: Education Alleviates Poverty

Poverty is one of the most crippling social statuses in the world. It is painful for those stuck in it, as the lack of resources means a lack of nutrition and other essential needs too. To many, education is a luxury taken for granted but for many around the world, it is their ticket out of poverty.

As we said, proper education teaches you crucial life skills in a society that needs them. At the very least, reading, writing, and arithmetic teaches children to know how to deal with people. Each additional year of education can offer better education, better-paying jobs, and more ways to feed their families.

“An AMAZING Book!”

As we educate people, we also teach the future generation to be more discerning about their would-be leaders. People learn critical thinking skills necessary to help them make better decisions. This education, paired with the will to progress, can help people find better-paying jobs that can alleviate poverty.

#5: Education Breeds Confidence

One of the keys to getting further in life is being confident in everything that you do. Knowing your skills, what you bring to the table, what you can do, and what you can further learn can help you gain the confidence to succeed. Whether you have an art degree or a business background, education makes you confident with what you know.

To succeed, you need the confidence to look your uncertainties straight in the eye. It helps you overcome your fears, self-doubt, and crippling anxiety. Confidence also gives you the drive to start projects, show off their new ideas, and think outside the box.

Education can help breed confidence. As you learn more, the better you can express your thoughts and unveil your intellect. You can say yes to opportunities you believe you deserve and no to things that you don’t. Education breeds confidence, and the more you know, the fewer people can take advantage of you.

#6: Education Brings Equity

Education is one of the ultimate equalizers of the world. If you’re looking to simply be educated, it makes all opportunities more open to you, giving you a fair chance. If you’re looking to educate, you give other people a better chance to make the most out of their talents.

A world of knowledge is a world of equity. Everyone learns at different speeds – at various rates. Every person has a different starting point. Education can help get you and everyone else to the same finish line – success.

The Bottom Line

Whether it’s for yourself, your family, or other people, education is one of the most powerful weapons you can wield. The world is yours to take and you can uplift yourself and the people around you with the right education. You don’t have to be the next billionaire to see how valuable education can be.

Are you ready to learn? Educate yourself. Knowledge is the best foundation you can use to succeed in life. Even without selfless reasons, proper education can help all of us live in a better, more polite society.

Kat Sarmiento

Kat is a Molecular Biology Scientist turned Growth Marketing Scientist. During her free time, she loves to write articles that will bring delight, empower women, and spark the business mind. She loves to bake but unfortunately, baking doesn’t love her back. She has many things in her arsenal and writing is one of her passion projects.

7 Effective Ways to Cultivate Student Resilience in the Classroom

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

richardjamesrogers.com is the official blog of Richard James Rogers: high school Science teacher and award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management. This blog post is illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Resilience is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened”. Resilience is an important life-skill for children to acquire whilst at school. Reach Out Australia, for example, states that “When students feel like the outcome won’t affect them negatively, they are more likely to try new and more challenging things in the classroom. Being able to learn from mistakes and challenges in a place where they feel supported and encouraged will build their confidence, self-belief and resilience.“ Today, I’ve invited Jessica Robinson, educational writer at The Speaking Polymath, to write this excellent blog post describing seven ways to cultivate student resilience in the classroom. Enjoy!

“When we learn how to become resilient, we learn how to embrace the beautifully broad spectrum of the human experience.”

Jaeda Dewalt

Life is a beautiful adventure that has its ups and downs. Unexpected things happen in this world and within moments your life turns upside down. Take the example of the pandemic: one day, suddenly, we got to know about a virus that had infected masses of people in China and within days the virus spread to multiple countries of the world. It caused wide-scale casualties, governments imposed lockdowns and the sad ‘new normal’ began.

Sudden events that happen in life can make you realize how important it is to be resilient. If we are resilient, we can withstand the storms that come our way and emerge victorious. During our days in quarantine, as I spent this trying time with my kids who were feeling anxious, I realized that the pandemic is a big challenge, especially for children. They are facing such difficulties at a very young age in their lives. This experience motivated me to start cultivating resilience in my kids. Every day, I make them engage in different activities that can empower their resilience. Watching them become emotionally and mentally stronger has motivated me to also work on cultivating student resilience in the classroom.

Here, I am going to share some effective strategies that have helped me turn my kids into more resilient beings. I have started using these strategies with my students too and I hope that you’ll also use them to help your students cultivate strong resilience.

#1: Make children engage in activities that challenge them physically

This is one of the best ways that have helped me cultivate resilience in my kids. Anything that challenges them physically, helps them gain confidence in themselves, their abilities, and their body. This self-confidence gives them the strength to bear difficulties in life with courage. So, you should try to make your students engage in activities that challenge them physically. You can make them play new games that require more physical as well as mental efforts and help them develop confidence in their physical and mental capabilities. As far as I am concerned, I make my students participate in different kinds of races to challenge their physical capabilities and scavenger hunts with challenging quizzes to help them develop confidence in their mental capabilities. Moreover, I also tell them to not compete with each other but strive to become a better version of themselves. Believe me, this tactic really works.

#2: Help them inculcate confident and influential body language

Do you know that your body language and your feelings are interconnected? Yes, this is true. That is why, whenever you are sad, you sit or stand with a hunched back, look down and your smile fades away. This is an example of how your emotions impact your body language. In the same way, your body language also impacts your emotions. You can use this connection between emotions and body language to help your students become more resilient. You can help them learn body language techniques to regulate their emotions. For example, power posing in a confident way can help your students face challenges with courage. To know more about power posing and the benefits of influential body language, you can watch the Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy. Further, you can also read different books and watch videos on Body Language to help your students inculcate confident and influential body language.

#3: Make them engage in creative pursuits

According to one study published by Colin G. Deyoung and Paul J. Silvia in the Journal of Positive Psychology, creativity encourages positive emotions that can unlock our inner resources for dealing with stress and uncertainty. This implies that we can help kids develop a strong resilience in an interesting way by making them engage in creative pursuits. If a child loves painting, you can let him express his creative self through painting for some time every day. If a child loves dancing, you can let him express his creative endeavors through dancing. By engaging in their favorite creative pursuits, your students will develop strong resilience over time. Along with this, they’ll also become happier and calmer versions of themselves which will ultimately help them become more resilient in life.

#4: Create a gratitude ritual and practice it together

‘Gratitude’, we have heard this word a lot and we have also received the advice to express gratitude from many influential people. But, we often feel that expressing gratitude cannot do us enough good as it is a very simple practice. We think that we need to look for something better and so on. But, believe me, we have been wrong whenever we have thought this way. I have seen tremendous positive changes in myself and my kids by following a gratitude ritual for the past two months regularly. We are happier, more optimistic, and therefore, more resilient too. Moreover, research also shows that gratitude can help us rewire our brains towards positivity. So, you should try to create a gratitude ritual and practice it with your students. A simple gratitude ritual is to write down three things that you are grateful for every day. You can try this one or create your own gratitude ritual.

#5: Help them build meaningful social connections

The American Psychological Association wrote in its resilience report, “Many studies show that the primary factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family.” When you have supportive relationships in your life, you feel safe and protected. You know that there are always people you can count on whenever you get faced with any problems in life. This knowingness gives you the strength to withstand the challenges that come in your life. This implies that we can help our students build strong resilience by encouraging them to cultivate meaningful social relationships with others. We can help our students build strong friendships with each other and cultivate good relationships with us as well as other people from the school staff. This way, we can teach our students to form meaningful connections with people and boost their resilience.

#6: Make them engage in healthy risk-taking

The development of self-confidence is crucial for us to cultivate strong resilience. You can help your students become self-confident by making them engage in healthy risk-taking. For example, if your students are afraid of dogs, you can bring a little puppy and encourage them to play with it. No doubt, they’ll feel a little afraid in the beginning but then, after playing safely with the puppy, their confidence level in their abilities to take risks will increase. As a result, they’ll cultivate a strong resilience over time.

#7: Teach them some coping mechanisms to calm themselves under overwhelming situations

If you have the ability to help yourself calm down even under challenging times, you naturally have strong resilience. You feel confident about yourself and know that you can handle yourself even in difficult situations. So, you can help your students develop a strong resilience by teaching them some coping mechanisms to calm themselves under overwhelming situations. Belly breathing, focusing on the sounds that are happening around us, and feeling deeply are some simple coping mechanisms that help us calm our nervous system under challenging situations. Furthermore, you can watch YouTube videos to learn about belly breathing and then you can teach this calming technique to your students.

The pandemic has taught us that we should help children develop a strong resilience right from their childhood. It is only in the presence of a strong resilience that they can face any challenges that life throws at them and emerge victoriously. Furthermore, as teachers, we can help our students cultivate a strong resilience through the different ways mentioned above. Now, I wish you all the best, and may your efforts to help your students develop a strong resilience bear fruits.

An ardent writer, Jessica Robinson, works for ‘The Speaking Polymath’. She uses this platform to weave her magical words into powerful strands of content and share with her readers.

We welcome you to join the Richard James Rogers online community! Join us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates, giveaways of Richard’s books, special offers, upcoming events and news. 

5 Smart Benefits of Using The Pomodoro Technique in Teaching

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

richardjamesrogers.com is the official blog of Richard James Rogers: high school Science teacher and award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management. This blog post is illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Have you heard of the Pomodoro Technique, and how it can be applied to your lessons? I hadn’t – that is until I invited Jessica Robinson, educational writer at The Speaking Polymath, to write this excellent blog post for us today. Enjoy, because you’re in for a treat!

I am of the strong belief that time management is complementary to classroom management. Having said that, teachers have to be on the top of their time management game at all times. I am of the opinion that how we, teachers, manage classroom time directly correlates with our students’ success. This is why a lot of educators are interested in exploring various time management tips for teachers. Besides, education is evolving at a swift pace in this digital age. This paradigm shift calls for greater innovation and outside-the-box thinking on the part of teachers.

In the ultimate sense, the success of every time management strategy depends on how well a teacher executes it. I have seen some of the simplest techniques producing great outcomes because of meticulous execution. On the other hand, I have seen some of the most popular classroom management tactics failing in the absence of planning and implementation. However, the bottom line is that we need to keep discovering new ideas for classroom management. Also, these ideas have to be relevant to the new dynamics of education and remote learning.

One excellent classroom management strategy I have discovered is the Pomodoro Technique. The Pomodoro Technique is basically a time management technique. But like I mentioned above, smart time management facilitates intelligible classroom management. The application of this strategy in teaching is still unexplored to a great extent. It is rather a strategy that finds greater application in the corporate world. That does not mean we cannot use it in teaching!

I have been using this technique in teaching for more than a year now. What is noteworthy is that it has always inspired great outcomes. This is an innovative approach in teaching that I would recommend to all teachers. Do you struggle to manage your time and drive positive changes in the classroom? If you do, this outside-the-box technique can be the perfect solution. There are multifaceted benefits of using the Pomodoro Technique for teachers as well as students. Before I shed light on that, it is vital that we understand what Pomodoro Technique is and how it works.

What is the Pomodoro Technique of time management?

Let me make it clear that the Pomodoro Technique is not an innovation of the contemporary world. In fact, this methodology of time management was discovered in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo. The crux of this methodology lies in breaking down work or tasks into short bursts of 25 minutes each. These spans of 25 minutes are separated by short breaks of 5 minutes. To use it to the best effect, a timer is used to keep track of time. Are you thinking about how this technique is beneficial for teachers? Let us find out how it can be a breakthrough addition to your teaching and classroom management strategies.

Advantages of using the Pomodoro Technique in teaching

#1: It can facilitate short-term goals in the classroom

As I see it, the short goals of classroom management are of utmost importance. The Pomodoro Technique gives you the perfect opportunity to set short-term goals in the classroom. In fact, you can set one goal each for every Pomodoro session. In this way, one classroom session can be divided into multiple short-term goals. 

These goals can relate to classroom management or academic objectives for students. In this way, the culmination of short-term goals can lead to the efficient accomplishment of larger objectives of classroom management. It can make learning more wholesome for students. Furthermore, it can help you in drawing more productivity in your teaching. I personally feel that this technique incredibly adds to my work efficiency. I am sure it will work wonders for you as well. Worth a try for sure!

#2: It promotes better student engagement

It is critical for teachers to evolve student engagement and active learning strategies in a continuous manner. Teachers need to look for creative ideas to keep students engaged, be it in remote learning or a traditional classroom. Having said that, I think the Pomodoro Technique is quite a creative way of driving high student engagement.

The first reason why it is a great way to engage students is that it does not make students feel worn out. They know they will get a short break after a twenty-five-minute span. Hence, they can dedicate complete diligence and motivation to their learning in those twenty-five minutes. It helps them sustain their learning motivation more effectively. Moreover, in those short breaks between consecutive Pomodoro sessions, you can initiate interactive classroom discussions. These discussions can be about anything and everything in the world. In fact, these discussions can be a great opportunity for students to express themselves and rejuvenate their minds. Also, these breaks can be utilized for feedback sharing and clearing doubts to further add to student engagement.

#3: It paves the way for better stress management

Teaching is a stressful and draining job which is the reason why this profession has high turnover. As much as we love to teach students, be a part of their journeys, and lead them to success, stress keeps pulling us down. In my experience, teachers are as successful as their stress management skills. For me, it is a prerequisite for all teachers. When teachers are not able to manage their stress, they face burnout situations. More than the impacts on their careers, it affects students’ learning as teachers begin to disengage.

The best thing about the Pomodoro Technique is that it has a great scope for teachers’ stress management as well. In the short breaks between two Pomodoro sessions, teachers can relax and feel at ease. Short sessions of twenty-five minutes with a five-minute break after each session is a fair deal, isn’t it? Of course, long teaching sessions and a typical workday can make us feel exhausted and stressed. But doing it the Pomodoro way is a great escape from stressful and burnout situations. It will give you enough breaks to remain sane and reboot before the next session. It will help you in keeping the classroom environment positive and help you manage workload better. Having said that, it can prove to be an amazing stress management tip for teachers. 

#4: It can be a perfect time management model for students

By using the Pomodoro Technique for classroom management, teachers can model a great time management strategy for students. The students can learn about the working of this technique and implement it in their homework sessions or while preparing for exams. In this way, students can meet their learning objectives better and make classroom management easier for teachers.

I have seen students take a lot of interest in this technique. They feel that it is a perfect way to support their learning objectives. Also, it can help them to keep mental or physical fatigue at bay. Effective time management and stress management are as vital for students as for teachers. So, when your students learn this effective technique from you, they can use it to their advantage. The Pomodoro Technique can be a great way for students to enhance their productivity, academic results, and time management skills.

#5: It assists in improvised classroom planning

With the Pomodoro Technique, you can plan your classroom sessions in a better way. You can break down the lesson plans into smaller sessions to inspire maximum concentration among students. I feel that this technique has empowered me to plan classroom sessions and activities in a much smarter way. I can break down a big lesson into smaller bursts using the Pomodoro Technique. This ensures that students learn in an effective and conducive way. Otherwise, long sessions may be exhausting for them with the little accomplishment of the learning objectives.

This is why I suggest that this is a great way to facilitate improvised classroom planning. Teachers can plan the curriculum in an organized manner. Also, by breaking down a classroom session into small spells, a teacher can plan for adding various learning dimensions. You can make every classroom session far more worthwhile with this excellent technique from the 1980s.

Can you think of any more ways in which the Pomodoro Technique can be added to teaching proficiency? Teaching is the right balance of effective time management and also patience. For me, the significance of patience in teaching is immense. In the new age of digital learning, you have to keep adding diverse teaching methodologies to your capabilities. But time management and patience will always be the foundation of excelling in teaching. Given that, the Pomodoro Technique can be a vital and valuable addition to your teaching style. With this technique, you can drive positive outcomes in your career as well as for your students.

An ardent writer, Jessica Robinson, works for ‘The Speaking Polymath’. She uses this platform to weave her magical words into powerful strands of content and share with her readers.

We welcome you to join the Richard James Rogers online community! Join us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates, giveaways of Richard’s books, special offers, upcoming events and news. 

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Using Technology in Your ESL Classroom

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

It’s a common known fact that the youth of today are naturally drawn to technology and we are far more likely to hold their attention by using it, rather than just traditional teaching methods. We can argue the point about the ill effects of too much ‘screen time’ until the cows come home – but perhaps a better saying would be ‘if you can’t beat them, join them!’. This week, I’ve invited Rose-Anne Turner at Destination TEFL to share her tips for using technology in the ESL classroom.

Not all teachers will be lucky enough to teach in schools that have access to technology, but if you do, use it! Perhaps only the teacher has access (TV, projector, interactive whiteboard) or perhaps the entire class has access (tablets, computers, phones). Either way, if you can, do try to incorporate technology into your lessons, as you will be connecting with your students on their level – and perhaps learn a thing or two yourself. Another good reason to add tech to your teaching skills is because at any moment, classes may need to go virtual due to the pandemic, and you’ll then be best prepared to present interactive and engaging lessons to your tech savvy students.

Here are some ideas on how to use technology in the ESL classroom:

  • If all your students have access to a device, we highly recommend using Google Classroom as a great way to hand information and assignments to your students and for them to hand back completed tasks. This is a FREE resource.
  • AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. Use it for real time audience participation, online brainstorming and classroom feedback. This free resource has several different users, including classroom, conference and corporate audiences, creative teams, online crowds, and mind-mappers.
  • Scribbl is an online version of Pictionary, which is a great way to get your students speaking as they guess what is being drawn online by a classmate.
  • Educaplay is a great free online platform for teachers to make quizzes, word searches, matching columns, crossword puzzles and more.
  • If only the teacher has access to a TV or projector, then using short and simple films, YouTube videos, etc. will engage your students and you could use this as listening and comprehension exercise. If you don’t have access to a TV, then an audio played from your phone with a blue tooth speaker would be a good compromise. Podcasts can work for this too. It’s good for students to hear other voices and accents, and not just that of their teacher.
  • Most students have access to a phone, and can download the free Memrise app. It offers several languages including of course, English, and students can go up in levels as they progress with their language skills, challenge each other and hear the language spoken by native speakers with different accents. There is a paid version, but the free version offers more than enough to get them going.
  • ePals is an online version of the old-school pen pals we had as kids. This is a great way for students to practice their English with another ESL student somewhere else in the world. Students can select an ePal of a similar age and level.
  • Use free blogging sites for your higher level students to practice their writing skills. Blog settings can be set to private where only those with a password can access it, for instance the teacher and their classmates. Classmates can utilise the comments section of the blog.
  • In the same way, the teacher could connect with another ESL class, perhaps in another country and have the students chat to other students over Skype, Zoom or other video chat platforms to practice their speaking skills.
  • Khan Academy is a fantastic free learning platform (financed by donations) with login options at both student and teacher level. Students can learn and progress and teachers can monitor their progress. If you are teaching more than just English, Khan Academy also covers many other subjects including mathematics, science, humanities, coding, SAT and other test preparation, and more. It’s very interactive, and has video tutorials, exercises and more.
  • Try using interactive games like Kahoot, where students use their phones to log in and answer questions under timed conditions. Questions appear on the classroom TV, or whiteboard and scores are then displayed on a screen. You’ll find hundreds of quizzes on the site, many aimed at ESL learners or you can even create your own.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated why online and virtual education should be an essential part of teaching and learning. By integrating technology into existing curricula, as opposed to using it solely as a crisis-management tool, teachers can embrace online learning as a powerful educational tool. Using technology and online learning platforms in the classroom can not only increase student engagement, but also help teachers improve their lesson plans, and facilitate personalised learning. At the same time, you are preparing your students for 21st-century skills in the workplace. If you are not actively using technology in your classroom, you are going to be left behind.

Do you have any classroom technology tips to share?

Guest blog written for Richard Rogers by Rose-Anne Turner – Destination TEFL

We welcome you to join the Richard James Rogers online community! Join us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates, giveaways of Richard’s books, special offers, upcoming events and news. 

10 Groupwork Activities That Can Be Applied to Any Subject Area

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

When students work together on a task/project that is well-planned and carefully executed, a number of incredible things happen:

It is very important to stress again, however, that group tasks must be very well-planned, otherwise they can “frustrate students and instructors and feel like a waste of time” [University of Waterloo].

So, the next question has to be ‘What types of group activities are most effective, and, ideally, won’t cost me too much planning time as a teacher?’. Well, I’ve got some good news for you – I’m going to pretty much answer that question in today’s blog post. As a high school Chemistry teacher, I’ve had the opportunity to try and test a large number of group-based activities over the past 16 years. What I present here will be my distillation of the top ten that work the best.

#1: Podcasting

Podcasts are all the rage at the moment, and have been for some time. In addition, forecasts by eMarketer, Grand View Research, and many others predict huge growth in this sphere for at least the next several years, and probably much longer.

In other words, the industry is literally booming, and getting our students involved in podcasting provides not only a creative output for their research projects, but also equips them with valuable key skills.

As a podcaster myself, I’m delighted to bring some excellent news to teachers and schools everywhere (garnered from lots of personal experience): podcasting is very easy, and virtually free to do.

Here are the steps that I personally suggest students should follow:

Step 1: Record the audio on any device available – a mobile phone, laptop computer, tablet, etc.

Step 2: Save the file somewhere. A .wav or .mp3 is perfect

Step 3: Download Audacity – it’s free sound engineering software that is just literally awesome (I use it myself for my podcast).

Step 4: Import and manipulate the sound file in Audacity (Hint: For podcasts, set Loudness Normalization to -18.0 LUFS, as this will make the voices of the students nice and clear – to do that, just select the audio, then go to Effect > Loudness Normalization, and keep the check mark the box that says ‘Treat mono as dual mono’).

Step 5: Export and save the file. I suggest exporting as an mp3, rather than a .wav, in order to compress the size of the file dramatically. Sound quality is not affected by this.

Once the sound file has been exported and saved locally, the students can then send that to the teacher in any way that seems appropriate – via e-mail, Google Classroom, uploading to YouTube (which requires another process that the students will have to learn), etc.

#2: Create a short lesson that contains some kind of practical element

Ironically, research shows that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach the topic that you have to learn. So, quite simply, ask your groups of students to prepare a lesson which they must teach to the whole class. To spice things up, the students could build a model, demonstrate an experiment, pass objects around the class or do anything that stimulates touch, smell, and, maybe, taste.

Allowing students to have some creative freedom over how they deliver the lesson should lead to some very interesting and entertaining moments.

#3: Cloud Computing

This is one area of education where Google really has the monopoly – and understandably so in my opinion. Their tools for students are second-to-none. Book the schools ICT lab, iPads/laptops or allow students to use their own devices in the following ways:

  • Google Slides: Imagine you’re in a group of 5 people, each working on the same slide presentation simultaneously on 5 different computers. You’re all editing the presentation in real time – that’s what Google Slides is, basically. It’s really powerful, and I’ve found that students never grow tired of working in groups to create beautiful presentations. Get your students to present the slides to the class when the project is done and you’ve ticked so many boxes – collaboration, using ICT to enhance learning, leadership skills, courage, and on and on we could go. Just make sure you’re walking around the classroom to check on the students as they are doing the work, and ask the group leader to ‘share’ the work with you (this involves clicking a button, and selecting the teacher’s school Gmail address to share it to).
  • Google Docs: This is similar to Google Slides, albeit with a slight difference: the students collaborate on a word-processed document in real time, rather than a slides presentation. It’s great for producing leaflets, infographics, reports, booklets, summaries and traditional ‘assignments’.
  • Google Sheets: As the name suggests, this is a spreadsheet application that the students can collaborate on in real-time, in groups. As a science teacher I find that this is perfect for data collection and processing as it can be used to generate graphs and charts. It’s also good for keeping lists (e.g. lists of revision websites).

  • Google Forms: Great for surveys and peer-assessment tasks. Students can create forms for other students to fill in, share these forms with their peers, receive responses and the software will even generate pie charts of the responses for quick analysis. It’s a fun way to use ICT to enhance learning, and a quick way to gather interesting data.
  • New Google Sites: This is Google’s amazing website creation software. In a matter of a few clicks, students can create their own websites that are securely linked to the school’s G Suite server. I’ve just recently used Google Sites with my Year 7 students to create ePortfolios. These ePortfolios act as online records/journals where the students can record their reflections on their work, school achievements, extra-curricular activities and photographs of schoolwork they are really proud of. At many schools, these ePortfolios act as an ‘entire’ record, with students adding work to them throughout their time at school. It’s something meaningful that the students can take pride in, and spend significant time developing.

I’ve written a separate blog post about using Google Apps in teaching which you can find here.

#4: Create a Quiz

Quizzes can be a really fun way to test student knowledge, and when done via a group-creation project they can be much less stressful for students than traditional testing. Furthermore, there are a number of great, free multiple choice and graphic quiz creation tools available on the web:

  • Kahoot!: Students can create an account (Attention: Make sure the students use their school e-mail address for safety) and then create a great multiple choice quiz. Always specify the number of questions you’d like the students to create. When ready, the group can present the Kahoot! to the class, and the students watching/playing will use their mobile devices as multiple choice ‘clickers’. The software comes with music (so use your classroom sound system, if you have one) and shows a running student ranking after each question. It’s great fun, and I’ve never known a student to dislike using Kahoot!.
  • Quizlet: This comes in the form of virtual flashcards that the students create (e.g. key word on one side, definition on the other), but the fun starts with Quizlet Live. Basically, when the group has finished making their Quizlet, they activate Quizlet Live which automatically puts all the students into new groups to compete with each other. Again, music and a main screen showing the real-time progress of each team make for a very lively, active classroom experience.
Quizlet Live teacher screen (showing real-time group progress) and student screens [Courtesy of teachwithtech.com]

  • Wordwall: This app allows students to be more spatial in their quiz creations – offering word-matching, category brainstorms, rank orders and many more activities. You can read more about the wide-range of tasks that students can create with Wordwall here.

Can you think of any others? Please do feel free to comment in the comment box below this blog post.

#5: Marketplace activity

In a marketplace activity, the following steps are followed:

  • Step 1: Students are placed into small groups and given material to learn. They could spend perhaps ten minutes learning about one aspect of the topic you’re teaching (each group can learn a different aspect/sub-topic, or each group can learn the same sub-topic).
  • Step 2: One person from each group goes to another group to teach them what they have learned.
  • Step 3: This ‘designated teacher’ also gets taught by the group.
  • Step 4: The assigned person goes back to their original group and teaches them what they have learned

I have drawn a diagram of the process below (if my handwriting is too small to see on your screen, then please feel free to download the image and zoom in):

You can read more about marketplace activities here.

#6: Model building

Get your students to build things. Materials like plastic bottles, bottlecaps, cardboard, coloured paper, plasticine/modelling clay, straws, shoeboxes and old rope can all be used creatively by students to make models of the concepts they are studying. I’ve used this technique across my teaching in Science to get students to create everything from atomic models to makeshift ‘eco gardens’. Here’s a model atom that one of my IGCSE Chemistry students made out of rudimentary materials a few years ago:

#7: Making videos and stop motion animations

Movies and stop-motion animations are fun projects which can really encourage students to approach a problem from creative perspective. The result? – Memory of the concept is greatly enhanced when compared with traditional teaching methods.

Stop-motion animations do take a long time, and are more suited to processes and systems (e.g. DNA replication, corrie formation, steps in differential calculus, etc.), whereas movies have a wider-range of applications.

You can find out more about how to make a stop-motion animation at this great ACMI webpage here. The students will need everyday objects and inexpensive materials (e.g. modeling clay, coloured paper, straws, etc.) and someone in the group will need to ‘film’ the project. Due to the high-amount of thought and planning involved, stop-motion animations are best suited to complex topics, as the level of thought and immersion needed by the group will lead to useful long-term memory of the concepts.

#8: Create a news report

A suitable example might be a group of three students being assigned the task of creating a news report about a chemical explosion. One student might be the best at art, and could be assigned to produce the graphics. One student might be great at verbal communication in front of an audience, and could be the ‘news anchor’. One student might understand chemical calculations really well, and could provide the script for the news anchor for that particular part of the task.

Students can get really creative with news reports, as nowadays there are so many ways in which they are done:

  • Webpages (e.g. created using New Google Sites)
  • Audio reports (e.g. for podcasting or internet radio)
  • Video reports (e.g. for standard terrestrial TV, internet TV or a Vlog)
  • Social media posts (If you go for this, then ask the students to compile an array of posts – one for IG, one for Facebook, one for Twitter, etc. – and make sure they link to a webpage the students have created)
  • Print media (e.g. a newspaper, magazine article, newsletter, etc.)

This works great when you can provide the groups with a menu, like the one above, from which they can choose what to create.

#9: Create a puzzle booklet

The beauty of this task is that it is both fun and lends itself really well to delegation – one person can create a crossword, one person a word search, one person a fill-in-the-blanks, etc.

Another great thing about puzzle-building is that there are literally tons of free, puzzle building websites out there. Check these out:

#10: Create a classroom display

A warm, inviting classroom that’s colorful, fresh and light can really benefit your students. In fact, expansive research published by the University of Salford shown that well-designed classrooms can improve learning progress in primary school pupils by up to 16%.

This was the first time that clear evidence of the effect of the physical classroom environment on learning was established.

Oftentimes, teachers are stuck with the classrooms they are given. If your furniture is old, natural light is bad or the air-conditioning isn’t perfect, then it’s tough luck. One thing we can change, however, is the quality of our displays. Other aspects of the classroom environment can also be adjusted alongside this (See my article about this here: The Starbucks Protocol), so don’t neglect that side of the equation either.

So what are the best ways that we can create beautiful classroom displays? Good news – I’ve written a whole, separate blog post this very topic (with examples and instructions) here.

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3 Things That Make a School Outstanding

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-winning author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management). Illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

The bell rang at 12.30pm to the typical sigh of relief from students who’d been sat in lessons all morning. Bustling through the corridors towards the school canteen, library, school field or some other designated ‘turf’ were the majority of my classmates at St. Richard Gwyn R.C. High School. I, on the other hand, had an appointment with my favorite teacher.

It felt like an easy journey to the German classroom. I was excited because I would be practicing my German oral phrases and responses with my teacher, who had been giving up a good portion of her lunchtimes for the past few weeks to help me become more confident and competent. She was always patient, and always willing to help.

Then, there was that time when my Biology teacher talked me through an end-of-unit test I had completed, so that I could know exactly where I had lost marks. I still remember the conversation word-for-word, almost thirty years later. I finally grasped some important concepts that day.

At the core of my good fortune to attend an outstanding school as a teenager was one most important thing: outstanding teachers. All of my teachers really cared for my wellbeing, and they often went above-and-beyond to provide me with extra tuition, or even to have one-on-one conversations with me to put me on-track, or to reprimand me when I had slipped up. Great teachers, I found, were more important than great facilities.

There are other factors that make a school outstanding, however. Even the best efforts of a team of outstanding teachers can be thwarted by the subterfuge of negligence, bad policies or even school culture. In this blog post, I will explore all of the key factors that work together to make a school outstanding.

#1: The school’s vision and mission are the starting points

A well-crafted mission statement that infuses everything the school does as a community can have a massive and profound impact on students’ lives.

At Saint Richard Gwyn, for example, our slogan was “Learning Together In Christ“. This phrase was spoken at every assembly, written in many school publications (such as the school’s weekly newsletter) and was reinforced by teachers during some of our lessons. I don’t think I and my peers fully realized the power of this collective action by the school back then, but that statement was actually having a dramatic effect on the way we saw the world, and ourselves. Whether you are religious or not, you can appreciate that this statement sent home a bigger message than just those four words:

  • At our school we learn together. Our focus is serious, and we help each other.
  • We have faith in Christ at our school. We are expected to follow the moral principles outlined in the gospels.

America’s Center for School Change has the following to say about a school’s Vision and Mission:

Developing the school’s vision and mission are two of the most important steps toward creating a successful program. Done well, they give clarity and direction for a school. A muddy vision or mission can help lead to continuing conflicts, and a school that has difficulty identifying priorities.

Center for School Change

I like that last part about “identifying priorities”. What does your school’s vision and mission and say about your institution’s priorities, and how well-embedded are those priorities?

Over the years, many educational scholars have stressed the importance of the school’s vision and mission, and how well those ideas are communicated and transformed into expectations. A classic amongst these scholars is William Rutherford of the University of Texas who, as far back as 1985, stated that effective school leaders need to:

  • have clear, informed visions of what they want their schools to become; visions that focus on students and their needs
  • translate these visions into goals for their schools and expectations for their teachers, students and administrators

So it would seem that simply having a vision and mission for a school is not enough to make a school truly outstanding. That vision and mission must focus on students and their needs, be translated into workable goals and be formulated as expectations for teachers, students and all staff members.

#2: Outstanding teachers make an outstanding school

A school’s best resource, by far, is the body of staff that comprise that school. Get that right and a school will usually be able to cope with the ebb and flow of daily circumstance in an effective manner. However, still to this day, schools are focusing far too much on teachers’ qualifications rather than experience, references and reputations, in my opinion.

This is the point where I’m going to have to speak bluntly and directly: an advanced degree does not make someone an amazing teacher; nor does a degree or qualification from a top university. Those credentials, actually, are meaningless in the context of determining one’s ability to manage behaviour, plan lessons thoroughly, teach with clarity and teach at an appropriate pace. Those qualifications may, however, allow a school to better market itself to parents and potential clients/customers (particularly in the private sector), but those qualifications never, in my honest opinion, determine a person’s ability to teach properly.

Teaching is a vocation: plain and simple. It’s a profession that one has to be built for, and one has to be passionate about in order to succeed. Experience has taught me that qualifications alone are not enough to determine a teacher’s suitability to teach. I, for example, have worked with a number of Oxford, Cambridge and PhD graduates over the years who were awful teachers who couldn’t communicate effectively with students and, in a significant number of cases, couldn’t teach at an acceptable pace or keep students engaged for long periods of time. On the other hand, I’ve also worked many such high-level graduates who were excellent teachers and helpful team-players.

Have you experienced the same in your time as a teacher?

My message for schools is simple: Focus on what the students and colleagues think of the teacher you’re hiring. Place more emphasis on teacher-portfolios and references – evidence of actual teaching ability – rather than the quality of a candidate’s qualifications.

#3: Effective systems make a school outstanding

Systems are like the glue that holds everything together. When a school has a clear vision and mission that’s backed-up by outstanding teachers and effective systems, everything then falls into place and runs smoothly (most of the time).

The most essential systems that schools need to have in-place can be remembered by what I hope is a useful acronym: C.A.R.S. – Communication, Action, Rewards and Sanctions.

  • Communication systems need to be easy to use, and suitable for purpose. Schools that use the same system to communicate with parents, students, teachers and other stakeholders tend to experience better overall harmony than those that do not. Many schools, for example, choose to use e-mail for these purposes as it is a professional system that everyone can access. However, some schools (e.g. those in China) prefer to use a more real-time system for staff (e.g. chat apps like QQ and WeChat) and more traditional systems, like e-mail, for communicating with parents. Systems like this can cause undue stress to teachers, however, as it can be easy to miss messages posted within a chat stream. Teachers can also feel under constant pressure to respond, even outside of official working hours.
  • Action systems need to be workable. Teachers need to do things every day in a timely manner. Printing and photocopying, for example, should never be problematic (massive headaches are caused when printers don’t work, or when teachers are restricted to quotas, for example). Reports need to written via systems that are shared, and easy to navigate and access. Mock exams and internal exams need to be delivered via systems that make it easy for everyone to get their papers printed and organized in a timely manner. Timetabling needs to be seamless. Student locker systems need to be accessible and workable. The role of the form tutor/homeroom teacher within the school, and the systems needed to fulfill that role, need to be easy-to-use (a house system can often help with this). Registration systems need to be workable. Assessment systems and instructional software need to be carefully chosen and subscriptions need to be renewed on-time. File-sharing systems need to be in-place so that teachers can share useful resources with one-another.

Which action systems do you use in your school, and how could they be made to be more workable and accessible?

  • Rewards and sanctions systems – with emphasis placed more on rewards than sanctions. The consensus on the approach that should be taken is pretty clear in educational circles, and has been for some time. The UK’s Department for Education and Skills summarizes the key components of such systems best in my opinion:

Rewards, or positive consequences, are likely to encourage pupils to repeat the associated behaviour. Systems that emphasise praise for positive behaviour or regular attendance are more effective in motivating pupils to make appropriate choices. These appropriate choices contribute to a positive ethos in the school, thereby creating an environment for effective teaching and learning. . . . [S]anctions might be used only as a last resort, because using every opportunity to reinforce positive behaviour will have a greater and longer lasting effect than the constant use of sanctions for negative behaviour.

UK Department for Education and Skills, “Behaviour and Attendance Strand. Toolkit Unit 2. Key Stage 3 National Strategy. Everyday Policies: Rewards, Sanctions and Promotion of Positive Behaviour.” pp. 21. [Online] Available at: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/5708/1/6c37a9499c7e75eaa76fd736c63ca731.pdf

In fact, it’s been known for some time that rewards work better than sanctions for promoting positive behaviour. The most notable foundational statement on this matter, for example, was made in the concluding text of The Elton Report (1989):

Schools which put too much faith in punishments to deter bad behaviour are likely to be disappointed

GREAT BRITAIN, & ELTON, R. (1989). Discipline in schools: report of the Committee of Enquiry chaired by Lord Elton. London, H.M.S.O. Available at http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/elton/elton1989.html

Conclusion

Outstanding schools always have the following elements in place:

  • A clear vision and mission that’s student-centered and easily translates into goals and expectations for students, teachers and all stakeholders
  • Outstanding teachers, with a proven track record of excellence in teaching (not necessarily academic excellence)
  • Effective communication, action, rewards and sanctions systems

Bibliography and references (in order of appearance)

W.L. Rutherford. School principals as effective leaders. Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 67 number1, 1985, pp. 31-34

UK Department for Education and Skills. Behaviour and Attendance Strand. Toolkit Unit 2. Key Stage 3 National Strategy. Everyday Policies: Rewards, Sanctions and Promotion of Positive Behaviour. pp. 21. [Online] Available at: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/5708/1/6c37a9499c7e75eaa76fd736c63ca731.pdf

GREAT BRITAIN, & ELTON, R. (1989). Discipline in schools: report of the Committee of Enquiry chaired by Lord Elton. London, H.M.S.O. Available at http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/elton/elton1989.html