Alien Pedagogy

When I was in school, I was required to give presentations but was rarely given time to practice public speaking.

So here’s how my speaking drill lesson goes.

• Identify / Re-list speaking skills. I use the skills identified in Holt’s Elements of Language.
• Students Identify Goals in Writing – Based on skills that are identified, past lessons and feedback, or past experiences.
• Digital Projector Slide Show – I collect ten slides and project them without label. Students use this to generate topics and opinion statements. Over time, I invite students to begin collecting these images.
• Preparation Time. Tell students how much time they need to speak and how much time they have to prepare.
• Speeches. I usually ask 9s to speak for one minute at first, working with just a hook, an introduction, one argument, a conclusion, and call to action. I also use time signals.
• Feedback is immediate. This can be done through self reflection, peer coaching, or teacher feedback. I once sat in the seat of the student that was speaking and wrote feedback in their notebook.

The biggest improvements that I have seen are that students tend to look less at the slide, they tend to produce better summative presentations, and their topics and opinions become more interesting given practice.

There are times when I’m very proud of the work my school is doing with tech. Here are some things that we’ve started using:

• Interactive White Boards – They’ve just been installed in every classroom.
• Corporate Gmail – Our school’s email system is provided by Gmail’s programming, which I think is superior to any other email platform.
• Cloud Computing – We all use Moodle and have regular peer training.
• Cloud Computing – We’ve begun using Shared Google Docs for daily announcements and for creating community drives. (We also have a server and a private network for security).

Ironically, although we’re shifting to the cloud for some processes, I bet no more than three of us know what it means to live in the cloud.

Angela Ehmer suggests that non literature can help students to improve their reading.

Could this be used as an argument for elinating Shakespearean literature from the curriculum? Instead of spending so much time scaffolding the language, we could be using that time to actually teach students how to read and analyze.

I’m not denying that Romeo and Juliet is popular with students, but is this a question worth considering?

I have finished another 10 kilometer race. My time decreased from 55 to 50 minutes.

I ran really hard during the first 5 kilometers, which made the second five kilometers truly draining.

Sadly, this run was far less surreal than my first 10 K run. My sister says I’m “chasing the dragon.”

I like to use email writing to introduce students to many of the finer points of writing, like: voice, purpose, format, and even professionalism.

I use the digital projector to show anonymous emails (it’s in Word, but tabled to look like an email) that contain common email errors, including buried requests, ambiguous or rude language, etc. We deconstruct the email in groups before moving on.

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Example:

Subject: Why I Forgot to Print Your Essay for You Although I Said I Would

Hi Jimmy,
I’m sorry that I forgot to print your essay for you and that the teacher yelled at you because of it.

However, wasn’t it your responsibility to hand in the essay anyway? ;)
See you tomorrow,
Sarah

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Everyone is ready to learn about the finer points of writing after we deconstruct this.