– a Singaporean teacher's storeroom 🖖
翻转课堂一词流行好一阵了，孰不知翻转学习是其“衍进版”的概念。这两者有何不同？翻转学习又和华文、语文教学的关系是什么？这一篇东西其实是写来作引起讨论之用的。所以内容上还存在许多可进一步探讨、深究的地方 (:
created this piece of writing for the purpose of facilitating internal discussion. it’s not a fully polished piece of writing in the academic sense, especially from the theoretical perspectives of SLA. but well, the discussions on Feb 22 morning was good (but could be better) i thought (:
so here‘s the piece for your reading pleasure. 一共8页，中英文各4页:
chanced upon this 2005 document titled: About Learning prepared by the UK Learning Working Group (with Hargreaves as a chair/member). the document was released under creativecommons, so free access no copyrights issue **thumbs up**
the following excerpt found on pg. 7:
so what would the Family of Learning Practices be like in language learning, or SLA to be more specific? #Food4Thought
we were talking about assessment literacy last week. and i chanced upon this article via fb feed “Why Teachers Need To Know The Wrong Answers“. to be able to assess students’ learning and facilitate improvement, teachers need to know all the answers (and their corresponding Whys).
some lines that caught my eyes include:
“‘Students are full of all kinds of knowledge, and they have explanations for everything.’ From birth, human beings are working hard to figure out the world around us.”
– and how often teachers are responsible for ‘killing’ this curiosity?
“‘cognitive science tells us that if you don’t understand the flaws in students’ reasoning, you’re not going to be able to dislodge their misconceptions and replace them with the correct concepts.'”
– very absolute terms here, very ‘science’ — right vs. wrong. what do we have that are clear cut right and wrong in CL? and how often are we able to tell why one is right and the other is wrong? how many CL teachers have acquired the necessary linguistics knowledge, or the awareness/ability to learn about them on-the-fly/on-the-job/on-demand?
“‘Teachers who find their kids’ ideas fascinating are just better teachers than teachers who find the subject matter fascinating,'”
– i am not sure how many teachers around me are actually FASCINATED by their students’ ideas. i suspect more ‘irritated’ & ‘frustrated’ than anything else.
“‘The next step is to give students exposure to the information and experience that will enable them to reason their way to the right answer.'”
– and how often teachers just tell students the “right” answers outright in the face? in the name of efficiency of learning?
saw this article via a fb post/link this morning:
Responding to Student Writing — and Writersand i thought what the author pointed out are indeed in line with the spirit of social constructivism (meaning-making occurs in discourse/dialogue), and assessment for learning. 6 ideas to get it write:
the ideas assumed that composition writing is a process that involves drafts before finals. process writing is in the true spirit of developing writing competencies in our students. i must confess that i did not do this in the past. but if i were to be back in the classroom, this would be a must-do. otherwise, how can i expect my students to improve in their writings when (1) a one-off marked and return exercise may have too many issues to tackle (字、词、句、段、篇 all 5 areas add up is A LOT A LOT A LOT), not to mention this turns every essay into (2) a summative assessment in disguise.
development takes time for the learners. and in this case, it would most likely take up more time of the teachers. one thing that must definitely be looked into: the number of essays to be written as stated in the SOW. it would probably make a good experimental study to compare a class of students who completes only 4 (let’s say) ‘formative’ essays vs. a class of students who completes the usual 8 (let’s say) ‘summative’ essays.
two days ago, met my 老师 for a little chat. and we came upon the topic of knowledge creation (k/c) in learning of CL — how does it look like?
assuming we were to use knowledge building (kb) pedagogy (Scardamalia & Bereaver, 2006) as the guide, ‘idea improvement’ would be a basic tenet. so what does idea improvement look like in CL? what is an idea in CL to begin with?
老师 recalled in the past, CL teachers in his 802 class have had problem reconciling CL and idea improvement. this is an observation, and to me, it’s also a phenomenon. what is the reason behind this phenomenon? we have to perhaps understand what is CL teaching and/or learning to CL teachers? just four days earlier, we were having lunch with a very senior and experienced CL teacher, and he said “有不少华文老师觉得怎样才能学好华文？” the answer is Beethoven the musician (背多分).
Beethoven (背多分) to me reflects CL teachers’ personal epistemology. sadly, it’s tended towards the naive end. what do you 背? naturally, it’s existing knowledge. existing knowledge by who? experts, authority, 前辈，etc. if knowledge created by experts have a higher value, this indicates ‘experts’ exist (cf. omniscient authority). if an authority exists, what is the chance of CL teachers expecting students, who are just beginning to learn and are generally having low CL proficiencies, be creating knowledge? not to mention 尊师重道、长幼有序 is inherent in Confucius’ teachings. one is expected to respect the authority, and accept the 千年累计流传下来的知识。 背，才会有多分。背得越多，得分越多。Hail Beethoven!
following my interpretation of these CL teachers’ personal epistemology, an ‘idea’ would be knowledge that’s been passed down from some authority. would there be a need to improve such an idea? it’s effectively asking these teachers to question the music Beethoven has written 🙂
if we were to encounter another group of CL teachers who possess more sophisticated epistemic beliefs, what would an ‘idea’ be in CL per se? perhaps we can look at what can be created, or are created in language classroom/lessons? yes, literary-related creations, e.g. written compositions, essays, poems, novels, etc. these are creations at a 篇-level. if it’s too ‘big’, we can always reduce the scope and create 段、句、词、字 instead for learners at different levels. assuming each of these could be an ‘idea’, what would idea improvement look like? what would kb discourse be about? yes, i would think it would be about these building blocks in their respective creations, individual or group work. why do student (or group) A choose to use this adjective in his/her sentence? why do student B think that student A’s choice could be improved; justify why, and the ‘improved’ choice? such idea improvement talk can occur at all levels – 字、词、句、段、篇, and related linguistics ideas would inevitably be brought in during the discourse (for e.g. 修辞、语义、段落、篇章结构). if the creation is oral instead of written, ideas of 语音、语速、语调 could be added.
so, perhaps if a CL teacher were to ask me “is knowledge creation possible in CL learning/teaching?” i would probably say “let’s examine your personal epistemology(‘s sophistication) first” 🙂
acknowledgement: Photo by woodleywonderworks