Using My Strength In My Teaching

According to Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligence, a teacher or an instructor may find different students in a single class or group who have the ability to learn in a visual-spatial way,some other are able to learn by discovering for themselves in a hands on way, while others have a concrete way of learning in a logical thinking way, where as others prefer or are able to learn through spatial judgment and visualize with their mind eye. 

Basing on the above tenets of Gardner's theory, I have the following strength though some times limited by the conditions at hand at our school:

By considering the verbal-linguistic intelligence,the main medium of communication is English at our school. How ever, there are some students who come from other countries other than Uganda like from Rwanda and Congo D.R.C who had never learned sufficient English Language but are used to the French Language. while some come from Tanzania and Kenya but feel more comfortable to communicate using Swahili-but know some English language. I usually ask individual questions in my Geography lessons of how some Geographical phenomena are called in their language. As students give out the different names in different languages, those who are not pro-English are observed smiling in acknowledgement that they have understood a phenomena in question.

For the ability to visualize with the mind eye, we use the discussion method. In this method I form up small groups of ten students each group and assign them a task to discuss about for the next lesson. Each group produces one presenter who presents on behalf of his/her group. In this way, students begin to challenge each other when they critic their friends' arguments. In that way, they visualize with the mind of the eye.

With spatial judgment, I usually take students for field work and we use the environment as a laboratory since some students are adventurous.

I some times encourage students to form up Geography albums and write simple essays to accompany a given photo or geographical event. this gives chance to the students with the Introspective capacities to explore their prowess in writing.

With music, I am not good at music. But the teenagers I teach love music a lot. So we as a class some times acronym some phrases which need proper grasping. For example when teaching Geography of North America, some names of place or lakes; like the great lakes of the USA (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, we phrased a song with a verse 'Some Men Have Eaten Oranges' but each word in that verse stands for a lake in the USA.In that way students get to understand what I teach them and enjoy it.

Even though the Multiple intelligences approach to teaching is effective to trigger off the students' understanding of what is taught, I find it difficult to cater for every individual student's strength and weakness. I teach many students which make my classes big. This even makes the Connell's Multiple Intelligence Questionnaire for Children difficult for me to use. Besides, the result oriented nature of my school and Uganda's curriculum some times makes me spoon feed the student in order to complete the syllabus. 

Embracing Authentic Learning Experiences For The 21st Century

Lombardi(2007) gave out 10 fundamental design elements for any effective learning experiences in any subject to take place among learners. From her full article i discovered that my teaching has been tailored to the traditional ways of teaching and learning; By the virtue of my school set up which is result oriented more over in a very short time, as a teacher I am forced by circumstances to 'spoon-feed' the learner and I become a moving encyclopedia. Even though my lessons are made interactive and students are given cites for more academic content, they shun it since they are not used to the self discovery method very well.

However, with this exposure to modern knowledge; in a few lessons I have conducted at my school by the beginning of the year 2015, I have managed to practice the following procedure below:

• Find out about ideas or content to be taught from the Internet and or from text books.

• Improve my content delivery skills by making it learner-centered and sometimes outside the classroom since I teach Geography.

• Make my learners learn collaboratively by grouping them up and assign them different tasks per a group which they later present or express out clearly in order to master the content easily and also discover more on their own.

• I re-teach or re-explain what was not well presented by the students.

• As each group comes out to present, they communicate and challenge each other.

• With the above steps, we as a class(me the teacher and my students) manage to make analysis of a whole given topic in a small period of time of about two lessons.

EXPERIENCES OF TRUE LEARNING

1. Sylvia's experiences when learning English:

In her video she mentioned that it was a difficult experience when learning English yet she was used to speaking French.

She put it that it was her personal initiative to learn by her self.

Even though her Profs. taught her, they could not trigger off the zeal in her to learn, but it was her personal initiative.

When learning, people face different difficulties, for example she was laughed at when she made blander in her speech but she played it cool and laughed back because she knew what she wanted to achieve.
2.My experiences of true leaning

I teach Geography and History. I found hardship in drawing the geographical diagrams and maps. Each time i drew a map, teachers used to comment that i had drawn a jerry-can! yet i had tried my best.

At a higher level, i was introduced to the GIS technology in geography. Here the story was a little bit different but still difficult; Prof. used to teach us how to create a data base and then create shape files for maps: The challenge was that after creating one shape file, i could not recall where exactly it had gone for future reference about it.

Our instructors encouraged us to discover every thing by our own-it was too disturbing but i mobilized my fellow students who were better than me and we tried it out. we succeeded at the end.

3. It feels good when you can do what previously disturbed you. And you can not just laugh at some one who has failed because you already know his hardship.

Semayobe Sulaiman's cctionline reflection video

FEEDING THE NEED 1.6

FEEDING THE NEED 1.6

Q’n      How well prepared are your colleagues for their own technology integration journey?

Answer:            Majority of the teachers at my school are not prepared and shun the technology integration program.

Q’n      What is the level of their technical skills?

Answer:            Majority of the teachers at my school have only the basics of computer application; they can use Microsoft word processing for typing of examinations, writing comments on students’ report forms-for the case of class teachers and senior lady/Matrons. And a few can afford power point presentation if guided by a knowledgeable person.

Q’n      What is their understanding of technology-integrated teaching and learning?

Answer:           Apart from some science teachers who teach Biology, Chemistry, Physics, math, and some Geography teachers who explore the Internet, or use the simulated science programs for teachers on the computer, (cyber-Uganda), most of the Arts subject teachers do not understand technology –integrated teaching and learning. They believe in a lecture method or physical teacher-student interaction in a classroom where they go together with their books from the school library to the classroom.  

Q’n      If you were to implement a professional development program at your school, what social and infrastructure factors would you have to consider?

Answer:       Providing personal computers (laptops) to all teachers. Laptops may be provided to teachers at a departmental level and owned by the school, or to be made available to all teachers through loans on the basis of a small monthly deduction from an individual teacher’s salary of which it becomes his/hers on completion of the payment. This can be arranged by the school administration for the case of privately owned schools or by the Ministry of Education for the case of government aided schools.

                  Motivate all teachers into ICT training by designing for them sometime within the teaching time table to practice computer literacy or to explore the Internet with in the school setting for free with a computer programs’ trainer.

Training of all teachers in ICT without considering which subject they teach should be considered in order to initiate them in the new technology trends.

The Internet should be provided to teachers at school.

Teachers need to be sensitized or made to change their attitude towards computer technology and get rid of the fear of a computer mouse. Some teachers think that touching a key board is to spoil what is already in the computer!

Q’n     Would the resources you’ve curated throughout this course be useful to your colleagues?   How so? 

Answer:            The resources I have curated are so many; I have explored Teacher media where I became a member, and teacher tube, Edutopia and I can implore them (fellow teachers) to use you tube for the good educative videos. I can encourage them to join wiki spaces or use Google collaborative docs with students for a better teaching. Also teachers should learn blogging. This can help them to publish what they have come up with in their career as teachers and even use blogs as platforms for teaching.

Trawling The Net (1.5)

Sulaiman Semayobe Trawling the Net

My criteria for evaluation of a chosen site 1.5 (Trawling the net)

1. The site must be about Teacher professional development.  Its usefulness however should be based on evaluating whether it is for Teacher Development. The site must address Teacher Development in their career. And it should be easy to explore.
2. The information bits or pieces from that site should not be too wordy or broad since this bores up the reader and he/she stops reading before completing.
3. The site should be well designed such that it is appealing to the viewers and it should also clearly state its objectives. (Teacher professional development).
4. The site should be current by giving updated information.
5. Accuracy and Usefulness of the site should be considered while evaluating it.
6. Accuracy deals with checking of the source and content found on the site. The facts on the site should be documented and verifiable i.e the site should contain a bibliography to prove its authenticity. It should be using more than one source for its background information.
7. The links within the site should be appropriate. The site should contain links to other sources that address Teacher Development.

8.      Observation should be made to ensure that the information on the site is current and not outdated or has not out-lived its usefulness.

END and thank you.

Sharing is caring

Hello teachers, you can also visit http://www.pinterest.com/semayobe/pins/    Thanks.