Almost there, I imagine like me that you're in the thick of marking and tying up loose ends before a few days. It's been a busy semester and the end is in sight, this week we want to talk about feedback, communication, and taking time for yourself!
Thank you for your comments following last week's newsletter which caused a little stir of its own in the discussion about whether you can actually measure learning. A few people reflected on the atmosphere in class when learning is taking place, that they can sense it. Sure, but we must not be complacent about our students’ inner thoughts. I have always thought that students can seem to be doing a great deal, and whilst their calm might envelop a classroom, panic ensues in their minds.
The best approach might be to open up a variety of means for students to communicate, comment, and reflect on their learning. These might include ways that we provide feedback, students would like more and clearer feedback that they can act upon and use. The word consistency comes up again and again in this advice from ACTFL but it's a reality that students have to cope with inconsistent feedback across the spread of their subjects, where one course might provide timely constructive feedback and another simply marks and highlighted rubrics.
This inconsistency across courses extends to the use of technology and one way to mitigate this problem might be to encourage a progressive approach with teachers. We could all do more to read the recommendations and attend workshops of the many centers of technology-enhanced learning in our institutions. Consistency comes with the adoption of best practice, not just in terms of the tools, but those pedagogies that serve students most effectively.
As a final note. I want to say thank you for your support this semester. What started as a little experiment with around 60 readers has blossoms to around 150 and a regular group who comment and send me links for inclusion. This is as much your newsletter as mine, if you spot something, however small, or you have an event you want to promote, then please as always get in touch.
To all of you, we hope you have a good break and look forward to catching up in the New Year.
People, Places, and Things
I know that it's more common for teachers with younger age groups, but what is the feeling when your pupils don't give me gifts? Show they are expected, how to react, what not to say to your colleagues. We have you covered.
This timely and useful guide from the Chronicle on providing feedback to learners and another link to the ACTFL site with more advice specifically for language teachers.
Vevox (previously Meetoo) is a live polling and interactive feedback tool that we used at the University of Southampton. There's a neat PowerPoint plugin so that you can include polls in slides. Here's a brilliant article by a friend of mine, Professor David Read who has enjoyed great success with in-class question and poll tools.
I'd also shout out to Socrative, a particularly good student response system that is free to up to 50 students in a room. Students download an app, you give them a code and they can respond in real-time to quizzes, questions, comments, drawings, and much more.
On Screen
If you like circles, then press play and let this wash over you.
AnimeTaste and Anim-babblers, two organizations on animation, gathered 26 animators and studios to make an animated film called Keywords of Animation. Each animator or studio depicted one keyword of animation in a section of the film which is about 8 seconds long. It's also a fascinating take on the current state of Chinese animation.
Thank you for reading, we really appreciate your support and would love to hear more about what you like and what you've seen that might be useful to share. If you have anything you'd like to include in future issues, let us know.