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Personally, I thought what Mrs. Xing has planned for her students to do is rather broad and not specific enough. Having students to cover on a new topic and having them to research on every areas of energy, I felt that it was too much for them to handle within the 1 week break. Furthermore, covering on every individual’s concept maps can be rather taxing and Mrs. Xing herself would only be able to look at them when school reopens the following week.
As for myself, I would alter the lesson in a way students not only learn through Self-Directed Learning (SDL) but also works collaboratively. Before the e-learning week, I would
- assign students to different topic discussions on energy.
I would get groups to discuss on the different forms of energy, the principles of conservation energy, energy conversions, etc. This way, students can also do research on their own before working collaboratively. This gives me the benefits of
1) looking at the students’ ongoing process of discussion (if I logged in together with them during their discussion) which also accounts for the weightage on their individual participation
2) saving time by looking on group’s work instead of individual concept maps without having to worry on which particular mindmap to choose for the follow up face-to-face lessons in school
3) having a well-constructed and hopefully a well-collaborated mindmap to build up upon
Other than that, I would engage in
I would prepare them before hand and ask them to register and I would add in their names to the list of editors of the particular topic of discussion. Through MindMeister, students are able to engage in a real-time collaboration where they can edit the same mindmap at their own homes and at the same time. It is more engaging and exciting this way.
But the above only works when students of the same group exchange their email addresses for IM activities like MSN and Skype. (preferably, skype would be a better option because it engages students to do a live conferencing while editing their mindmaps through MindMeister.
Apart from that, as the teacher, I would get to see the students’ work before school reopens.
Moreover, through this scenario, I felt that Mrs. Xing was not doing anything much during her students’ participation on e-learning. I would suggest that she provide her students
Through this way, students are able to seek help or report of any incidents like the ones when they failed to open up their PowerPoint file. And if this option was not available be it students are too shy to talk or students do not have microphone, Mrs. Xing could give them her email as a second form of communication.
With this, teachers are able to check the students’ progress and students are able to know if they are moving on the right track.
Following up to the matters above, here are some of the other preparations I would do to tackle the different problems Mrs. Xing had faced during her attempt at e-learning during the school’s e-learning week:
This way, parents are aware of the content that their children should be looking into. Not only that, it helps create parent-support on their children’s Internet use for teaching and learning purposes.
This helps establish parental control and the protection of their children where these filters provide a reliable barrier, blocking access to unacceptable content which can be morally damaging to their children’s development.
The teacher can advice students not to venture out to these sites and to emphasize responsibility for their own learning. (E.g. Making time for learning and surfing the net. Do not lie to their parents that they are doing their work but end up surfing the net instead.)
2) Unable to open the PowerPoint file
I don’t find it necessary for Mrs. Xing to contain this information through PowerPoint presentation.
Scribd, SlideShare, Splashcast, SlideAware and Zoho Show are some of the hosting services for uploading these files on the web. Through this, students are able to watch these slideshows online without having to worry of not being able to open their PowerPoint file through LMS. All the teacher has to do is to provide the link on the LMS.
3) Cutting and Pasting information from website (Plagiarism)
Before the commence of e-learning week, students ought to be aware that cutting and pasting information from website without giving credibility to the author is an act of plagiarism, an act of dishonesty. It simply shows an ignorance of completing their assignments properly. In addition, inform students the loss of marks they will get when they plagiarize.
Provide an assignment cover sheet when school reopens for students to declare that the assignment was their original work and they have understood the consequences of plagiarism should they fail to comply.
5 comments:
I agree with you that the teacher should have conducted a lesson on plagiarism prior to the e-learning week as some students might not know the seriousness of such an offence. I feel that a lesson in proper netiquette would be also useful especially if they are going to continue using ICT in their lessons.
I think Mrs Xing should issue a letter to the parents about the E-learning period with the info on what the students are doing and its rational and at the same time a step by step guide to enable the parental filter. they should also return the acknowledgment letter to Mrs Xing to ensure that the parent is aware of the E-learing sessions.
The netiquette would be necessary just like how it is necessary for teachers to have ground rules in class. The same should apply to ICT too. Thanks Amanda :)
Yea, an acknowledgment letter. Something I didn't think of. Thanks Razali :)
Instead of conducting an entire lesson on plagiarism which I feel that P5 children are too young to understand, Mrs Xing may like to tell her students to complete their assignment IN THEIR OWN WORDS on top of educating them that plagiarism is unethical.
Mrs Xing can also include some tips for parents on cyber safety and how they can help monitor their children's work. Parents have a part to play in education their children too :)
I didn't know the students are of P5 level. Haha. But yes, I think it is more efficient that the students are to be taught to write "in their own words".
Thanks!
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