week5

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WELCOME TO WEEK 5

Week 5 (Feb 11 -17, 2013) - WRAPPING UP - TEACHING THAT CHANGES THE BRAIN

During this week participants will

review important concepts about the brain and learning
speculate how to improve practice based on concepts about the brain and learning
discuss what they have acquired for their teaching toolkit and assess their own learning during the session
evaluate the workshop

>>> Week 4 Wrap Up Message & Week 5 Welcome

>>> Week 5 Wrap Up

Week 5 Tasks

Week 5 (Feb 11 -17, 2013) - WRAPPING UP - TEACHING THAT CHANGES THE BRAIN
Task 1 - Summing Up
Task 2 - Speculating
Task 3 - Portfolio Entry
Task 4 - VERY IMPORTANT: Evaluating our EVO Session
Extra Readings
Extra Resource
Help Desk
Completion Checklist
1. Our Session Online Spaces

Task 1 - Summing Up

Read the text Braining up Your English Lessons, which contains some important ideas about the brain and learning, all taken from the book The Art of Changing the Brain, by James Zull.

BRAINING UP YOUR ENGLISH LESSONS.pdf

Task 2 - Speculating

a. From a brain-functioning perspective, speculate what could be wrong in the situations below. What other strategies could be more effective?

1) A group of students seem not to understand the target content of the unit. The teacher has been very patient and willing to help the students. The teacher has repeated the explanation several times, but they still don't understand. Both the teacher and the students feel frustrated.

2) A teacher spends several hours preparing a beautiful lesson. In class, students have fun and do the activity in 5 minutes. Later, while correcting the students' tests, the teacher is disappointed at the student's

poor retention of that specific content.

3) Students did poorly on a vocabulary exercise in the test. The teacher doesn't understand it because they seemed to have understood the vocabulary in the class when the teacher taught that content.

b. Share your ideas with our community in our Edmodo group (HotTopicsELT) at http://www.edmodo.com/post/109603597

Task 3 - Portfolio Entry

a. Choose one of the case studies below. Think about how the knowledge you have acquired so far about the brain and learning could help the teacher deal with the situation described in the case study you have chosen. Add your personal views to your portfolio.

CASE 1

Pedro has attended EFL classes since he was a kid. His native language is Portuguese. Pedro is a demonstrably clever thirteen-year-old boy who has the ability to use English fluently. However, in his EFL classes he misbehaves, disturbs his companions, insists on responding to his teacher in Portuguese, and is perpetually distracted and restless. His teacher calls his attention every single class with no effective result. Pedro almost never does homework, fails marginally at the end of the semester, is benefited by the bonus class opportunity, and ends up passing with a low final average. Pedro is infamous among the group of teachers in the institution.

CASE 2

Victoria has learning difficulties and copes with the problems connected to her parents, who are in the process of a tempestuous divorce. Her major difficulty lies in keeping a focus on the subject, but she really wants to learn. Her teacher sends her regularly to emergency help classes and she attends hopefully, but the results are less than their mutual desire. The teacher also contacts Victoria’s parents at predictable intervals, asking for their input and encouragement with regard to homework and study for tests. Victoria is afraid of her parents’ reaction to her low grades. She’s also afraid of being in the spotlight, so it’s hard to get her to participate in class.

b. Add the link to your reflection to our Edmodo group at http://www.edmodo.com/post/109605512

Task 4 - VERY IMPORTANT: Evaluating our EVO Session

Your feedback about our EVO session really matters to us. It will help us improve, consider enhancements for future sessions, making them even more helpful and exciting for participants.

a. Please, fill out this evaluation survey.