Blended
language instruction can be considered as a technology integrated education. In
my opinion, it has several benefits for the learning process of students. Firstly,
because the learning/comprehension stage is out-of-class environment, students
have an opportunity to learn in their own-pace. They also have the opportunity
to repeat as much as they need to learn the subject and think on the activities
flexibly. In this way, students do not feel anxious if they do not understand
any point at once, or do not feel hesitated to make any mistakes because they
can correct their mistakes without teacher observation. Besides, blended
learning improves the self-regulation and autonomy skills of students because
they have to manage the time and direct their own learning process. So, after
the individualized learning stage, coming together as a class and creating
something as a product of what they have learned also helps students to improve
their collaborative learning skills. In this way, they learn what they can do
with the knowledge they have in their head in an enjoyable way. In addition to these,
I believe that learning stage becomes much more enjoyable and permanent with
the help of visual supports and interactive learning with technological tools
and sources. As an example, students can watch a video about the impact of
stress on our daily life and read an article about the reasons and of stress.
Then, when they come to the class, students can discuss and debate as groups on
stress and its harm. Thus, the knowledge gained out-of-class environment can be
demonstrated in-class environment and produce with the knowledge
collaboratively.
In my
opinion, feedback is a challenging part in online environment. Feedback is
basically reflection to the interaction of students. In other words, if
students do not participate their own learning process actively, it can be hard
to observe, evaluate the learning, and giving feedback. In terms of online feedback,
teachers should provide opportunities for students to express themselves
socially and emotionally and collaborate with each other. Also, providing
interactive learning environment with authentic materials and tools helps
students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. In this way, teachers can
recognize and observe the progress of students. Personally, I have realized
that because teachers can only realize the presence and understanding of
students when they turn on their cameras and microphones, students’ integration
and mental presence to the learning process, facilitate the feedback process.
Formative
assessment is basically observing the learning process of students, not the
product as summative assessment. Assessing the process of students in online
environment has several effective ways. During the session, teacher can type
some ideas about the topic, and wants students to reflect the ideas with the
help of emojis. Breakout rooms can be an effective way to observe the students
while discussing their personal thoughts or what they have learned about the
topics. Moreover, students can summarize what they have understood from the
text, video, recording, and images related to the lesson on an educational
platform like Padlet or Nearpod. For a long-term assessment, students can
upload the works completed by themselves to Padlet to demonstrate them
properly. Also, a blog or a website created by students is a good way to
observe and assessing their learning process for teachers. As an example, in
one of my classes, we learned about technology integration into learning. Our
teacher wanted us to have a blog includes every single production created by
us. He was able to observe our learning process and check our abilities about
using technological tools and platforms for a whole year. In my opinion,
technological tools and platforms facilitate the formative assessment process
in online education because students do not have to be stuck on ordinary Q/A
session dito be assessed.
Today’s world
also effects the education and enhances the learning. It requires for teachers
to be more open-minded, creative, and innovative to provide better
comprehension for students. Teacher should be aware of what actually being
digital native is. To take the attention of today’s students, to motivate, and
involve them to their own learning process, teachers should be aware of the
authentic materials and sources represented by the developing technology. The
reason of the effectiveness of digital tool usage and authentic materials is
the way they help students to collaborate with each other, interact to share,
and product together. In this way, digital tools facilitate to have a
student-centered learning environment with active participants. In addition to
that, the colorful sources of technology facilitates the comprehension and
improvement of four basic skills which are reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Videos, audio sources, augmented and virtual reality, interactive games and
more help students to comprehend the topics much easily and permanently. For
example, in one of my private lesson, my 8 year-old student told me that she
understands better with me because I use enjoyable educational videos to teach
vocabularies, and it makes her motivated. So, I believe that if teacher is
aware of the effectiveness and facilitativeness of digital tools and authentic
materials, the learning process can be much easier and permanent for students.
I had a
chance to experience teaching in practicum process twice. I endeavored to
prepare my lesson plan with the consideration of effectiveness. I believe that motivation
is the key point of a successful learning process. As I am aware of the positive
impact of the technological tools and educational platforms on today’s digital
native students, I did not want to be stuck on the coursebook activities. So, to
take the attention of the students and to engage them to the class actively, I
tried to focus on having a student-centered environment. I utilized from many types
of authentic materials, tools such as Worldwall, Kahoot, Quizlet, and prepared
some activities which promoted students to have critical thinking, brainstorm,
and interact with each other in learning and post-learning stages. For example,
in one of my classes, they were supposed to practice some vocabularies about
climate and environment. So, I wanted them to imagine themselves as an activist
having an interview who fights for protecting the world and tries to inform
people about how to save the world. Then, I asked them for advice about the
climate, and they created several sentences with the related vocabularies. As another
vocabulary teaching example, I represented a song about climate supported with
an animation. Also, students were able to check the lyrics of the song at the
same time. So, it was useful for them in terms of improving listening,
pronunciation, and spelling. Even the most passive students raised their hands
to answer the listening related activity. In addition to the advantages of digital
tools in learning, such authentic materials and activities also helped me to
observe the knowledge and abilities of the students. Because interactive and
collaborative activities keep students active, teachers become able to observe
the progress during the learning process as a formative assessment technique without
any special test or evaluation tool.
Moreover, all
the strategies I have learned for an interactive, student-centered, and effective
teaching/learning environment will help me in the future as far as I believe.
The expectation of the today’s digital natives will be much higher in the
future. So, developing my own proficiency skills and integrating the technology
into my teaching process will help me to make my students active participants,
motive, and engage them in their own learning process.
