This year is my first time to be on a personnel committee. It is a interesting experience to be on the other side of interview.
I am getting a sense for how CVs are screened for interviews. I got a packet of a very large number of CVs for a job opening that was recently posted and had to create a short list very quickly under pressure before a meeting to compare my short list with the other members of the committee. It is VERY important to have a resume that is easy for the committee members to scan quickly and find the main things we are looking for: final degree with a MA in TESOL or something related, teaching experience especially at the college level in Japan, research interests and publications related to what we do in the ELP.
Some resumes are hard to read in terms of not putting priority information or a summary at the beginning.
This weekend I'll do my first interviews. What will I ask? How can I probe whether a candidate will be effective here in the ELP?
2011年5月22日日曜日
2011年5月17日火曜日
To Be And To Have...a peaceful, reflection-prompting teaching film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318202/
I would recommend this for teacher training seminars and any other groups to discuss what it means to be a teacher.
From a review on IMDb "Those are right who've called this film a meditation on the mysteries of childhood. It's a meditation all right. Its slow microscopic observation makes it that. It makes you ponder a lot of things: childhood, teaching, retirement; the nature of the documentary process. You realize there are no rules about how minute or how comprehensive a documentary must be; that the best ones – and this is one of the best – are certainly both.
The ability of a teacher to listen to students as well as direct them becomes very clear in many situations."
Another key point is the connection between students performance in school and their home environment, and how parental support of learning is important for helping students do well.
So we recorded videos of student discussions...now what?
I am trying to re-assess a teaching practice I have conducted two or three times.
In my speaking classes, I have students do discussions and record their discussions on videos.
Goal of the Activity:
1. Give students a chance to see how they are communicating in discussions and set goals for improvement.
2. Nothing else? Perhaps to accumulate data for research on student speaking needs and improvement goals.
Steps:
1. Students take turns leading a discussion on a topic of their choice and one member of the group acts as the camera person using a small video device.
2. I take the video files and make them available to students. This can be done in a variety of ways such as burning a DVD so students can check it out and watch/download their videos, posting them on a webserver and giving students links, posting them on YouTube and sharing the link with them, or posting them on a Moodle page. Each way has pros and cons. The fastest way is still the DVD burning, but that is not convenient for students. In addition to convenience, privacy is a consideration. The safest way to control access to videos is to email each student a private, possibly secure link to their video so they can download it or share it with their classmates as they like. The ideal way would be for each student to get their own video on their own device like a cell phone...but many don't have enough memory.
So...this week...I am going to upload videos to YouTube and either email restricted links to students or give them access via a class account.
3. Students will come to a lab, watch their videos, take notes, fill out some kind of analysis form with self-ratings on skills, transcriptions of key phrases they used, and goals and plans for improvement. The form can be paper, which is easiest for students and myself, or it can be an electronic survey form, like a Google Spreadsheet form or a Moodle Feedback module.
4. Finally, students will discuss their improvement goals and plans. The assumption here is that some explicit awareness of their needs, improvement goals and plans for speaking practice based on watching their own videos will help students move toward proficiency in those skills in a more efficient, focused way. Of course, it is possible that spending time for "more practice" instead of "stop and reflect" will lead to better proficiency...but my working theory is that in the long term, students who have a clear idea of what they want to work on will make more progress.
That would be interesting to examine somehow with a comparison of two groups: those whose teachers gave them time to reflect and those who did not. What will the difference be?
Mark
In my speaking classes, I have students do discussions and record their discussions on videos.
Goal of the Activity:
1. Give students a chance to see how they are communicating in discussions and set goals for improvement.
2. Nothing else? Perhaps to accumulate data for research on student speaking needs and improvement goals.
Steps:
1. Students take turns leading a discussion on a topic of their choice and one member of the group acts as the camera person using a small video device.
2. I take the video files and make them available to students. This can be done in a variety of ways such as burning a DVD so students can check it out and watch/download their videos, posting them on a webserver and giving students links, posting them on YouTube and sharing the link with them, or posting them on a Moodle page. Each way has pros and cons. The fastest way is still the DVD burning, but that is not convenient for students. In addition to convenience, privacy is a consideration. The safest way to control access to videos is to email each student a private, possibly secure link to their video so they can download it or share it with their classmates as they like. The ideal way would be for each student to get their own video on their own device like a cell phone...but many don't have enough memory.
So...this week...I am going to upload videos to YouTube and either email restricted links to students or give them access via a class account.
3. Students will come to a lab, watch their videos, take notes, fill out some kind of analysis form with self-ratings on skills, transcriptions of key phrases they used, and goals and plans for improvement. The form can be paper, which is easiest for students and myself, or it can be an electronic survey form, like a Google Spreadsheet form or a Moodle Feedback module.
4. Finally, students will discuss their improvement goals and plans. The assumption here is that some explicit awareness of their needs, improvement goals and plans for speaking practice based on watching their own videos will help students move toward proficiency in those skills in a more efficient, focused way. Of course, it is possible that spending time for "more practice" instead of "stop and reflect" will lead to better proficiency...but my working theory is that in the long term, students who have a clear idea of what they want to work on will make more progress.
That would be interesting to examine somehow with a comparison of two groups: those whose teachers gave them time to reflect and those who did not. What will the difference be?
Mark
2011年5月16日月曜日
2011年4月24日日曜日
BlackBoards...a very different world brought into our living room by film
I got this on Amazon after seeing it featured in a list of movies about education.
It is about education...sort of, but not really. There is a man who carries a blackboard on his back and walks in the mountains looking for pupils...but he does very little teaching because most of the children he meets are not interested in learning.
Here is the director, a young female Iranian director named Samira_Makhmalbaf
It is a film that gives you a glimpse into life in the mountains of Kurdistan and the realities of being a minority group caught between Iran and Iraq with...it seems...no place to settle.
It is hard to watch. I'm not sure whether to recommend it or not. You should watch it if you want to experience a lifestyle and a culture that is very hard to related to and understand.
The fact that this movie was made is amazing in itself. How else would we learn about how the Kurds live?
I watched it to the end, but frankly, I need someone to help me understand it. From beginning to end, the movie is full of things I cannot related to or understand the rationale for. There may be good reasons for why the actors do what they do, and say what they say, but it is very hard to follow.
The director is quoted as saying
So...why do those teachers carry those massive blackboards on his backs and roam the mountains looking for pupils? Why does he marry a girl along way suddenly and divorce her shortly after?
The metaphors of the film fill you with ???????
My children were watching it along with me, and they were full of questions. It was a good chance to show them that many children around the world have to work hard to live, and do not have the luxuries that kids in Japan take for granted.
It is about education...sort of, but not really. There is a man who carries a blackboard on his back and walks in the mountains looking for pupils...but he does very little teaching because most of the children he meets are not interested in learning.
Blackboards -Trailer from Fabrica on Vimeo.
Here is the director, a young female Iranian director named Samira_Makhmalbaf
It is a film that gives you a glimpse into life in the mountains of Kurdistan and the realities of being a minority group caught between Iran and Iraq with...it seems...no place to settle.
It is hard to watch. I'm not sure whether to recommend it or not. You should watch it if you want to experience a lifestyle and a culture that is very hard to related to and understand.
The fact that this movie was made is amazing in itself. How else would we learn about how the Kurds live?
I watched it to the end, but frankly, I need someone to help me understand it. From beginning to end, the movie is full of things I cannot related to or understand the rationale for. There may be good reasons for why the actors do what they do, and say what they say, but it is very hard to follow.
The director is quoted as saying
Makhmalbaf describes it as "something between reality and fiction. Smuggling, being homeless, and people’s efforts to survive are all part of reality... the film, as a whole, is a metaphor."[2]
So...why do those teachers carry those massive blackboards on his backs and roam the mountains looking for pupils? Why does he marry a girl along way suddenly and divorce her shortly after?
The metaphors of the film fill you with ???????
My children were watching it along with me, and they were full of questions. It was a good chance to show them that many children around the world have to work hard to live, and do not have the luxuries that kids in Japan take for granted.
The World Peace Game by John Hunter
This TED talk shows a form of interactive, stimulating education that I hope to achieve in my own classrooms somehow.
John Hunter developed a game called the World Peace Game, and he and his fourth grade class are featured in a movie about how they develop an understanding of the world and practice their communication and critical thinking skills through the game board.
I would like to see more games like this come out, and possible use them as projects or tasks for students to practice their English communication and thinking skills.
John Hunter developed a game called the World Peace Game, and he and his fourth grade class are featured in a movie about how they develop an understanding of the world and practice their communication and critical thinking skills through the game board.
I would like to see more games like this come out, and possible use them as projects or tasks for students to practice their English communication and thinking skills.
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