The Change from Adopting a Passive Learning Process into an Active One!

 What is a thing that you are able to do now and wasn't able to do it a year ago!

Self improvement: A better version of yourself!

During my first year of teaching, I used to be the only active part in the classroom as my teachers used to do. All I wanted was to finish the lessons in lesser number of sessions as much as possible and cover the book. I used to explain the concept or idea, solve exercises in front of the class, and ask them to memorize and solve similar exercises in the same way I've done. Little had been the students who participated or asked questions in the class. So, kind of it was a very direct and passive, teacher-centred approach that was followed and this had made my sessions boring. 

It was up until I've done a 4 months training the following academic year about teaching strategies and started to follow the inquiry-based method where I introduce a question about the topic and relate it to the students' life experiences, use visuals and animations, present PowerPoints with videos, do easy experiments in class or at home when materials are available. They started to figure out the answer themselves through relating ideas together, analysing, making discussions in class guided by me, and hence reaching final conclusions. I realized that engaging students in the learning process rendered learning fun and meaningful for both of us, their participation in asking or solving questions and giving them the chance to discover the concept allowed them to better retain the required information and do better in assessments. Now, they truly enjoy the sessions, not shy to ask or express their thoughts, and always wait for more.

It was not easy at all. I was left to work on my own without having any experience and without any supervision or guidance. To make that move is one of the things that I feel so proud about. My desire to seek the best for the learners and make my sessions much more interesting and engaging was more than enough to think twice about the strategies I use in the class.  There is always one thing that should come into our minds while preparing a lesson: If you and the students didn't enjoy the learning process and the activities done, then you are not teaching appropriately. It is such an amazing feeling when you and your students are working genuinely, all your senses are involved, all your thoughts are organized and focused to reach and master the required outcomes and hence the ultimate goal of enjoying learning and always waiting for the next session. Improving my educator self on a daily basis is what I always seek which in turn makes me feel that I belong here and I can make a difference as long as I am trying and welling to give more, and learn more!

Concept Mapping: Definition, Elements, Steps, Uses in Education!

 A Simple Guide to Create and Use Concept Maps: Science Example!

Definition and Importance

When thinking about a certain concept, lots of ideas may come to our mind and may form a mess after a while making it difficult to grasp the main point or details about it. That's where a concept mapping comes in. 

A concept map is a visual way to organize your ideas and make connections between them as well. They improve our ability to understand and remember concepts because our brains process visuals more than texts. 

Elements

A concept map is made up of three basic elements:

• Shapes: representing concepts or ideas (rectangles or ovals).
• Arrows: showing the relationship between concepts. 
• Text: identifying the concepts and relationships. 

How to create a concept map?

1. Topic Identification + Focus question: The first step in creating a concept map is to identify the main concept or the subject of study. For example, I tried to map some of the thing that I know about the immune system. So, I drew a rectangle and wrote within it 'Immune System'. The main idea should be located at the top of the map as everything we write down falls under this main topic. One would say: 'But, I know lots of things about the Immune System!' like history of discovery, structure, function, and disorders. So, a concept map holding all of these information may become messy and hence unuseful. Therefore, it would be much better to focus on one 'Focal question' to specify the issue this concept map will be talking about. In this example, the focus question can be: What are the main types of Immune responses? 
2. Brainstorming: Now, we can start adding any related concept. They should be as brief as possible to avoid having a text-crowded concept map with less visual effects. In our example, we can use names of responses, cells, and organs. 
3. Drawing the map: The concepts should be arranged in a hierarchal format. The map should start with the main concept at the top and then end up with more specific concepts as we move down. The specific and non-specific immune responses are the broadest, so I put them under the main topic.
4. Connecting ideas: To show relationships between ideas, we draw arrows between them with a text that defines this relationship. It is better to use verbs to link concept together and use simple phrases as we move down the map. This is called a 'Proposition' So, when your map is finished, you'll have a set of propositions about a given topic. You may also create cross-links between  ideas to show how they are related together. 
5. Refining the map: Finally, you can add colours to organize ideas and review review the make to make sure of proper connections and probably add some more.

Uses in Education

In education, concept maps can be used as:

• Learning tool: as a visual presentation tool, while brainstorming, making outlines, or testing the knowledge of students. It is an effective tool for students to build on previous knowledge and create connections between newly learned and previously learned ideas.     
• Evaluation tool: to access students' understanding for a given topic and enhance their critical thinking skills while making connections between ideas. 

To create your own Concept maps

www.lucidchart.com is a site that I have used to make my own maps after creating an account or you may find templates for free on the internet! 

Enjoy mapping your lessons!

Online Assessment: Tools That Can Be Used!

 

Here are some tools for online assessment.. Set your belts teachers! 🔐📝

As teachers we understand the importance of assessment data in our instruction as this helps in guiding us regarding planning for any future lesson. This actually happens through the identification of any misconception and the continuous check for understanding of a given topic. However, with all the circumstances we are passing through nowadays regarding remote learning, it is a challenge to make sure that we are offering students meaningful lessons as well as assessments. So, basically, here are some ideas that we as teachers can use while performing online instructions and which in turn helps us in gathering assessment data that we need to move further. 

One of the tools that probably the majority of teachers are using is the Google Suite which includes Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Forms. These are considered as great ways to collect data when assignments are given on Google Classroom for example. These applications can be used in a wide array of assessment. For instance, Google Docs can be used to perform extra worksheets, or they can go even beyond that where students can use Google Slides to present a certain concept and play the role of the teacher themselves. Such tasks can be done either individually or as group work. In addition, Google Forms can be used in the form of quizzes which has the option of being auto-graded hence saving time and efforts in one way or another depending on the question types created. Exit slips on Google Slides or posting questions on Google Classroom are also other ways to use the Google apps in evaluating students' understanding.  

Another online assessment tool is Flipgrid which a platform that allows both students and teachers to post short videos of themselves answering a question or discussing a certain topic. This is considered as a funny way to assess students' understanding and let them present their ideas instead of using the regular paper-and-pen method. It can be also used in the closure part; at the end of the class to recap some major points discussed right away. When the teacher watches the video, he/she can easily identify any misunderstood ideas and basically clarify them. 

An extremely interesting and popular game-like platform is Kahoot. It allows the teachers to create online quizzes that can be done either individually or as small groups as well. It is engaging for students because it is done in a game-like and competition-like way. The teacher will be sharing the questions from his/her device and the students basically are going to observe the answers and interact with questions. Kahoot provides an opportunity for an active and engaging learning process using games which is a thing that kids will definitely enjoy. 

Pear Deck is another online assessment tool that can be used as an add-on in Google Slides. It allows teachers to insert interactive slides within their presentations. These are slides where students can submit responses or where you can insert polls that make the slides more interactive and more engaging as students will be giving real-time feedback. Speaking about real-time evaluation, other tools including Wordwall, Mentimeter, Jamboard, and Padlet are considered highly effective in summarizing some major points mentioned throughout the sessions so that teachers can figure out where do students stand and whether we can all move to the next step. They also include a wide variety of  game-like questions that students will definitely find attractive and hence get engaged in the activities posted or shared. 

These are actually some of the ideas about online assessment tools that we can begin using in our instructions to help save some time, efforts, and most importantly grasp our students' attention and make them feel involved, interested, and enjoying the learning taking place.