I interview a teenager, from Manhattan High School. He is in 10th Grade. I interview him because he likes to surf internet a lot, will always stick with his Nokia N95 cell phone. His father is my friend from Saudi Arabia. They arrived here last January.
* I= Interviewer S= Student (Abdul Rahman Al Khiary)
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I: What do you always use to communicate?
S: My cell phone.
I: what type of cell phone that you have?
S: Nokia, Nokia N95.
I: How does it differ with I-phone?
S: Actually it is almost the same, but I think it is better than I-phone. More features compared to I-phone.
I: How often do you use your cell phone?
S: He is my best friend. I bring him where ever I go.
I: How about your friends? How do they contact/communicate with you?
S: By email, but they prefer to use cell-phone (texting).
I: Do you think that other adults use technology differently they way you and your friends use it?
S: What do you mean?
I: Let me put it this way, how do you see your father use technology? Does he have other device differently from yours when it comes to communication?
S: Yes, he uses cell phone too. He has blue tooth device. He uses computer too. I prefer to know the latest update on Nokia phones but my dad does not really care about it.
I: What about internet? Do you have special search engine that you use to get information?
S: No, I use any kind of information as long as I get it. My dad will monitor first the website that I would like to surf.
I: What about your dad?
S: He prefers to use Google.
I: Do you use any gadgets beside your phone?
S: What is gadget?
I: Do you watch cartoon “Inspector Gadget”?
S: No.
I: Inspector Gadget is a character in cartoon; he has lots of special devices helping his work as investigation officer. Well…Gadget is a … You can use the dictionary in your phone to search for the meaning?
S: (searching using the dictionary software in his phone)…it says small machine. Is it like blue tooth? I use my dad blue tooth sometimes.
I: Yes, one of them. What do you like to learn in school if money is not a problem for you?
S: I want to have video conferencing for few subjects. For example, I can have face to face discussion asking and interviewing stock broker from Wall Street or New York. I think teacher is not enough nowadays.
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When I was about his age, I had to bring dictionary to school (which was very heavy). It is important to see how he applies and use the technology to help him to learn and improve his vocabulary. Noticing that he is second language learner, I believe that’s why he perceives his Nokia as his best friend. I don’t see any much indifference of technology being used between him and his dad, except that he likes to know new and up to date information on stuff (cell-phone) that he uses. Also, I think he realized that through video conferencing can help him to have hands on/first hand information towards subjects/ areas that he is interested.
Event/Behavior:
My students failed reading test badly. The test is based on reading passage that I explained and taught them during class. Half of the class got 25%. Highest scorer was 45%. The test was based on article about Maze Tour in USA. I took it from SAT English sample. When I marked their paper, most of them did not answer questions, they left the paper blank except for some common sense questions. Before they handed in their test paper, I stressed to them that their final exam questions level of difficulty will be like what I provided them today.
Feelings:
• Frustrated
• Angry
• Ashamed
Thoughts:
I had a discussion with my colleague, a Geography teacher about insufficient general knowledge among students have, including this particular class. Since I am coming to United States soon, I thought it would be a great idea having them reading on Maze Tour in United States. This would be additional information for their general knowledge. It also will help to expand their perspectives on various interesting places in the world.
Also, I thought my students would feel bad and worried because they could not answer the questions. I thought that it was really bad of me because I don’t prepare their background schemata on the subject matter (Maze Tour in USA). I thought they must be afraid and stressful to sit for their English final paper soon. They must be terrified of my class in the future because I did sudden “pop quiz” to them.
Learnings:
Step One:
I assume all materials are okay to be used in classes as long as they are in English, and academic/subject related. (Geography, History and etc)
I assume students always ready to understand any kind of materials without considering their background schemata.
I assume students would like to read and learn what I like (in this case, I chose the article because I am coming here soon)
I assume students always ready to sit for any test.
I assume my teaching and instruction is clear.
Step Two:
It is my mistake to assume that students always ready to sit for any test. I should give them time to digest everything that I taught them on that day. It is not even valid because when I reflect back, I did not really know what I want to measure from that test. Is it their understanding, main idea from the passage? Furthermore I took the materials (reading passage and test questions) from SAT booklet. It is not culturally related to them, and Maze Tour in USA must be an alien concept to them because we don’t even have that in Malaysia. Basically, they don’t have any previous knowledge about this topic. Shame on me!!
Again, I put them on my shoes. My mistake is assuming my students are ready to learn any kind of materials that I bring to the classroom. This is actually putting students’ motivation and perceptions into risks. The materials may not suit them well due to the differences in their abilities and the materials are indeed difficult to them. I was wrong by putting them on my par. In this case, I use an approach called “myself centered” not student centered because what really mind to me when choosing the article was the excitation of coming to USA. I was selfish and did not care what my students need.
It is my grave mistake to assume my instruction and teaching was really good. They were not asking any questions to me. Being quiet is not always good. As a teacher, you have to suspect something is wrong when the silent is unusual. It is a sign of lack understanding. They just kept quiet when I explained to them because this is something new to them. They need time to process this new information. I just was neglecting the silence by explaining more and more. The time bomb exploded during the test. It reveals lots of my mistakes. I supposedly interacting with them and putting them into group so that I could see their interactions among them. Through their interactions in the group, I can see how far their understandings are. Sadly, I rushed them into pop quiz. I guess having a ticket out of asking what they understand from my everyday lesson is a good way of knowing their understanding and my teaching performance.
Step Three:
The idea of studying at United States was overwhelming to me since I was a teenager. I had the opportunity of having some friends studying abroad under scholarships. I requested them to send lots of beautiful landscapes pictures. I really admire them for having the opportunity to feel the enchanting experiences of other new places. This feeling lead me to search more about those pictures that they sent me, thus give me exposure to new ideas and vocabularies from it. On the other hand, my students might not have friends who study abroad like what I have, so their interests won’t be same like me. They might have different views on travelling.
My students are unique. They have different world that much more different but I believe interesting enough to explore. I hope I can explore on their individual preferred interests/hobbies. This will open up limitless possibilities of topics such as electronic, gaming and etc. in classroom lessons and discussions that I can use.
Application:
Step One:
I read today that students play an active role in construction of meaning by teacher assisting them in creating an environment of meaningful, context based contexts.1 Based on this, I should consider preparing lesson that not just related to language and content but at the same time celebrate their culture. This includes developing their background schemata as well.
Schemata are important for understanding. They are backbones, because when students read any texts, their brain will connect the text information to related knowledge and experience that are familiar to them.2In this case, the text is unbearable and difficult for them because of many reasons. Firstly, it is a SAT comprehension reading exercise, it is not their level and most of the words inside do not belong to their schemata. Thus, it does not fit their understanding. Secondly, they have never seen maze before. It means they can’t relate to their existing knowledge. They might have seen it before in television but still, it does not really build the concept/understanding of what maze is. It might be about something else such as agronomy of corn rather really focuses on Maze Tour in USA.
According to Jeff Zwiers (2004), teacher can connect the text information to students’ schemata by focusing on visualization technique. It is to create mental images and associations so that students can adapt their understanding to the text given.3 In my case, I should introduce to them what is maze by providing pictures first. A documentary video viewing session on the topic should be helpful too. These I believe will help to create vivid mental images that can assist understanding of the text.
Step Two:
I will focus on knowing inside out of my students. Students are uncut diamonds.4A good diamond cutter will examine every angle of it to produce the best glimmering diamonds. When they keep their mouth shuts over something that they do not understand (i.e. my lessons), it means I created a gap. This gap might be due to my being excessive self centered by providing materials that matters to me and neglecting theirs. I am selfish.
I will also consider what kind of materials to be used in class. I can’t be too ambitious. Difficult test questions, SAT or GRE might have list of powerful vocabularies list but they are not necessarily good for my students.
When I was at college, I hate sudden pop quiz. Usually it is based on my memory retention ability rather than understanding. The main reason is I was not prepared. By giving them the quiz, it leads to no where. I should have told them and have my objectives fixed. Furthermore, comprehension takes time to develop. In this case, I repeat again the vicious cycle introduced by previous teacher.
In conclusion, providing meaningful learning experience is fundamental to my teaching. I must not neglect that. This can be achieved if my students understand my lessons and teaching. I believe this can be achieved by putting variance strategies into practices. I hope I won’t neglect this in the future.
References:
Herrera S.G.,Murry K.G,(2005) Mastering ESL and Bilingual Methods: Differentiated Instruction for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Students. Pearson Education, Inc.,(pg 216-217)
Zwiers J. (2004) Building Reading Comprehension Habits in Grades 6-12: A Toolkit of Classroom Activities. International Reading Assoc. (pg 54)
Ibid,(pg.56)
Jones T.G.,Fuller M.L (2003) Teaching Hispanic Children. Pearson Education Inc. (Preface), xi. It is taken from a Hispanic mother talking about Hispanic students in Arizona, “Our children are worth a little care..they are uncut diamonds, but no one wants to bother to dig from them and polish them”
Kembali lagi saya di pentas penulisan ini untuk membicarakan 9/11 secara teliti yang boleh berdasarkan kemampuan saya yang amat terbatas. Seringkali yang dibincangkan ialah siapa yang melakukannya, maka persoalan ini tidak akan saya jawab kerana ianya akan menimbulkan pelbagai spekulasi. Sebaliknya insha Allah akan kita temukan jawapannya nanti di akhir penulisan saya ini.
9/11 telah menjadi sejarah dan amat penting untuk kita renungi kembali agar punca puncanya dapat kita kaji dan elak di masa hadapan.
Hairan juga saya apabila kita melihat sesuatu peristiwa itu daripada perspektif mereka yang kehilangan, kita merasa sedih, kecewa dan marah. Sehari sebelum tarikh keramat ini, televisyen di Amerika memaparkan filem filem yang mengembalikan kembali nostalgia nostalgia tersebut dalam bentuk Air Force One, Rencana, Filem tentang Hijacking dan sebagainya. Perspektif rakyat Amerika tentang pengganas, tentang betapa zalimnya pengganas yang menembak dan membunuh orang lain yang tidak bersenjata. Perspektif ini telah dipaksa oleh mereka, dan ini sesungguhnya adalah sifat bangsa mereka yang selalu meng “imposed” nilai dominan mereka terhadap mereka yang lain yang di anggap lemah. Sesungguhnya ini yang aku pelajari daripada pemerhatian dan pembacaan aku berkaitan dengan budaya.
Aku dapati perkara yang sama berlaku di Malaysia menjelang kemerdekaan? Tayangan filem bersifat patriotik dipaparkan,dan saya tertanya tanya seolah olah tidak patriotik agaknya aku ini kerana aku tidak gemar menonton filem sedemikian dan aku habiskan masa aku dengan mengadakan diskusi di kalangan remaja Melayu agar mereka tidak terlibat dalam pesta seks pasca Malam Merdeka? Atau adakah patriotik mereka yang melaungkan merdeka merdeka merdeka dan kemudiannya terlibat dalam pesta seks dan lumba haram?
Jadi patriotik apa ini kalau sekadar dizahirkan di mulut? Hipokrit. Dan pelaung pejuang kebebasan dan demokrasi apa ini kalau pengeboman di Hiroshima adalah halal dan absah bagi mereka? Keamanan apa yang ingin dicapai mereka walhal dalam masa yang sama tidak pernah perspektif “keamanan” setiap hari yang dialami oleh warga Palestine selama 50 tahun kebelakang ini?
Apa tidak ada nilai KAH perspektif mereka yang mati di Iraq kerana uranium bocor, atau mayat yang bergelimpangan atas nama Operation Infinite Reach? Pernahkah kita melihat perspektif sedemikian? Atau perspektif ini tidak POPULAR kerana mereka tidak ada media dan suara yang kuat untuk menyatakan apa yang mereka alami dan rasai ketika anak anak mereka mati?
Saya terpanggil dan memanggil anda untuk melihat dan membaca temuramah Tayseer Al Alouni. Cari sendiri.
Rasa rasanya dah 13 hari Ramadhan berlalu, dan aku di sini tidak tahu dan tidak pasti adakah bulan transformasi ini meletakkan aku di mana mana selepas ini? Octimus Prime mungkin. Oh tidak, itu tidak mungkin. Octimus Prime hanyalah ciptaan Amerika, aku pula yakin jauh lebih mulia daripada itu. Andaikata itu adalah pilihan terakhir aku maka lemparlah aku ke dalam neraka kerana aku sanggup.
Aku tergamam minggu lepas selepas mendapat sumber daripada Sri Lanka dan Bangladesh mengatakan bahawa bahawa episod pengeboman yang berlaku di rantau tengah kebanyakannya disebabkan oleh “bad information”. Yang menyedihkan aku lagi semua itu berlaku berpunca daripada mentaliti masyarakat Afghan yang sanggup membuat fitnah gara gara ingin merasai dan memegang sekeping USD 5 atau 10. Yang mengejutkan aku lagi ialah betapa sekeping kertas cetakan tersebut mampu meragut nyawa. Itulah nilaian atau value yang dipunyai oleh mereka.
Sumber kejahatan sudah tentu mereka yang membekalkan wang. Yang membekalkan wang pula cita citanya untuk dominasi dunia atas nama kebebasan sejagat. Aku tidak nampak apa yang dinamakan kebebasan apabila menjajah tanah air lain itu namanya kebebasan. Nyata kebebasan yang dibawa itu bukan sahaja daripada segi ekonomi malahan imposing dominant culture on others.
Aku tertanya apa yang akan berlaku apabila ekonomi sudah lumpuh, wang tidak mampu diberikan. Apa lagi yang tinggal ketika itu? merebut wang dari tangan mereka yang sememangnya ada? Ini rompakan!!
Angkuh..Cuba lihat dan tonton rancangan Kartun King Of The Hill. Percayalah kau nanti!!! Hahahahaha..
Name: Secret
ID: Secret
Subject: EDCI 755
“What does your mirror look like?”
I don’t believe there is a perfect mirror. I don’t really see myself there. My real self. If I see myself it is just my reflection. My reflection is upon my thoughts and how I see myself. Actually it depends, if my mirror is good, no defect and the surface reflection are 90 degrees straight, it is good. If that is the case, the problem is I don’t bring my mirror everywhere. I depend much on any kind of mirrors I find outside, it can be lake reflection on sunny day or mirror on the toilet wall. They are not perfect due to winds blow or etc. I notice also, I tend to groom myself in front of any mirror. Positioning of necktie and belt, I want to be looked well, tidy and handsome.
My mirror (read; mind) says I am Malay. My physical features say that I am Malay. I speak Malay language, I have small physical features, I eat rice, I come from Malaysia and the never ending list goes on and on. If I and Indonesians are put together in a room, there will be no distinct features to differentiate us. We are alike. Our language is the same except for the accents and some vocabularies. If we are Muslim, we are more than alike. We are brothers. I can’t say I am superior to him or her. There is no barrier between us except piousness. No one can measure that because it belongs to God (read: ALLAH).
Anyway, even my mirror looks like that, I don’t really implement it. There are certain elements in my soul direct me to that. Is it an ego? Or Can I blame the red little devil on my shoulder? I know the answer. I don’t bring my mirror everywhere!!
In a Snow White and Seven Dwarfs tale, a Witch always asked the mirror, “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Her mirror was not good at all, lead to her destruction. There must be a crack on it, it lead her putting too much envy and jealousy upon Snow White. In Islam, it is stated to purify our mirror and clean it. The urge is strong. It is mention that the most important part of our body is heart as has been mentioned by our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh):
“Indeed there is a piece of flesh in your body that, if it be sound, then the whole body will be sound and if it be corrupt then the whole body will be corrupt. Indeed it is the heart.”1
Reference:
1. Sahih al-Bukhari [1/49] & Sahih al-Muslim [1599]
When integrating technology into the classroom, the teacher must understand the effectiveness of the Milkin PCC self assessments and what they are able to contribute to their current technology assessment. Just realizing the weakness and strengths in certain technology areas is not enough. First, teachers must be convinced that technology is essential in transforming them from teachers that use only traditional methods of teaching and learning into facilitators that guide students in a more self directed learning path. Technology helps students to improve cognitive skills. Exploring the software and tools available opens them to hands on learning, including how to correct their own mistakes. Technology helps students to be more actively involved. They will experiment with tools, engaging in learning processes such as synthesizing information, compiling, compare and contrast and many more.
After realizing the benefits of technology in education and knowing our level of self assessments (Milkin PCC), then we can better see our direction and current capabilities to integrate technology into teaching. Transformation level teachers have a distinct advantage in this task. Most the time, they will be a resource to others, contributing to professional growth and support systems. Adaptation and entry level teachers can help propagate restructure in the school setting to accomplish the technology integration goals. They can act as a model for active learning, applying technology to the learning task and develop interaction among students through cooperative learning.
Ideally, administrators would make technology integration a priority by having an adequately funded budget for buying computers and other equipment. Sadly, fulfilling the needed role of technology in education is slow to come to fruition. As an Adaptation and Entry level teacher visiting the Language Lab, the needed staff support from a paraprofessional/technician was never available. Support is not available during later hours because of very tight budgets in regard to computer lab maintenance. This seems to happen often to facilities that are in the transformation stage of development. Changing from traditional to restructured schools is difficult to accomplish and most schools are not prepared to meet the challenges. I don’t think skimping in the area of technology support is the most practical plan to reach the integration goals of our school. Transformation is not possible without these workers there to guide and train the users.
Reflection Wheel Journal #1
Event/Behavior:
My CLD student absents from class after knowing that she got a low mark for class participation. I knew this from her close friend. A day before, I remembered calling her to my office telling her to be vocal and actively participate in order to score. I remembered also using the word passive to her. Prior to that, (during a class session) I called her to speak in front of classroom, asking her opinions and at the same time correcting her grammar and vocabularies.
Feelings:
- Confused
- Frustrated
- Sad
Thoughts:
As a teacher that concerns my students’ improvement and grade, I meant nothing harmful to her. I don’t want her passiveness to encumber her growths as L2 English speaker. I thought she felt useless because of her inability to participate actively in classroom. Furthermore, her inability to speak fluently compounds her belief that I do discriminate her. I thought she felt afraid to talk by perceiving in her mind that I and her colleagues evaluating her grammar and communication abilities. I think she feels down because I labeled her as being passive student.
Learnings:
Step One:
I assumed all students love talking and can participate in classroom activities.
I assumed all of my students are the same when it comes to learning strategy and preferences.
A potential bias I had was it is okay to label student as being passive as motivation.
Step Two:
It is my mistake to assume all students love participating in classroom activities. She might think that I will ask her more questions in front of class so that she will be an active student and at the same time having a chance to evaluate her grammar and finding her mistakes so that she can loose her face in front of her colleagues. This is actually a personal attack on her ability. It damages her pride. I do realize it is wrong to label student regardless of what my good intention was, because words or name calling to students can give negative impact if the student interprets wrongly. Also, students learning strategy and differences should be celebrated and cherished because they are unique. Based on TESOL ESL Standards for P-12 Teacher Education Programs, teacher must understand and apply knowledge of the role of individual learner variables in the process of learning English.1
Step Three:
My father was an army. His style of motivating me is ‘special’ or I can say it is more to military style. He taught me that whenever other people tried to underestimate me, I should response back by proving that their notions were wrong. I should perceive it as challenge. I guess I can apply the same thing when I want to motivate my student which turns out to be wrong. Also, when I attended my school (during my teenagers), my teacher would correct my errors openly, and I believe, she did in a good faith and with best intentions. So I just did the same of what she did to me by applying it to my student. I put my trust on my teachers as I put it to my parents. I do not question their authorities or intentions. Parents are respected in our culture; it goes the same to teachers. Most of the time, teachers are equivalent to parents in term of their status. This is due to the nature of their jobs which is conveying knowledge and information. In my culture, we are encouraged to speak in public, to voice out our opinions and to share so that others will know what you really live the events around you.
In this case, my student comes from a totally different world; the way she is being brought up is different and she did not go through my stages of upbringing. Imposing my way of life and my way of thinking (perspective) is totally damaging to her. We live in colorful world and diversity, culture, race and religion are the things that make it. These will lead to different perspectives and understanding. My student’s dignity as individual that has different culture creates the colorful world I mention above should be respected and appreciated.
Applications:
Step One:
The reaction of her is a reflection of my inept professionalism as a bilingual ESL teacher. I should read and discover more about my students’ backgrounds and cultural differences so that this incident won’t happen. CLD students are in fact the asset because they will give me opportunity to delve further into multiple cultures and ethnicities thus enriching my experiences.2
It is clear that “we treat all students the same” obstructs meaningful instruction and learning because it leads me to neglecting them.3 Also it shows my instruction does not fulfill the standard of CEE guiding principle to develop my lessons based upon previous education, cognitive abilities and language proficiency level. Watching movies or starting a background research on my CLD students’ backgrounds is a good step towards understanding them better. By doing this, many elements within the culture of my CLD students that I do not know about will emerge. This will be additional feedback and information that is valuable to me.
Step Two:
I will take specific notes so that this incident won’t happen again in my class. Instead of asking her to speak in front of class and correcting her publicly, next time, what can I do is by letting her to speak in groups. In developing her confidence, I will value her answer by responding to the content of her ideas rather than focusing on her grammar and encouraging interaction within group to develop her confidence. It is important to note that I should view back my opinion of students being active in class because different cultures have different interpretation on that, for example, in my CLD student’s culture (the one that I am discussed now), being mentally active in class is listening actively in class, maintaining harmony and not showing off in contrast to my culture that acknowledged outspoken and openness.)
I want my student to know that their education and improvement is important regardless of where they are coming from. I want them to realize as well that teachers do make mistakes but education is about learning and to improve. Importantly, the incident happened should not thwart off learning. Educating, understanding our students are our first priority because who ever they are, they are accepted, cherished and celebrated well in our education institution.
References:
- Herrera S.G, Murry K.G. (2005) Mastering ESL and Bilingual Methods (Differentiated Instruction for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Students.)( pg.3) Pearson Education, Inc, USA
- Ibid. pg 11
- Ibid. pg 17