All posts by Junqi Huang (Kay)

Digital classroom

Blurring the In-School Ouf-of-School Line, Urban Adolescents

MVP 7

Passage: “Online is a place of words and pictures, signs and symbols that help to express the fragility of our existence and the brilliance of our human bonds. “

Kirkland, D. E. (2009). Researching and teaching in the digital dimension. Research in the Teaching of English, 44(1), 8-22.

Digital Classroom

I totally agree with this passage because now is a digital era. Online is a magic place. Sometimes, it connects people tightly, but sometimes it estranges people from each other. For example, everyone has cell phone in these days. The benefits of cell phone makes every one can be easily to find others in anytime everywhere; however, because of the popularity of cell phone, some people might only make a call instead of visiting each other, which reveals people’s “fragility of existence”.

To extend the technology in the classroom, this class, the Adolescent learners in Urban Context, gives us a wonderful example. Professor Doucet uses blog to engage everyone in class discussion, especially for those “silent students”. It aids to bridge the tight bonds between teachers and students; students and students. Also, I read an article about the idea of digital classroom. It shows that many students are not interested in English class at first. But since the teachers use blog to present the class ideas, they start to use technology (the blog) to accomplish worksheet, they take more time on practicing. Then more time they spend on the blog, more practices they do and more efficient and productive they are. Therefore, the teachers consider that bring the technology into class helps to keep kids focus on task and thus improve their understanding to the structure and function of English. Based on these examples, I believe the digital experiences help “silent students” be more actively in class participation, and leads teachers to know more about their students’ needs.

 

TED Talks-Amazing tool for presenting ideas in classs

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Media and Technology Critiques, Urban Adolescents

Media Critique

Junqi Huang (Kay)

TED Talks-Amazing tool for presenting ideas in class

Nowadays, it is the era of science and technology. One coin has two sides. On one hand, technology makes our lives more easier, such as we can communicate every where with our cellphones; we can pay various bill by a push of a button; and we can rely message more efficient with text and email; on the other hand, sometimes technology still has its cons. For instance, our personal information can hacked and be exposed to the cyber world. If the computer with important information is down, we might be hard to retrieve the information we needed. Nevertheless, as educators, we find that technology can be utilized as useful tool in class.

As I was in college, TED Talks seems to become a mainstream tool for teacher to present concept in the class. I remembered the first time I was exposure to TED Talks was in sociology class. The professor was presenting the topic of the bias of gender. In order to direct her students to form critical think in the subject matter, she showed us a short presentation, called “Killing us softly” from TED Talks. The speech impressed me. After watching the presentation, I felt like I accessed large amount of information from it in such a short time. Since then, I start watching some interesting presentations from TED Talks. When I watch speech from TED apps, I can also choose either to show the subtitles or not. For my understanding, reading subtitles while watching TV or video is beneficial for people to learn English, especially for the people who are at the beginner level. It helps people to understand the concepts better. Therefore, I believe the TED Talks is able to enhance students’ language level.

In a classroom, motivation plays an important role in students’ learning process. I believe those amazing speeches from TED Talks are able to grab students’ attention, especially for adolescents.  Adolescents are energetic and on-going processing the knowledge from the world. TED Talks is divided into many categories. Every topic is related to the social factors and reveals the common phenomenon in the society. Each presentation is well organized and precise. In class, teacher can teach class by showing them one of related presentation; and then, lead them to think critically. According to previous class, we notice that teenagers are lack of concentration. However, the TED Talk only required a short amount of time to watch, which aids students to access the largest amount of information in the least amount of time period.

In general, there could be a downside for the TED Talks, but either playing an educator’s role or student’s role, I only see the advantage of the TED Talks. It helps students to open their mind and gain a deeper understanding of new concepts.

Roles of Teachers

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Urban Adolescents

MVP 6-Kay

Quote: “While this means that teachers cannot take the traditional role of ‘expert’, this role is shared with students; it does not imply that teachers adopt an ‘anything goes’ response to media and popular culture. When engaging students with critical media literacy, teachers must try to move fluidly between roles, ranging from that of learner to that of guide, and sometimes ‘’authority.”

— Gaine Gainer, J. (2007).

Social critique and pleasure: Critical media literacy with popular culture texts 

Roles of Teachers

               I agree that teachers play multiple roles while teaching. For my own understanding, the role of learner means to learn from students. In the class, not only do students learn from teachers, but also teachers learn from students. This is where the “differentiation” strategy presents. As long as knowing and understanding the student’s individual needs, teachers are able to accessing their thoughts and offering help to them. Next, the role of guide is based on the role learner. According to students’ needs, teachers are capable of directing them to achieve their goals. I think that is why “group discussion” activity is teachers’ favorite. During group discussion, teachers can walk around and check if the students digest the knowledge. If not, they can lead them to see things in different angles. I remember that from last class, when our group got stuck on the case’s problem, professor Doucet raised a question in order to guide us think in different way. As result, we came up several key effects of the case study in the end.  Finally, I would say the role of “authority” is for teacher to examine if the materials are appropriate and relevant to the class. If yes, then teachers can use the materials to present the concepts. For example, I learned the strategy, “read aloud”, from last week. I knew that using story to present concepts and ideas are able to motivate young kids learning in class. Such “flexible roles of teachers” make me feel that as educators, we not only educating knowledge to students, we also help them to realize and develop their full potential in life.

Friendship Improves Learning

Socioemotional and Psychological Development in Adolescence, Urban Adolescents

MVP 5

Response to the article—“Social emotional identity trials of young adolescence”

Friendship Improves Learning

                 In the article, the author mentions, “Relationships and conversation between friends can boost young people’s self-esteem and reduce anxiety as trust and respect develop.” It shows that the role of peers plays an important role in students’ cognitive development. It helps to enhance the self-esteem and lower the level of anxiety. Speaking of language learning, I think interacting with capable peers is beneficial to develop the ability of oral skills. For those kids who start learning second language, they might be anxious to talk in front of people. When they interact with capable peers, they observe, learn and internalize the language skill their peers use. For example, those kids who have higher level at oral skills would talk more in the discussion. In this case, their partners listened carefully what they said. When it was their turns, they would try to model what their partner said. By the time they were satisfied with the success of language use, their self-confidence and self-esteem might be also increased. Eventually, they might feel more confortable and “fearless” to talk.

 

Communication between Teachers and Students

Biological & Cognitive Development in Adolescence

MVP 4—Response to Understanding the Young Adolescent’s Physical and Cognitive Growth

Junqi Huang (Kay)

Communication between Teachers and Students

            According to the article, during adolescence, children are expected to going through many physical and mental changes. They start to notice the changes of their bodies; they start to develop a more mature sense about themselves and they start to think deeply and explore their life plans. Throughout the article, the definition of “metacognitive thoughts” is impressed me. The author mentions that metacognitive ability is the reflection of students’ learning attitudes toward academic work. In order to help students create a set of learning strategies, teachers need to “communicate” with them. I believe communication between students and teachers has an impact on students’ academic work. For example, when students fail the exam, the failure might either motivate them to identify the causes, try new strategies and seek advices; or to make them escaping from being challenged. In this case, educator plays an essential role to lead adolescence back on the right track, showing them the pathway to overcome the challenge.