Jodee's Reflections

PLEASE POST ABOUT: (1) 3 TIPS FOR TEACHING/ CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT/ PLANNING GLEANED FROM MICROTEACHING. (2) GIVE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM YOUR OWN OR OTHER LESSON OBSERVATION.
1) Make seemingly difficult and obscure terms understandable and applicable to the students

At times, when we start out teaching students that we are not yet familiar with, we tend to overestimate or underestimate their abilities when it comes to teaching them new concepts. Especially for a subject like literature, where many carry a preconception that it is obscure, difficult to score in an examination and that it is irrelevant to their lives, I find it very important to keep that in mind, so that I can hopefully debunk those ideas in my lessons during the course of the year. I especially liked Andrea's simple activity where students got to experience discrimination as something arbitrary and senseless. This made a seemingly difficult idea immediately relatable and relevant by encouraging movement in the class, at the same time making literature fun.

2) Encourage a safe and participative classroom culture

Especially in a learning environment where students are expected to sit and absorb information that is being given to them, it might be difficult at the start to get students to voice out their opinions and speak up in class. I've learnt that it helps to lighten the classroom atmosphere with humour, as Brennan and Samuel have proven in their lessons. Their friendly and approachable tone of voice and questioning methods help encourage the students to attempt at providing answers to the questions posed. Debates such as those conducted in Wee Kiat and Damien's lessons also encourage a participative culture, and forces students to take a stand and defend their beliefs. This means that students are now active participants with a personal stake in their learning.

3) Making literature seem easy doesnt mean you have to dumb it down

I was impressed with the way Pepper, Mark and Jia Min incorporated difficult literary terms eg. metaphysical into their lesson to great effect - students were neither thrown into the deep end to struggle with the terms nor had the term drilled/force fed to them. In Mark's case they were taught to break down the larger term into its root word, and his explanations tapped on the student's prior knowledge by linking various other subjects such as geography and history in a true multi-disciplinary manner. Perhaps, it is important to remember that while we attempt to make literature simple and understandable, we still have to give them the right terms to work with, albeit with a gentle introduction, an interesting lead in activity or more scaffolding as they work through the meaning of the literary term.

Tiying's Reflections

PLEASE POST ABOUT: (1) 3 TIPS FOR TEACHING/ CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT/ PLANNING GLEANED FROM MICROTEACHING. (2) GIVE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM YOUR OWN OR OTHER LESSON OBSERVATION.

Tip 1) From my own microteaching, I learnt that while it is good to be firm and strict, too much firmness may impede the flow of discussion. Students need a safe environment before they feel like they can voice their opinions. 
In this aspect, I believe that Mark has done a really good job. His humor made his class fun and enjoyable, and I believe that his students will find class discussions and debates natural in class. I'm not a humorous person though, so I'll admire his classroom management style and create more scaffolding questions to help my students think deeper on the text.

Tip 2) It might be good to remember that students are not familiar with certain technical terms that we have taken for granted. Words like "feminism", "social stratification", are very confusing for students and they tend to lose interest easily. It would be good to spend more time dwelling on such words and allow students to develop an awareness and understanding of such words.

Tip 3) Brennan's debate class is also a good way of forcing students (like me) to speak out more in class. By having students discuss in groups first before having certain students present also allows them to have some mental preparation. So, instead of merely calling on students suddenly (and thus giving them the shock of their lives), it might be good for students to be prepared first. Their discussions would also be more productive, thoughtful, and responsible since they have more time to form opinions and justify them. 

Jason's Microteaching Reflections

PLEASE POST ABOUT: (1) 3 TIPS FOR TEACHING/ CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT/ PLANNING GLEANED FROM MICROTEACHING. (2) GIVE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM YOUR OWN OR OTHER LESSON OBSERVATION.


Protip #1: Always start with 'Once Upon a Time...' (Or rather, storytelling is one of the best ways to teach literature) 

I remember myself saying, at the very beginning of the semester, that the act of teaching literature is the act of storytelling. This notion was reinforced through the various micro-teaching sessions: from Samuel's simple made-up story to illustrate his point about 'fairness' to Brennan's hilarious story of being discriminated, and even to the silly story of the man climbing (and falling from) the plot diagram I came up with during my session. Beyond all the multimodal materials we have at our fingertips (such as comic strips or video clips), I feel that simple storytelling remains the most effective and imaginative way to engage students, because it requires an act of imagination (as opposed to having it visually flashed out in front of them), a skill that is absolutely essential to the appreciation of literary texts.


Protip #2: Too many cooks spoil the broth (Or rather, trying to do too many things ruin the lesson)

The beauty of literature is that everything is interrelated: but the problem about teaching literature is that you cannot really teach this interrelatedness in the classroom.  We all know that literary form is linked to technique  that is linked to narrative that is linked to conflict that is linked to theme that is linked to characterization. However, it is absolutely impossible to compress everything to the duration of one period: and so instead of trying to teach this interrelatedness directly in a single sitting, we should teach them the individual elements, then pull everything together at the end. Across the various micro-teaching sessions, there seemed to be a distinction between lessons that tried to achieve much and did little, and lessons that tried to teach one thing but made a huge impact on students understanding.  The flip side, exploring some aspects of interrelatedness also helps push students towards higher-order thinking: we must thus find the balance between depth and breadth. 


Protip #3: If unable to swim, enter at the shallow end! (Or rather, point of entry is everything)

Framing is incredibly important.  Through the course of my micro-teaching, I realized that there are many ways to approach the teaching of literary elements and devices: choosing the right point-of-entry is important to ensure student understanding.  If a ineffective point of entry is employed (like in my own micro-teaching), no amount of scaffolding will make up for the confusion that will result from students feeling disorientated.  Thus, I have to consider carefully what the students know at that point of the lesson, how the lesson is situated in the overall unit plan, and how each lesson element will flow into one another.  Throwing students into the 'deep end' and leaving out the swimming lessons will result in subsequent drowning.

Mark's microteaching reflection

PLEASE POST ABOUT: (1) 3 TIPS FOR TEACHING/ CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT/ PLANNING GLEANED FROM MICROTEACHING. (2) GIVE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM YOUR OWN OR OTHER LESSON OBSERVATION.

1) Less is more

After going through a myriad of lessons, i can safely say that the lessons that were most memorable, engaging and effective were those that were simple. I am sure many could attest that Brennan's and Liz's lessons were one of the most effective ones because of its simplicity and clarity (thank God, i didn't have to teach right after them). Those that had a lot to offer however, tend to stray off their learning objectives (main purpose of the lesson) and often risk being confusing for students. Let's face it, after spending time and effort preparing for lessons, we would be very tempted to execute everything that we have planned for. But like what Liz has proven (with a hard subject matter/theme like gender performativity), sometimes, spending more time to engage and arouse students' interest in the text proved to be more worthwhile; she didn't complete all that she has planned for but I still learned much more than those who had a lot to cover. There's no point completing the lesson or executing all that you have planned for if no one is following you. Every lesson is a journey. We need to bring all our students to the end point, even if it means slowing down so that others can hop on the bandwagon.

2) Action speaks louder than words

Andrea had an excellent pre-activity which made us visualize and experience how it is like to be discriminated. Similarly, Brennan's post-activity was just as effective and it made us see the impact of perspectives. Both of these activities had one thing in common: the use of movement. Whether or not it is a pre-activity or post-activity, the use of actions can be very helpful to ensure that students understand the intention of the lesson. Too much information and brain activity can cause students to forget what they have learned during lesson even though they have paid attention - short term memory. But while their minds are tired, their body might not and hence, getting them to move around to illustrate the main point of the lesson might prove to be an effective way to summarize what is about to be taught / what had been taught. 

Similarly, in teaching literature, those who used dramatic reading proved have executed their lessons effectively as well. For instance, Jodee's and Pepper's lesson which got us to dramatize the play and make literature come alive in the classroom was engaging for visual learners.

3) Classroom Management

I don't think there is a "one size fits all" tip for classroom management. But here's what I learned from my classmates.

Authoritative Tiying - The strict and firm nature of her voice and disposition made everyone pay attention to her so that she could carry on with her lesson proper.

Nurturing Melissa - This was a shocker! Melissa can be quite scary especially when something un-politically correct politically incorrect is mentioned. Having said that, she really did surprise me with the nurturing tone of her TEACHING voice which made me listen on to what she has to say/teach. Her voice is quite soothing to be honest. Andrea, Kit and Shumay also had this nurturing tone. 

Cheerful hunky-dory Brennan - Ever the charmer, Brennan made every heart melt and eyes focussed on him. On a serious note, Brennan's disposition and tone did inject some positive energy into a class of bored and tired students. 

That's all I have.

Happy Holidays Folks!!!!

Xin Hui's Microteaching Reflection

PLEASE POST ABOUT: (1) 3 TIPS FOR TEACHING/ CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT/ PLANNING GLEANED FROM MICROTEACHING. (2) GIVE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM YOUR OWN OR OTHER LESSON OBSERVATION.

1. Debates

Quite a number of our classmates used this method to get students to analyse and evaluate evidence gathered from extracts of their texts. Although Shu May was the one who first used this method in her microteaching, I felt that Wee Kiat and Brennan used it to the best effect, given that they got their students to examine an extract and pick out information for themselves, then have them discuss and present their case to a “jury” and the rest of the class. I felt that this distinguished their debate from the rest of the class because their students were required to exercise all the skills necessary for critical appreciation of their texts -- forming a stand (even if they were already assigned sides, they are still required to decide why they agree or disagree); selecting evidence; and explaining and evaluating their chosen quotes. The fact that they have applied all these skills makes it easier for the students to later translate their debate into a proper essay that they can write, which makes it easier for them to translate whatever they have learnt in the classroom into their writing.

2. Kinesthetic learning

The activity that left the most lasting impression on me is actually Andrea’s pre-activity, which she used to illustrate the arbitrary nature of racism. Amidst all the static pen-and-paper activities that make up the bulk of classroom time, allowing students to get up and sit on the ground, or play a little game, would inject some fun and positive energy into the classroom, as well as engage the kinesthetic learners. Additionally, the physical nature of the activity makes abstract terms (of which racism is one) feel much more concrete and real to the students, who would then find them easier to understand.

3. Use of ICT and online resources

Quite a number of our classmates used online resources to great effect in aiding them in the conducting of their lessons. Damien’s use of Google Docs in getting students to write down their answers to the task given helped to save valuable time in collecting and presenting answers, which would traditionally have been done either by getting students to write on butcher sheets or the whiteboard, and then getting them to present one-by-one. By using Google Docs, students could simultaneously record their answers and present them to the class via the computer and projector. Carmen’s use of AnswerGarden not only made recording answers to a wordsplash much more efficient (instead of the teacher having to record each answer by writing it down on the whiteboard one at a time, the answers now appear once the students have typed them), it also injected some fun into the lesson as students can now see their answers appear real-time on the whiteboard. Additionally, it gives every student a chance to speak, given that each student can now contribute his/her answers without having to wait for the teacher to call their turn (which would take quite a bit of time, resulting in only a few students being called each time). However, the use of ICT may not be feasible in every classroom. For one, every student (or every group at least) must have access to a computer, which may not always be possible given that the lesson will most likely have to be conducted in the computer lab, which may not always be available. Additionally, the use of computers may prove to be a double-edged sword, especially with classes where the students are easily distracted, as the students may end up surfing Facebook or other websites that will turn their attention away from the lesson.

Significant Moments and Multimodality

Read Significant moments in the life of my mother by Margaret Atwood. What multimodal possibilties are there for studying this short story? Also, what other thoughts do you have on multimodality in the Literature classroom?

The title of this short story can provide us with a clue as to how we can include multimodality while teaching this endearing short story to our students. First of all, we need to recognize the fact that Atwood's story is situated in a locale that is absolutely foreign to perhaps a majority of the students in class. There is both a time-place gap, the story is situated in a period with values and conceptions that are further from their knowledge of Canada or America.

I think we can use photographs of Canadian landscape to first familiarize the students with the almost rural background of the story. There is also a Feminist tone to the narrator's description of her mother. The students can be shown videos on the Women's Liberation movement of the 60s and its impact on women. They can then be asked to link what they saw from the videos to the story. A few moments from the film Monalisa Smile can be shown here, to show them how women were supposed to behave and how women who stepped out of the norm were treated. They can then be asked to infer from Atwood's story, how women are seen, how they are expected to behave and how any deviation from that behaviour affects them (for example, the mother's father would not fund her through college because he thinks she is "too frivolous-minded").

Multimodality is a reality and our students use different technologies and literacies without being aware of it. Therefore conventional literacies have a complementary role to play, utilizing the students' prior knowledge to enable them in constructing different kinds of meaning (Unsworth, 2001). Multimodality utilizes different semiotic systems to convey meaning (Bull and Ansley, 2010) and in a literature classroom it becomes of utmost importance, as using pictures and videos enables the students to visualize a situation that can be absolutely alien and unknowable for them. Different students have different learning systems, using multimodal texts caters to ones who are visual learners, learners with attention deficiency problems etc. Also, our students are digital natives and they connect better if we can pitch lessons utilizing technology and texts such as YouTube videos or films. The possibility in a literature classroom is therefore infinite.

Tips from Microteaching Lessons (Shu May)

I really enjoyed the microteaching lessons because I learnt so much from everyone. Some highlights and tips that I would like to implement in my future lessons are:

1) Dramatised readings -- I thought Pepper's idea of asking a few students to dramatise a paragraph from Fasting, Feasting while another student narrated was a great idea. I still vividly remember the orange-peeling scene as the dramatisation really highlighted the subjugation and sense of repression found in the text. I think that dramatised readings will be helpful for students who may not be strong readers. As they watch their classmates act out particular scenes, they might gain a more nuanced understanding of the text.

Dramatised readings can also be combined with the tableau idea that we explored in the Drama workshop. For instance, midway through a group's dramatised reading of a passage, the teacher could stop the class, ask the students to "freeze", and ask them to talk about their character motivations at that point. This could deepen the students' understanding of characterisation. It could also help the students understand that an actor's every movement on stage has to be significant and meaningful.

The main difficulty with carrying out dramatised readings is probably the uneven quality of acting. Some students might not be comfortable acting in front of the entire class, or the acting might give rise to unintended interpretations. I think that this is where the teacher has to come in and guide the dramatised reading where appropriate. For instance, to encourage and affirm the students' courage in acting, or to clarify any mis-interpretations that could have arisen due to the acting. Overall, though, I think that dramatised readings are an excellent way of bringing a text to life and I would like to try it out in future.

2) Tuning In Activities -- As mentioned by a few other classmates, I found several tuning in activities such as Andrea's discrimination activity, Samuel's littering activity and Brennan's story of his visit to Gramophone very effective. These tuning in activities were quick and simple to carry out, yet they effectively engaged the students' attention and linked well to the main point of the lesson.

I also experienced the confused state of a non-tuned-in student. During one microteaching lesson, I happened to be away in the washroom and missed the entire tuning in activity. When I returned, the class was deep in a discussion. Although my group members clued me in to what was happening, it was still a struggle to settle into the rhythm of the lesson. I was also quite clueless as to the main point of the lesson, which had probably been communicated earlier. This experience helped me to realise the importance of a good tuning in activity. Yet it is not just about the activity itself, but also about ensuring that the students are all on the same page before moving on to the main activity.

3) Use of Videos -- I liked how people such as Liz, Jodee and Xin Hui included videos in their lessons. Their videos were well-chosen and really made the lesson more interesting. One thing I'm pondering, though, is how much time we should spend explaining or discussing the video. When is it fine to let the video "speak for itself", and when should we go into an in-depth analysis of it? As a student, I may not want my teacher to belabour the point and dissect a video I've just watched until I lose my enjoyment of it. I'm still wondering how to strike a good balance in this matter, but maybe this will come with more experience.

So yup these are my thoughts on the microteaching lessons. Happy Holidays everyone!

Ed's Microteaching Reflection

Please post about: (1) 3 tips for teaching/ classroom management/ planning gleaned from microteaching. (2) Give specific examples from your own or other lesson observation.

(1) Assignment of Roles During Group Work

This was a strategy "pioneered" (at least in terms of our class) by Shu May, and also used by several other of my classmates. While it didn't seem like much to me at first, and I remember wondering why she was trying to do it, I felt later on that it did in fact have an effect in keeping students engaged and involved especially if students remind each other of their roles ("oi, you're supposed to keep noise down!"). This will be especially relevant when you have groups with stronger students, as will be the case in any class. In classes with less motivated students, they might just leave all the work to the strongest student (like how we make Wee Kiat do work) and then refuse to participate in the class. Having this system whereby everyone has a role to play will keep them all engaged when they otherwise might have drifted away.

However, if I could also add my 2¢-worth to the discussion, I feel that the "noise control guy" is perhaps a bit superfluous. While noise levels should be kept low enough not to distract others, it might leave the student assigned "noise control guy" a little bit adrift of the rest of the group, because he/she does not have other "responsibilities". In the activities amongst different teachers who used this method, I found myself more engaged if I was set a substantive task. Also, I feel that the presenter should not be pre-assigned, for this again gives rise to the temptation for the presenter to work doubly hard while the rest of the group slacks off. Having the students know that any one of them could be called to present should leave them more engaged.

(2) Get Them Moving

Andrea's lesson was the first amongst everyone of us, and till date still the most memorable for me. I have seen some teachers getting students to stand up and do stretching, and a Senior Teacher at my ESE School actually played a mini musical-chairs game when he found that the students were threatening to doze off in the afternoon heat. Having the students move around, even if just to shift seats, potentially perks a sleepy class up a little, but when a fun activity forcing students to move about is tied in together with the actual learning itself then the learning that takes place becomes something that is very powerful. I still remember exactly what about discrimination she was teaching that day, and it is these lessons that students will remember. Furthermore, it was succinct and did not take up too much time, unlike some fun activities that may take an entire lesson to complete.

I am hoping that I will be able to incorporate this into my teaching, even if at this point I cannot really figure out how it could have been used in my own lesson. 

(3) Injection of Nonsensical Stuff/Distractions/Fillers Within Lessons

Much was said about Samuel's laid-back style, Mark's use of Ris Low and the badly-photoshopped tablet threatening castration upon inattentive students, and I will also include my own use of the Gangnam Style video in this list. Much as we would like our students to be fully attentive and ready to absorb new and profound knowledge from our wise selves, I think that might be hard to expect from most students – even the ones with the highest ability. Students get distracted, tired, sleepy or chatty – basically hard to manage – for a variety of reasons. 

As such, I do personally feel that it is good for the lesson to be peppered with little distractions here and there – be it jokes, a funny picture or video. This will definitely help to recapture the students' attentions and get them onside for the remainder of the lesson. I personally made use of 9GAG Internet memes when teaching lower-sec students, littering them over some of my Powerpoint slides and getting them to respond/copy whenever they see one particular meme. In addition, it is a habit of mine to try and find a funny video or picture and try to relate to the lesson, as I have done (albeit not too connectedly, according to Dr. Loh's feedback) and as Mark had done too with the Ris Low part. I definitely am of the opinion that students remember the funny lessons best, and this will only aid their learning. 

Multimodality & Atwood

While I was reading "Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother", I found the way the stories were related in an episodic, almost unrelated, manner, particularly interesting. It is (to me) almost like the stories narrated are up for interpretation, for there seems to be quite a lot of tension underlying what the narrator is saying.

Like so many had posted before me, I feel that it will be useful for us to have some sense of how the students are reading into these Moments, to see what it is that they have interpreted from the words of the narrator. Hence, I would most likely conduct a dramatization of sorts so as to gain some insights into my students' imaginations. Like Pepper suggested before me, the tableau activity we did for the lesson on Kuo Pao Kun would be quite a fun one for students to do. For classes/students who aren't so adaptable to improvisation and/or having acting sprung upon them (some kids are shy - like me), perhaps getting them to choose a scene and write out the script first would make the activity more enjoyable.

What I mean is that, after getting students to read the text, we could put them into groups, get each group to pick one of these Moments they've read, and rewrite it into a short play to be dramatized in the next class (or something). With it, students could be assigned to prepare their rationale for choosing that particular Moment, their portrayal of the characters, or even what they feel the narrator is actually trying to convey in relating that story. After the dramatization from each group, they can be asked to share their thoughts about it, and the class can discuss the different interpretations so that they can all be exposed to different possible readings of the text.

Multimodalities -- Damien

Multimodalities and Atwood's "Significant Moments in the Life of my Mother"

Where my post is repetitive, I apologise. It does not set out to be. As I read Atwood's text I found my annotations picking up on instances of revelation/censorship, particularly in relation to the expected role of a wife/mother, and the subversion of that role (e.g. "... that my mother behaved properly by being suitably shocked. But my  other's eyes shine with delight when she tells this story. Secretly she thinks it funny that my father got caught out, even if only once." (10)). I also thought about the title, "Significant Moments", and about authorship -- who decides which are significant moments, who is narrating, whose narration is being presented to us as a narrative? Such a thought may be focalised by parts of the text like: "'But what could I do? All I could do was sit there. In those days things like that'--she means cat pee, or pee of any sort--'were not mentioned.' She means in mixed company" (9). Here we have speech supposedly quoted verbatim, with interruptions/glossing from the narrator; we have transcription and translation occurring in the same breath. It makes one wonder if transcription is not on some level also translation, since what is chosen, even if quoted verbatim, and how it is arranged, represents an interpretation on the part of the narrator, and therefore also a translation of the incident by the narrator, from its contextual details, to its connotative significance.

With these thoughts of covert/overt roles of the mother/wife and of narration and authorship, I suggest a multimodal activity involving vintage/retro pictures of women in the position of mothers/wives. I could show students some sample pictures, e.g.


(http://www.etsy.com/listing/80624741/vintage-postcard-thanksgiving-christmas?utm_source=toolsforetsybuyersse&utm_medium=api&utm_campaign=api)


http://southernsusiehomemaker.blogspot.sg/2011/07/are-you-retro-housewife.html

http://www.zazzle.ca/funny_poster_retro_housewife_sleepytime_cake-228606898716671746

A discussion could follow, inviting students to critically analyse the assumed traits of a wife/mother, based on these images, or those like them. What does the position of the woman in picture one suggest about her role in the family hierarchy; what does the joke in picture three suggest about motherly angst/stress; how does one read the caption in picture two -- with ironic overtones, literally, or in a sinister manner?

I would then ask students to search for an image that best represents as many of the roles of the narrator's mother in Atwood's text as possible, e.g. through strategic positioning of the characters in the picture, light/dark contrast, mise-en-scène. They will have to identify that she plays different roles in front of her husband, daughter, fellow wives/mothers, in private, etc. If they are enthusiastic and would like to, they could also form their own tableau and take a picture of it. I would not be fussy about the authenticity of the props, costumes, etc.

The point is twofold. Firstly to clarify the text by contrasting it with such images; secondly to alert students to the possibility of transferring textual analytical skills to pictorial analytical skills. I refer here to a reading that Dr. Loh sent out a few weeks ago -- http://www.knowledgepresentation.org/BuildingTheFuture/Kress2/Kress2.html. The writer gives an example of two contrasting images of four year-old Georgia with her parents. In one, she stands next to her mother, left-most of three persons; in another, she stands between her parents. Kress points out the resultant difference in interpretation. It is this sort of critical appreciation, transferable between text and pictures, that I wish to encourage through an activity like this.

I have not written step by step clarifications on the lesson activity, but I hope that what I have produced so far gives a sense of it. With that, I am glad to have finally posted on multimodalities. An unfinished assignment nags in one's head more persistently than the narrator's mother's bunny-rabbit cookie story.

QCR520 Blog Entry 6 - Microteaching Tips on Teaching, Classroom Management and Planning - Wee Kiat's Post

Please post about: (1) 3 tips for teaching/ classroom management/ planning gleaned from microteaching. (2) Give specific examples from your own or other lesson observation.

Looking back at the semester, it has really been a pleasure and an honour to be learning about the pedagogy of literature with each of you. We had intense moments of debates as well as zany moments of just bursting out in laughter (for nothing). Before I begin my post, allow me to dedicate the following song to each of you (not that we are there yet):

 

 

Okay, enough emoting. Let us move on to proper topic at hand, that is the microteaching. Having been through all the microteaching sessions, I am sincerely impressed by the different pedagogical style undertaken by the various student-teachers in the class. From the traditional lecture style method to the innovative usage of multimodality, I am amazed at how versatile all of you were during the microteaching sessions. The examples listed below are just a few observations I made. Hope it will be edifying to the development of our personal pedagogies in future.

 

1) The usage of humour in class discipline (Samuel and Mark)

Looking back at my short one-month stint in Junyuan Secondary School, the one thing that is stuck in my mind is how teachers always sought to scold their students whenever they become rowdy. One question I have always asked is whether there is a better way to discipline students other than being aggressive with them. Think that question was answered when I observed how Samuel and Mark conducted their lessons.

 

Apart from Mark's excellent clarification of difficult concepts in the lesson, the presentation of the Haw Par Villa picture with the edited portion on the punishment of making noise in class is castration, is effective in catching the attention of students. If used in a classroom setting, I can really see how students will actually roar in laughter but will later cooperate with the teacher and pay attention in class. Because the teacher is willing to bring himself down to the level of the students and speak in their language (that is, in terms of humour), the students will respect the teacher.

 

Similarly, with regards to Samuel, the ability to integrate humour into a boring lecture is an impressive skill. Whilst one might run the risk of losing the students' attention, is this skill is sharpened, it can becoem a powerful tool to engage the students. Usually, in frontal teaching, one might run the risk of the students not paying attention. However, in the Singapore Education system, frontal teaching still remains an essential element in education. Therefore, if Samuel (or any one of us for that matter) practices the skill of incorporating humour into our frontal teaching, I am sure students will learn a lot more.

 

2) The usage of difficult theoretical terms (Pepper and Jia Min)

In the past, I am usually hesitant in teaching students complicated terms. I tend to have this access-limiting mentality about students, doubting their ability to cope with theoretical terms. However, by observing how Jia Min and Pepper conducted their lesson, I am beginning to have hope that I may be able to teach my future students, using complicated terms.

 

In Jia Min's class, she spent an extended period to teach one term, "metaphysical". Seeing how she used different methods to teach, such as the usage of the picture, dictionary definitions and other resources, we can see how Jia Min sought to educate her students about this term. The subsequent usage of the word "metaphysical" on the book Fasting, Feasting is also well done. As adviced, the lesson would have worked better had it been two sessions, one focusing on teaching the word "metaphysical" and another focused on writing the thesis statement.

 

Pepper's microteaching session was also impressive. Though I had some concerns about the quantity of information that her lesson has, it is nonetheless well-scaffolded. Pepper moved from situational observations to theoretical discussions to application to the texts. The lesson flowed very well and I believe students will appreciate how complicated theoretical frameworks actually help one to understand the text better.

 

Both microteaching lessons demonstrate how difficult theoretical terms can be used to assist the students in understanding the text more effectively.

 

3) The usage of multimodality (Xin Hui and Liz)

Being a film student, I am really impressed by how Xin Hui and Liz incorporated video clips into their lessons. There is always a tendency to use films to distract the students, especially when teachers have no good ideas on what to teach. However, Xin Hui and Liz have demonstrated how it is possible to use multimodal texts to conduct an effective lesson.

 

In Xin Hui's microteaching lesson, she used footages from Holocaust documentaries and compared them with the gas chamber scene in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Through the comparions, she got students to understand how traumatic events are portrayed differently and what are the reasons behind the different means of portraying traumatic events.

 

In Liz's lesson, using a video that advertises Ivan Heng's performance as Emily of Emerald Hill, she manages to get students to understand how gestures play an important part in portraying gender. She challenges students to not accept mainstream notions of gender, but actually get students to question how often these gender roles are constructed then real. Liz could have used the video more to her advantage, explaining how Ivan Heng's Emily is actually manjaing at the camera.

 

These two microteaching lessons are examples of how multimodality can be applied in the classroom.

 

With the above comments, I believe that there are many more skills we can glean from the microteaching lessons. Thank you all for such a great semester in NIE!

Margaret Atwood and Multimodality - Wee Kiat's Post

(Me "three", sincere apologies for this late post.)

Before I begin my post, I would like to refer to a snippet from the film, The Iron Lady.

 

Notice how the scene unfolds in a "steam-of-consciousness" manner, jumping from one situation to another, as if shifting from one memory to another. In fact, the premise of The Iron Lady is a fictional account of a Margaret Thatcher who is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease seeking to recall her deeds as the ex-Prime Minister of Great Britain. The film oscillates between past and present, as an aged Thatcher seeks to remember the "great" works she did as Prime Minister in the past. This is unlike other biopics, such as Walk the Line (biopic of Johnny Cash) and Der Untergang (biopic of Adolf Hitler's final days in Berlin), that have a linear narrative.

 

You might ask, "Why are you opening this post with a commentary about the style of narration in films instead of focusing on Atwood's short story?" Reading Atwood's short story, it reminded me of the "stream-of-consciousness" narrative style in The Iron Lady (no, I am not making a pun, relating Margaret Atwood with Margaret Thatcher). Instead of having a linear narrative, relating about how she perceived her mother when she was a child and how that perception changes as she grows up, Atwood chose to describe specific situations and encounters her mother went through. Atwood takes the reader from one memory to another about her mother.

 

So how does one use multimodality to teach Atwood's short story? This lesson begins with the assumption that students have read the short story as homework. At the beginning of the lesson, I will show a scene from The Iron Lady and tell students to take note of the narrative style of the film. With that, I will divide the class into groups and have each group to select a specific memory that Atwood has about her mother and tell them to draw it out on a drawing block. Students are to take note of setting and specific details as they draw out these memories. After the groups are done, I will have the students arrange their drawings according to the sequence of events in the short story, and after that tell them to arrange it according to how they prefer the story to unfold.

 

Through the above lessons, students can learn about narrative style through art and craft instead of a face-to-face lecture style. Multimodality is also achieved, through visual semiotics.

Atwood and multimodality

(My apologies for the late post too! : P) 

As a few of my classmates have already mentioned, “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother” is written, and can be read somewhat, in a series of vignettes, making the possibility of allocating a specific episode/”moment” of the text to a small group of students feasible. I do think that a pictorial, or dramatic, representation of the text would work well, and deepen students’ understanding of its themes and characters, but perhaps, what is more important is how the use of multimodality may complement students’ learning of the text in the traditional way (i.e. through textual analysis).

What is needed then, is perhaps an amalgamation of textual and visual representation (and subsequently analysis) of the story – as Liz, Andrea, and Pepper have mentioned, students could recreate specific scenes from the text to demonstrate their understanding and further explore possibilities in the text. That would be the part on visual representation, following which, students may be asked to conduct a textual analysis of certain un-representable passages from “Significant Moments”.  They would be the more introspective passages in this text of reminiscences and narratives – such as, “I used to think my mother, in her earlier days . . . the stories were just the punctuation.)” (5), “It comes from another world, which, like the stars that originally sent out the light we see hesitating” (7). Such passages are important to the text as a whole, for it underlies the emotional nuances permeating the text – in order to aid more fruitful, meaningful discussion, I would want students to look at these passages closer, and relate them to the (visual) “representability” of the other scenes in the text. Perhaps, after students have worked out a visual representation of the text (or rather, some excerpts) in class, they will return home to do a reflection-cum-textual analysis of the “unrepresentable” passages (as picked out earlier) on a class blog. For as important as it is to engage students’ multiple intelligences by using multimodal means of teaching and learning in the classroom, it is as important to complement these approaches with the traditional mode of learning literature – in-depth textual analysis, but done in one’s own time, on a blog where one’s classmates and teacher may further add on to one’s thoughts and generate a deeper level of discussion.   

Multimodality and Atwood

(Hi all, apologies for the late post!)

As mentioned in several of the earlier posts, Atwood’s Significant Moments in the life of My Mother presents the reader with a series of connected vignettes and I would be interested in using frozen tableaus (ala what we did in the Kuo Pao Kun drama workshop lesson) when getting students to explore the text.

This lesson is best conducted somewhere more spacious than the classroom – preferably a dance studio where there is open space and minimal possibility of noise pollution. In groups of 4-5, students would be instructed to use their bodies and whatever props they can find to create a scene that is narrated in Atwood’s text. Give students an example to illustrate this – eg. One possibility would be the scene where Atwood’s mother stands in the dentist’s where her grandfather is “sitting in the chair, white with pain”, and she asks for permission to get her hair cut. Students should try to use facial expressions to convey what they believe the characters are feeling at that particular moment. I think that using frozen tableaus is particularly effective in getting students to place themselves in the characters’ shoes and imagine what characters’ emotions might be! Also, tell students that they will “unfreeze” from their role when tapped on (by the teacher) and present a short interior monologue, voicing the thoughts of the character/prop/spectator they are meant to play. Encourage their classmates to ask questions on how they came up with this tableau – why they chose this scene, why the characters are in a certain position etc. 

I agree with Melissa that we must keep in mind our rationale for using multimodal approaches  - rather than feel compelled to use, for example, films, ICT or blogs in our literature classrooms, we should first ask ourselves whether our students’ understanding and appreciation of the texts in question will be deepened by a multimodal teaching approach. In other words, the use of multimodal approaches should not be contrived. I also think that whilst it is important that we acknowledge the value in firstly, developing our students’ abilities to appreciate multimodal texts and secondly, respond to a text in a variety of modes, we need to also acknowledge that most of our students will be sitting for a pen-and-paper examination. Like it or not, this means that our use of multimodality in class cannot lead to a compromise in the academic rigor that examinations demand of our students.

Microteaching Tips, Classroom Management and Planning

QCR520 Blog Entry 6 - Microteaching Tips on Teaching, Classroom Management and Planning

• 3 tips for teaching/ classroom management/ planning gleaned from microteaching
• Give specific examples from your own or other lesson observation

There is no doubt that we, as a class, have been exposed to a number of really interesting lessons, activities and tasks during the course of these past few weeks as we have experienced microteaching session after microteaching session. Of course everybody did a great job and I learnt a lot from each of you guys. It’s been a humbling experience to know that there are so many great teachers out there and I will be privileged enough to stand shoulder to shoulder in august ranks such as these.

There is no particular order or merit that I describe the following activities and microteaching sessions that made an impact on me (this list is completely personal and biased to my own preferences. I found these particular methods and activities of especial use to my own teaching style and philosophy which I in turn attempted to incorporate into my own lesson).

1.      Linking physical actions with  a lesson on discrimination (Andrea)

This particular activity which Andrea carried was interesting to me as it allowed me to understand how kinesthetic learning can be carried out. Andrea’s division of students according to the areas where they stayed at—which in turn determined who was able to remain seated on chairs or had to be relegated to the floor—was such a simple but powerful activity. Even now, I still remember vividly the notion of discrimination that she was teaching.

This is due to the fact that the content she was teaching was directly related to a physical action and motion. Her use of tying a lesson to a physical action was the impetus that got me thinking of physical actions and motions that I could incorporate into my own lesson as well. I think there is a lot of value to be had from linking lessons and physical actions in the classroom together. Students might not be able to understand concepts just from reading it on paper. But simple physical practical activities that get them off their seats and onto their feet (or in Andrea’s case off their feet and onto their butts) might serve to teach a particular concept a lot more effectively than just teaching from pen and paper.

Obviously a lot of thought must go into creating a physical activity that is simple enough to carry out in the confines of the classroom but will at the same time concretize the essence of message that the lesson is attempting to communicate.

2.      Taking the time to explain, clarify and solidify students’ concerns and questions (Kit and Jiamin)

I found Kit’s and Jiamin’s use of detailed and clear instructions, of interest to myself, as a developing and learning teacher. Kit placed a lot of emphasis and time explaining and laying the proper guidelines for her lesson before she launched into the main activity itself. But her continual return to the material that had been generated earlier ensured a constant flow that made use of existing material while at the same time ensuring students’ knowledge foundations were sturdy and concrete. (This is in reference to the rather detailed mindmap that she came up with at the start of her microteaching session).

This was true as well for Jiamin who taught—what I thought was a rather hefty subject of metaphysics—a very difficult concept but distilled into very manageable and learnable nuggets of wisdom. This goes back to Mark’s lesson earlier today and the use of terms such as “dichotomies” and “social stratification”. While I do agree that there is a place for the use of such terms in the classroom, I think that it should be the other way around. Just as Jiamin taught the concept of metaphysics by first relating it to more mundane and prosaic examples before introducing the term of metaphysics itself, so too do I think that we should first introduce the examples of how a more difficult concept can be construed in more mundane events and ideas before the actual technical term itself is introduced to students. This way, students will not be daunted by grandiose, un-understandable words but will instead be firmly acquainted with the use of the concept before they find out the word itself. After all, I do believe that students do understand the meanings of dichotomies, binaries and social stratification. It is just that they do not use technical terms to understand those concepts.

So I think it is crucial here to provide the necessary scaffolding (ugh I finally used that dirty word) to ensure a student’s understanding of various concepts so that when the term is finally introduced to them, they will not be intimidated by those terms.

3.      Role division amongst students (Shu May)

Another useful tip which I attempted to implement into my own microteaching session was Shu May’s use of role division that she carried out in her own lesson. I thought the use of dividing students into various roles was especially clever and innovative. I can see a lot of applications for this sort of task and role division. It could even be possible to make this a constant classroom activity where students must constantly switch roles and fit in to different roles of speakers, presenters, researchers, noise managers and time keepers. This will not only keep the lessons fresh and engaging, it will also allow students to develop different skills (public speaking, presentation skills, getting out of their comfort zones and so on) while at the same time accomplishing the lesson goals and objectives.

This is such a great technique to tackle a number of issues at once and inculcate a more holistic development in our students as we engage and develop not only their academic subject content mastery but soft skills such as leadership, self-discipline and public speaking.

4.      Dramatization (Jodee, Pepper and Liz)

Yes I’m well aware the stipulation for this task was for 3 tips but I found the use of dramatization another technique that warranted mention as well. While I still think students must first know the text intimately, once they do, dramatization is very effective to get students to be more critical and reflective about the way they understand the text.

As readers they may be just passive recipients and consumers of the text but when students are forced to dramatize and perform the play, they must make more critical choices about how to perform and dramatize the various texts.

As Jodee, Pepper and Liz microteaching sessions illustrated, by getting students to engage with the text and physically dramatize it, they were able to make their respective texts more relevant and immediate to us as learners. For example, it was only when Pepper got myself, Jodee and Jason to act out the orange peeling scene from Fasting, Feasting that I realized the potential for satire and social commentary that Desai had infused into her text. I think this goes back to the earlier explanation of Andrea’s linkage between lesson content and physical activity.

While you may understand a text theoretically, it is only when you act it out physically that you adopt a more reflective, critical mindset to dissect and understand a text more exhaustively.

This list is of course by no means complete, there are a plethora of other activities and lessons that I was privileged to witness and learn from but these several techniques were those that stood out to me, and which I in turn attempted to implement and apply to my own lesson. It has been a privilege to sup (as it were) at the same table with you guys and Professor Loh so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you guys and to have an enjoyable vacation ahead as we start gearing up for the start of the new semester ahead. 

"Significant Moments" and Multimodality

If I were to teach this short story in a secondary school classroom, I would probably do so at the upper secondary level, because a great deal of the emotional weight of the text lies in what is unsaid, or at least implied. Students at the upper secondary level would probably experience less difficulty in relating to the mother/daughter relationship, and its (arguable) thematic concerns like gender roles in early-mid 20th Century America, and the purpose/ power of storytelling vis-a-vis this relationship and these roles. 

While I like the YouTube clip Shu May shared, and would probably use it to help students get a sense of what it might have been like for the narrator's mother, I think I might also include this clip from The Hours (inserted below), to demonstrate two different ways in which women might have responded to their (gendered) social pressures. I would give a brief overview of the relevant characters, and a short summary of the scene leading up to this one to contextualise the clip, explaining that Kitty, the visiting neighbour who appears to have it all, and seems irritatingly self-confident and even boastful of her housekeeping abilities, is projecting this self-confidence and energy to hide her intense fear of her impending surgery, implicitly related to her infertility issues, which she is also intensely depressed over. Students could then relate her management of her depression/ disappointment/ fear to Laura's visible numbness and far weaker attempts at maintaining a happily domestic front, to what is implied about the narrator's mother in the short story, looking specifically at how these three women relate to conceptualisations of themselves as mothers (or, for Kitty, never-mothers). 

Hopefully the visual juxtaposition (as well as the visual representation of a 50's All-American home), and having other characters in similar positions to which to compare the narrator's mother would provide a specific angle into the text, which might otherwise seem a little oblique or too nebulous to get a hold of. 

In general, I think that there is room for multimodality -- in fact, we are probably using/ implementing it/ have experienced it in our own literature classes without having quite realised it. For instance, dramatizing extracts was not unheard of in my literature classes as a student, and we often drew pictures to depict certain scenes. However, I think that multimodality should be used to enhance the teaching of the text -- not to distract from it -- and teachers shouldn't feel compelled to find the one clip or song or artwork that might encompass the concerns of the whole text. Instead, as I have done (and I do hope this is okay), it could be used to address just one aspect of the text that might be better addressed with the help of this multimodal approach than not, while not feeling compelled to overburden the text with multimodality where this might not necessarily aid in the appreciation/ understanding of the text. In this case, close reading and examination of the diction and other authorial decisions (especially with regards to its apparent plotlessness), cannot be replaced by any use of multimodality, although some thematic concerns might be better led into, as it were, with the use of multimodality. 

Atwood & Multimodality

Most of the previous posts have been about exploring Atwood's text and comparing it to modern life. I would like to offer another point from where we can study the text. I was thinking of getting students to construct the setting from which Atwood bases the text on (the setting from which Atwood's mother is portrayed in, and exists). This set does not have to be very complicated, perhaps just the setting up of a few tables and chairs, and including a few props such as a painting of stalks of oats, or a few glass bottles, placed in a corner of the class. Students could then look at this set and start their discussions during literature lessons, or could act out vignettes (as mentioned by Liz and Andrea) accordingly.  

Through the construction of an actual set, students could be prompted to think about issues of domesticity and the way this setting influences Atwood's mother's thoughts, thought processes, and worldview. From this point of view, students can then be encouraged to think about setting, environment (space/place) and the resulting influences that they have on a character and his/her personality. They could also bring in and talk about the mother-daughter tension that is presented in the text (which Shu May also mentions), a possible result of the different worlds that the mother and the daughter inhabits (in the later part of the text).

I think that multimodality is a good way to get students to think deeper into the issues/themes/concerns that are introduced in the text/lesson. By using different mediums to engage the students, the lesson is based on and appeals to the different senses (visual, auditory, etc) which allows different kinds of learners (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc) to be engaged at a level that they would feel more comfortable with. Lessons would also most probably become more fun and challenging, enabling them to feel more motivated and to be more involved in the discussion or conceptualizing of the issues introduced. Hence, I think that multimodality is a possible and plausible method of conducting literature lessons in the classroom.

Atwood and Multimodality

I was quite intrigued by the depiction of 1950s suburban housewife life in "Significant Moments in the Life of my Mother". I was also interested in the latent mother-daughter tension in the short story, especially the gulf that seems to exist between the cloistered life of the author's mother and the author's more urban consciousness.

Hence, I started searching for multimodal texts that would enable Singaporean students to understand the specific cultural context of this short story. I found 1 video that could be used in class:

This video depicts the cooking-cleaning-laundry-childcare routine that characterised a typical housewife's life in the 1950s. I also liked how all the scenes take place within the small confines of a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom. Some questions that students could consider are:

• How is the video similar to or different from your life at home? (i.e. comparing this video to a typical 21st century Singaporean household)
• How is this video similar to or different from Atwood's description of her childhood and of her mother's role at home?
• How is the mother portrayed in Atwood's short story? How is the daughter portrayed in the short story? What might Atwood be trying to say about the mother-daughter relationship?
• Why is the short story titled "Significant Moments in the Life of my Mother"? What are the "significant moments" that the author highlights? Are they really significant, why or why not?

Multimodalities

Multimodality can be a significant platform for the creation of opportunities for agency and empowerment in the classroom, which in turn become gateways to the development of multiple literacies in students. As Liz mentioned, this particular excerpt presents the life of the narrator’s mother in small vignette-like sections. One practical way to assess students’ understanding and interpretation of the text is to get them to narrate the story through digital storytelling. Students can create short movies composing of still photos, scanned images and documents, short videos, music and sound effects.

As I read the text, I felt that it would be interesting to watched it being performed as soliloquies  in the classroom. Or even as performative pieces where students can present in groups their interpretation of a particular life event as depicted in the text. (E.g. A narrator narrates while the other students act out the narration in mime).

I think Brennan’s histogram idea is very applicable and practical as well. It is imaginative in the sense that students are required to know the text well (be able to pick out relevant quotes) and at the same time weave in pictorial/ visual sources of compose their histogram.

I think multimodal ways of teaching opens up  a platform for learning and acquiring different kinds of literacies beyond language itself, as students can articulate and are encouraged to convey meaning by designing and transforming word to image and vice versa. As  multimodality is incorporated into the learning process, it would help advance learning across different spaces.