Eat Sleep Teach Repeat: Literacy

Get Rid of Those Nerves, Make Speaking Fun!

Literacy 20:01:00

I hated talking in class growing up. I was and still am a huge chatterbox but participating in class or standing in front of the room giving a speech always made me beyond nervous and I don’t think I am alone in feeling this way.

Often the only time students are able to speak out loud in front of the class, it is to answer a question or participate in a class discussion based on an academic topic. I don’t know about you guys but these situations always made me nervous. Unless I totally 150% guaranteed knew the answer, I was not raising my hand to participate for fear of being wrong in front of everyone.

This fear of being wrong and being embarrassed in front of everyone then createsd a fear of participating. The fear of participating increased my shyness and nervousness because I became so used to staying quiet.

Then all of a sudden class speech time rolled around and I’m too busy panicking over talking in front of the class to even think about a speech topic. I am totally paralyzed by the thought of being analyzed by my peers and evaluated by my teacher to be able to speak with flow and grace, despite how many times I practiced in the mirror and in front of my parents.

Gamify Public Speaking

Public speaking games are a great way to boost student confidence when speaking in the classroom. If we eliminate the factors that make speaking in the classroom scary, then we can hopefully eliminate the fear of public speaking altogether.

Public speaking games allow for students to talk in class in a play based way without the fear of being wrong or being evaluated. Students all participate in silly speaking games meant solely to get people talking, and not meant to come up with right or wrong answers.

One fun game is called Pass the Tennis Ball and it is a quick game that gets students thinking on their toes and involves some concentration.

All of the students sit in a circle while one student stands in the center of the circle with their eyes closed. A tennis ball is passed around the circle one student at a time. Whenever they choose, the student in the center will yell out a letter. Whoever is holding the ball when the letter is called out has to say six words beginning with that letter while the ball continues around the circle. If the ball gets all the way around and back to them before they say all six words, they switch places with the middle person.

This game encourages split second thinking and will keep everyone engaged and entertained while allowing quiet students to participate more.

Another fun one is called My Favourite Thing.

The teacher will come prepared with various items that the students havent seen before. In smaller groups, one students must pull out an item and quickly explain why it is their favourite thing. After their brief explanation they pass the same item to the next person who has to give their own unique explanation for why it’s their favourite thing. If somebody freezes up and can’t think of anything they are able to pass it on and try again at the end.

This game is awesome because it encourages fast thinking, creativity, and flexible thinking. It is a team effort where everyone is encouraged to do well.

I would love to implement public speaking games in my classroom in order to ensure that students feel comfortable speaking out in class. Check out some other fun games you can play in your classroom here!

I don’t want any students to fall behind because they are feeling too shy to participate and hopefully with these games nobody will be afraid to talk in class!

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4 Ways Creating a Class Blog can Improve Writing Motivation

Literacy 10:25:00

Writing can be a challenge. Everyone has heard the term writer’s block. Even university students or seasoned writers experience some type of writers block now and again. Sometimes the ideas just aren’t flowing and writing becomes difficult.

This writer’s block can be especially challenging for students. Sometimes students are so concentrated on getting a good grade, or following the writing structure, to be able to come up with any ideas. Creativity goes out the window when students are stuck on the fear of writing something wrong.

Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2f1pf3L

One possible method for boosting student motivation and confidence in writing is the creation of a class blog. A class blog could be used for students to reflect on their personal learning, or it could even be used as a type of “news paper” for students to update others on their classroom activities.

1. Writing for a public audience.

Writing for an audience that is different from their teacher can be really fun for students. When students know that the only person reading their essay or reflection is their teacher, they might not feel motivated to produce their best written work. But because their class blog is public, easily accessible by anyone, students are writing for an outside audience and that will likely help them to want to produce their best work for the world to see.

2. Pride in their writing.

Because they are writing for such a wide audience and they are attempting to showcase their best work, students will develop a large sense of pride in their writing. Their parents and other family members can log in and check out their latest posts and they can even show them off on their social media profiles. Being proud of their writing and the posts they are producing will definitely motivate students.

3. Blogging promotes interaction.

One of the best ways to motivate students is to make their learning interactive. By having students writing for a class blog, fellow classmates can comment on their posts and give feedback. They can also be inspired by their classmates’ writing for their own future blog posts. Interactive and collaborative learning boosts motivation in the classroom.

4. More room for creativity.

By writing for a class blog, students will be more motivated to make their writing interesting. They want other people to read their posts and add comments, so they will likely attempt to create engaging and creative blog posts. Being able to add creativity to their writing in a blog post will be much more motivational than traditional classroom writing.

There a ton of resources out there that discuss the benefits of educational blogging. Check this one out here. It is becoming more and more popular for classrooms to have their own collaborative blog. Learn more about how to make your own classroom blog here and here.

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Create Rebel Readers, Study a Banned Book!

Literacy 09:40:00

Banned Books Week is the last week of September every year, this year being the 34th annual celebration and this creates an awesome learning opportunity for students. There are a ton of resources online about the importance of teaching students about banned books and challenged books. Plus, there’s no better way to make reading cool than to make it a rebellious act!

There are a ton of books that have been banned or challenged in the past that you might recognize or even love! For example,

Captain Underpants
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Harry Potter
Bridge to Terabithia
The Fault in Our Stars
And Tango Makes Three
Paper Towns
Nineteen Minutes
The Giver
The Lorax

Just try googling “teaching banned books” and you’ll be bombarded with information provided by educators and books lovers alike who are attempting to preserve our right to read!

It is important for students to understand the concept of censorship and to challenge the limitations that banning books imposes. By celebrating banned books week, students are becoming informed and are beginning to think critically about the act of banning books and censoring our reading.

The right to read any book that we want may be in danger when schools, organizations, religious groups, and even parents, are attempting to have certain book titles taken off our shelves.

Often people’s desire to challenge a book is due to it containing profanities, sexual content, violence, etc. When books are recommended for certain age groups, or are told to be read under parental discretion, that’s understandable.

Cole, Henry (2005). And Tango Makes Three (Book Cover)

However, in the case of And Tango Makes Three, a book that is aimed for children, the sole reason for banning that book was ignorance and fear. And Tango Makes Three has been challenged numerous times by parents and community members who are uneducated or unaccepting of alternative families and gay couples. In Singapore it even went as far as banning the book because they argued that “gayness and family values are incompatible”. Copies of the book were even ordered to be pulped. Seems a tad extreme to me!

Teachers might want to read a book that has been banned in other regions, that was banned in the past, or that has been unsuccessfully challenged several times. By reading these books together as a class, students will begin to think more critically about why these books have been challenged and how lucky they are to have the opportunity to read what other students might not have access to.

It is important however for students to be able to look at both sides of the argument. By having students look at the different titles of books that are commonly banned or challenged, they might gain a better understanding of why some people may have wanted those books removed.

One website suggests having students create venn diagrams or mind maps exploring both the positive and negative aspects of reading banned and challenged books in class. Possible rewards might be students having more open minds and being exposed to new/unique ideas; Possible risks might be students being exposed to sexuality or violence or a lack of morality. An interesting possibility for older grades would be to have them debate for and against reading banned books in the class, to hear different people’s opinions and ideas.

(Logo) Retrieved from bannedbooksweek.org

Hopefully by teaching students about banned and challenged books, they will appreciate and celebrate their freedom to read the books that they want. Plus they’ll feel like rebels for reading books labelled as banned.

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Online Impressions: The Importance of Teaching Good Social Media Behaviour

Literacy 13:28:00

First Impressions

Everyone has heard that phrase “first impressions are everything” and we all know how difficult it can be to change your opinion on somebody after your first impression. Nowadays things have changed. With social media, blogging, and LinkedIn, your first impression on people happens before you even have a chance to meet them. You may think that this means you no longer have control over people’s initial impressions of you, but in reality, we can have even more control over it, if we plan ahead.

As educators we are able to tailor our social media accounts, monitor our tweets, become private with our photos, and create positive and informative blogs to make our online presence, and therefore our first impression on people, a good one.

If it is so important for educators and adults to have a good online impression, why is it that we don’t start learning about this until late high school or university? Students as young as the junior grades are all online on social media, shouldn’t we be teaching them how to behave online responsibly now?

mkhmarketing (2013, March 8). Social Media Class (Digital Image).

Social Media in the Classroom

Many old school educators might argue that social media is social, and therefore belongs outside the classroom. And while those educators are entitled to their ~~wrong~~ opinion, it is important for us teachers to all get on the same page with social media and technology education.

Not only is it necessary for teachers to highlight how important online behaviour is, they can instruct and demonstrate positive online presence by using social media directly in their classrooms. Social media can be an extremely effective learning tool for keeping students both engaged and informed. In order for students to better understand how social media may affect them, teachers need to highlight what is good and bad behaviour online. Also, using social media in the classroom and teaching social media and online etiquette can help prevent and decrease an extreme crisis facing young people today, cyber bullying.

Social Media as a Tool

There are many benefits to using social media in the classroom, a number of which are highlighted in Vicki Davis’ blog post on Edutopia. She supplies a solid argument against teachers that try to say social media is social, therefore we shouldn't allow socializing in our classroom. Davis replies to this by highlighting the difference between social conversation at recess and educational conversation in group work. There is a clear distinction between these two types of conversation and there is the same distinction between social media in the classroom and social media at home, IF the teacher implements it correctly.

Using social media tools creates many possible gains in the classroom. Students use social media in their everyday lives and using it in the classroom keeps them much more entertained and engaged than other more traditional classroom methods. Davis’ article also provides a number of examples of teacher’s utilizing social media in their classroom successfully which can serve as inspiration for other aspiring teachers.

There are an endless amount of apps and websites that are focused on keeping the classroom social and educational. Students are able to log in at home or in the classroom in order to work together collaboratively, participate in a unique way (especially important for shy students), and see the things their peers have worked on.

Online Etiquette

It is essential that students understand how much of an effect their online presence may have on their futures. They might not realize that everything they put online will be there forever and that it is extremely easy for it to be seen by strangers all over the world.

Bour, Melissa (2014).

Recently I saw a picture on Facebook in which a teacher was attempting to show her students how quickly their images could spread online. She posted a photo (shown to the left) on Facebook and asked users to share the image and comment where they are from. The experiment must have had a ton of success as I saw many other teachers posting similar things. I imagine it was extremely eye opening, and maybe even frightening, to students who previously thought they were only sharing their pictures with their friends. The entire story was so widespread that it was even covered on Today News.

Not only do students need to recognize how a bad online presence can negatively affect them, they also need to understand how much a good online presence can positively affect their futures. Dan Schawbel outlines in his forbes article how our online presence will replace our resumes in the next 10 years.

Social Media Bullying

Cyberbullying or social media bullying is an epidemic that affects millions of children and young adults all the time. There have been far far too many suicides that are reportedly linked to cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is different from your typical old school bullying because it doesn’t end once the victim and the bully go home. Cyberbullying is constant. Bullies feel as though they are protected through a screen, and therefore say more hurtful things than they would regularly say in person. Also bullies are able to delete their posts or their tweets, which makes tracking and punishing them a lot trickier.

nobullying.com (2016, October 13). Social Media Bullying (Infograph).

Teaching students about social media etiquette and good online behaviour can help to prevent cyberbullying and also to help other students recognize when their peers are cyberbullying. Teachers should also highlight to students the possible legal consequences of cyberbullying, some of which include jail sentences for up to 5 years.

One extremely important factor when dealing with cyber bullying is providing students with a safe space to talk about what is happening to them. They may fear that talking about it will only make it worse, so teachers (and parents) need to ensure that children feel safe talking to them in order to find out about these issues. There is an extremely helpful link with a ton of information and tips here!

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Pages

Get Rid of Those Nerves, Make Speaking Fun!

Gamify Public Speaking

4 Ways Creating a Class Blog can Improve Writing Motivation

1. Writing for a public audience.

2. Pride in their writing.

3. Blogging promotes interaction.

4. More room for creativity.

Create Rebel Readers, Study a Banned Book!

Online Impressions: The Importance of Teaching Good Social Media Behaviour

First Impressions

Social Media in the Classroom

Social Media as a Tool

Online Etiquette

Social Media Bullying

Paula Burrows

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