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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
ELT JUST FOR YOU LANGUAGE RESOURCE CENTER
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ELT JUST FOR YOU LANGUAGE RESOURCE CENTER
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Sunday, October 24, 2010
Evolution of Instructional Materials Design
Evolution of Instructional Materials Design
Reaction Paper
By
Licda. Guiselle Weelkly W.
graceb2you@hotmail.com
Publishers attempt to develop instructional materials that meet the standards set for formal statewide adoption, creating prototypes with feedback from teachers about:
The EPIE (The Educational Products Information Exchange) helps school districs align their textbooks to their objectives more efficiently along with the publishers that continually refine and reshape their products through their contacts with teachers and schools with activities such as focus groups, teacher pilot proyects, presentations during evaluation procedures, and inservice training to support teachers in using their materials.
Effective materials usually include the following features along with some others such as (teacher's manual, test items or resources, a study guide, and activity guide or cd in some cases).
The following are a list of features that instructional materials include:
- Intructional goals with adaptability to course requirements.
- Accurate, relevant, and relatively up-to date information.
- Well-organized, coherent, and unified flow of information.
- Appropiate reading level and vocabulary.
- Effective layout, visual presentation, and physical features.
- Absence of stereotypes and biases.
- Multidisciplinary content with multiple rather than single perspective.
- Small concepts taught as variations on larger themes.
- Development of insight and thinking skills rather than just memorization of isolated or unrelated facts.
- Real-world applications of informational skills.
- Inclusion of supplemental and references materials for teaching.
Format of Instructional materials
The National Association of State TextbookAdministrators (NASTA) provides a network of support for publishers, given guidelines about specialized formats needed to comply with accessibility legislation that must be delivered before print instructional material arrived a the schools. These formats include: Braille, Audio, Digital Text, and Large print. Publishers must meet technical specifications in preparing and delivering instructional materials for review and adoption.
Textbook Dominance
They are the most frequently used instructional material for students and teachers at all grade levels beyond primary grades. The amount of classroom time that students spend using textbooks is stimated at 75 to 90 percent.
The Teacher's Manual
It contains instructional resources to support instructional strategies and activities, and its organization affects how well it can be adapted and used in the classroom. These are some features that these manuals should carry:
- Practicality
- Alignment
- Coverage
- readability
- Methods
- Assessment
- Management.
Technology Changes
Changes in technology over the last seven decades have made visual presentation almost as important as content. With the expansion of technology, even more specialization features, such as graphic design, photography, and typefaces, have emerged and they have increasingly become very important.
Visual Presentation
It is important to remember that people will quickly recall upon what they see more than what they listen to. In the last three decades of computers, electronic typesetting, and laser technology have offered an abundance of new typefaces, which many publishers have used for attention or aesthetic appeal without regard to impact on learning.
On the other hand, any of the materials presented in varios media will be more effective when they are organized systematically with a deliberate structure and sequence.
Challanges in Reviewing Content
These challenges are numerous including evaluating content that is controversial, innacurate, or without scholarship; written by annonymous authors; or misleading.
Contraversies
Contraversies arrive sometimes because of different beliefs about how best to approach a specific subject area. There have been historical contraversies concerning issues such as: teaching methods include whether to teach basic or higer-order-skills, the process of a discipline, facts, laws amids others.
Innacurate Content
It is simply when the material published continue to contain factual errors or present concepts that have been disproven. Sometimes, publishers also make mistakes in respect to alignment to standards.
Misleading Content Analysis
Publishers must show a correlation between their materials and the curricular requirements.
It must also satisfy the requirement for comprehensive content that targets higher learning objectives.
Always give citations with their correct and proper order( straitgh key words).
Priority Area: Presentation
Visuals also play a role in readability. Too many visuals can distract learners from their learning process. Whenever it is integrated in a proporcional way and covering the same territory in the text to read, it will support readability.
Comprehensiveness of Students and Teacher Resources
Resources must be complete enough to address the targeted learning outcomes without requiring the teacher to prepare additional teaching materials for the course. These include:
- students resources and
- teachers resources.
Students Resources
When the materials provide oversimplified tidbits of information without integration of subject matter, students consider them as dull reading or sometimes unattractive. Also the textbook or other sources we used for the learning developement should not carry so much attractive features with highlighting.
Reference aids are important in effective instructional materials( e.g., index, glossary, maps, and more) Items that guide students through materials might include clearly labeled materials, directions and explanations, assignments with menus of choices, enrichment and remediation activities, additional resources, and tests and assessment tools either in the students materials or in the teacher's guide or edition.
Teacher Resources
These resourcer often include a massive teacher's manual that includes the annotated students text, lesson plans, enrichment activities, questioning strategies, instructions on how to use the book, bibliographies, copies, worksheets, tests, diagrams and more.
They should have components such as:
- Materials that are easy to use.
- Materials to support lesson planning,teaching, and learning.
- Suggestions for adapting instruction for varying needs.
- Guidelines and resources on how to implement and evaluate instruction.
- Resources to use in classroom activities.
- Resources for building relationships with families.
All components of an instructional package must be integrated and interdependent and must correspond with each other.
Alignment of Instructional Components
The components mus t align with each other, as well as with the curriculum. These must refer:
- within students and with the teacher's materials.
Alignment within Students Materials
There should be alignment of content. learning activities, tests, goals, and objectives improves learning. Each will contribute to the development of higer-order thinking skills.
Alignment within Teacher's Materials
The teacher's manual must have co-relation with students'activities of the content, sequence, pacing, and procedures for teachers and at the same time, advocated for the manuals to shift more responsibilities over to the teachers. Materials must match in content and progression of instructional activities.
Organization of Instructional Materials
Clear organization of instructional materials supports:
- Access to content( providing a table of content)
- Visible structure and format.
- Font style and treatment talk about the type of content.
- Symbols, mumbering or other ways to showcase headings.
- Subheading, summaries, overviews, outlines and section.
- Color Hightlighting to add emphasis, attractiveness, show types of information.
- Margin comments, textboxes, tables and charts.
- Layout organizes content with sensible groupings and consistent structure.
- Objectives can aid content organization.
- Chunking.
Logical Organization
Students need organized knowledge structures to learn new information. Poor organization is detrimental to learning, while an explicit and teachable content structure can double the amount remembered.
Unified
Introductions play a major role when they include anchoring ideas, key points, schemes, summaries and others. The statement of a clear purpose with content organized aound main ideas, principles, concepts, and logical relationships supports the unity and flow of information.
Consistent
The pattern of organization of the content should be consistent and logical for the type of subject or topic. Structure with logical sequencing improves learning.
Readability of instructional Materials
In order for students to be engage in listening and reading activities, the narrative and visual elements should be clear and presentable. This will give them the proper understanding of the content at an appropiate level.
Language Style
The texts must be written in a way that it does not interfere with students comprehension of the material. Also it will be good to include the teen's point of view, because they will understand better the vocabulary, let it contains larger print, style more like a magazine, and questions between smaller chunks of text. Some features that will interfere with readability are:
- Fragmented content
- Choopy sentences
- Incoherent visuals.
These are some typographical features that support readability:
- Font style forms and emphasizes words and ideas.
- Text spacing separates and group words, sentences, paragraphs, and sections.
- Simplicity avoids extraneous and redundant information and focuses attention.
- High, but not shorp, contrast supports separation of letters, words, and sections.
- Text and visuals focus information and concepts.
Choosing a Textbook and Other Printed Materials
In cases like Middle School Level, the common practice is to choose the materials design for high school students and " slow them down" covering the necessarily subjects according to the curriculum and students major needs.
What are the criterias used to evaluate Textbooks and other Printed Material?
Teacher usually use materials develop in other districts for evaluating textbook and their meaningful uses.
Some considerations that can be taken into account are:
- The Goals of the program or authors.
- Identify if communication rather than grammar is the focus.
- Identify if authentical culture integration is inmmerse in the textbook.
- There should be provision for teaching appropiate subject content according to the grade and in the target language, always presenting some sourt of suggestions for Interdisciplinary content and activities.
- Illustrations mus be free of racial, gender and cultural bias.
- Materials must contain flexibility and options for variety of students.
- It should provide physical characteristics.
- Always provide a teachers' manual with abundant suggestions for the teacher.
- Materials must be affordable.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Live like a Champion
Live Like a Champion
You Are God's Masterpiece
Ephesians 2:10 says that “We are God’s masterpiece.” That means you are not average. You are not ordinary. You are one of a kind. When God created you He went to great lengths to make you exactly the way He wanted. You didn’t just happen to get your personality. You didn’t just accidentally get your nose, your skin color, your gifts or abilities. God designed you the way you are on purpose, for a purpose.
The Apostle Paul said, “We should be to the praise of God’s glory.” In this passage, he’s not talking about giving God praise with our words, although that is important. He’s encouraging us to make our lives a living praise to Him! When you understand your value, and not only who you are but Whose you are, then your very existence will give God praise. When you are secure in who God made you, and you go out each day being your best, your life will give God praise. In other words, driving to work you’re giving God praise. Mowing the lawn you’re giving God praise. Going to the grocery store you’re giving God praise. Walking through the mall you’re giving God praise!
Honor God today by accepting who you are. Make the decision to be the best you can be. Get up every morning and set your mind in the right direction by making positive affirmations over your life: “I’m the apple of God’s eye. I’m His masterpiece. His fingerprints are all over me.”
If you will learn to accept and approve yourself and have a right opinion about who you are then you’re going to rise higher. God is going to pour out His blessings and you will live that life of victory that God has in store!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Priorities for Evaluating Instructional Materials
By Licda. Guiselle Weelkly
graceb2you@hotmail.com
The Florida Department of Education stated on an article written in the year 2008 the following " learning review includes examination of strategies in instructional materials that support motivation, including " big ideas," explicit instruction, guidance and support, active participation, and the instructional and assessment strategies that make sense for the targeted learning objectives".
There are three basic steps to take in considerarion when evaluating instructional materials, and they are:
- Priorities in the Learning.
- Priorities in the Presentation.
- Priorities in the Content.
Learning strategies deserve special attention specifically on two bases which are:
- The Expertise Reversal Effect which simple means to attend the personal need of a student who possess high levels of expertise in a particular subject given direct information to them and permitting them to expand beyond their capabilities with originality by themselves.
- The Powerful Resistance to Learning indicates that these students require the opposite of what works for the students who have high expertise. Instead of direct instruction, these students require intense constructivism so that their misconceptions can be clarify. Remember: "once learned, it is hard to unlearn". Here, students require intense practice with new concepts, proving for themselves that the "new concepts" work to better the "old wrong concepts".
On the other hand, it is important that instructional materials include features to maintain the learners motivated(with positive expectations, feedback and appearance). set the right climate for learning, and be focus for students.
Children as well, feel comfortable with explicit instructions where directions and explanations are clear enough abiding ambiguity or exclusion. This of course, depends on the level and adaptability of the child.
Writers such as Bass & Glaser identified three major principles that "make assessments informative to students" of which I would like to adress here:
- Models of competence given clear standards for what the students are expected to be able to do and what they cannot achieve.
- Graphical tools to track progress permitting students and parents to visualize learners' improvement over a period of time.
- Structured opportunities for reflection and revision given them a model to examine and make corrections in their performances.
As Educators of the new globalization era, we must join all links together so that we can achieve the major goal we hope for in our students, which is to help and prepare them to meet these demands and become excellent professionals in the near future.
Principles to Effective Materials Development
By Licda. Guiselle Weelkly Williamson
graceb2you@hotmail.com
The word "principle" according to the Webster Collection English Dictionary on page 627 means: " an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct, the method of formation, operation, or procedure exhibited in a given instance". Taking into considerations description united with the position of many writers and their assumption towards this topic; I can definitely come to the agreement that there should be certain guidelines to follow in order for things to take place in the right and proper way when referring to creation of materials for students learning development.
Brain Tomlinson presented six basic principles of language acquisition and four principles of language teaching. He stated that they should not be random recreation of other people's idea or repertoire, or clones; but rather, whatever, invention is portrait should be coherent following these principled applications amids many others. Some assumptions he gave are:
- Theories of language acquisition and development.
- Principles of teaching.
- Our current knowledge of how the target language is actually used.
- The result of systematic observations and evaluations of materials in use.
- Learners are exposed to a rich, meaningful, and comprehensible input of language in use.
- Learners need to be engaged both affectively and congnitive in the language experience.
- Language learners who achieve postive affect are much more likely to achieve communicaticative competence than those who do not.
- L2 learners can be benefit from using those mental resources that they typically utilize when acquiring and using their L1.
- Language learners can benefit from noticing salient features of the input.
- Learners need opportunities to use the language to try to achieve communicative purposes.
ELT must at all times stimulate interaction as well as to be able to meet the practical needs of teachers and learners matching the realities of publishing materials.
Finally, I would say that the current global course books and many local course books created by publishing houses and writers must always keep in mind that the books published or to be published should not only look good, have reasonable prices and access to parents, teachers, students or any other person interested in learning foreign language, but, that the books should be driven by principles of effective learning achievement. The literatures should be contextualized and customize according to the childs':
- Age
- Needs
- Cognitive Development
- Affective Development
- Motivation
- Interest
- Environment ( region, habitat).
Teachers have the great responsability of motivating the learners' needs by helping them to develop a positive mentally as they engage in the target language, in their learning environment, as they interact with their teachers and classmates.
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