Video (studystack.com)

In this video, I demonstrate how to use studystuck.com, a practical tool for both online and traditional classrooms. I guide you through the process of signing up, creating vocabulary games, and exploring different types of tasks that can be created using the platform. Watch this video to learn how to effectively utilize studies.com in your classroom activities.

My course

 

 We are asked to create a course on Google classroom (https://classroom.google.com/c/NjQxNjI4NTM5ODE4). I wanted to create a course that helps learners get a CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams-and-tests/cefr/ ) certificate which is accepted as a benchmarking language ability not only within Europe but all over the world and enhance their language levels from intermediate to advanced level.  It means that language learners who want to get a CEFR certificate or to improve their levels to advanced no matter how old they are accepted to this course. However, their language level should be intermediate to be accepted to the course.

But most of the students are 19 to 25-year-old who are from different regions of Uzbekistan and they study at Uzbekistan World Languages University in Tashkent in the faculty of English philology. The course includes 5 boys and 17 girls and most of them are visual and auditory learners. They are from different backgrounds and all of them have their interests like reading books in English, watching movies, playing sports, etc.

The CEFR-aligned online course is designed to help learners, who are intermediate-level learners, progress through these proficiency levels by providing targeted activities, assessments, and content that correspond to each level's learning outcomes.  This is a 6-hour course that includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing exercises to develop overall language skills. To make online learning more comprehensive and productive I applied Bloom’s Taxonomy, connectivism, SAMR and motivation theories.

Boom’s Taxonomy (Learning Outcomes)

  While creating course outcomes I referred to Boom’s Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) since it is a base for a very useful structure in the development of well-crafted objectives and they precisely represent different stages of learning. Furthermore, starting from theoretical knowledge to complex forms of practical learning Bloom’s taxonomy provides a learning process that follows a specific order. Adams (2015) describes taxonomy as follows: “These categories start with fundamental skills that require minimal cognitive effort and progress to more advanced skills that involve deeper learning and greater cognitive engagement” (p. 152).

This course is designed for intermediate-level students who want to improve their language skills to advanced (C1).

LOs of the course are as follows:

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1.     Understand with ease virtually everything heard or read.

2.     Summarize information from different spoken and written sources.

3.     Express oneself spontaneously, fluently, and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations.

4.     Compose a well-structured letter and essay.

5.     Solve advanced reading and listening tests

According to taxonomy, there are three cognitive processes that students go through while learning. They include knowledge (remembering the information they learned before), comprehension (able to understand (can utilize the learned material) and application (applying new vocabulary, terms, and idioms in the context) (Gul et al, 2020). During the course, learners undergo all stages. For instance, they learn new vocabulary, firstly, they remember it and they understand the meaning and usage. After these stages, they should apply new vocabulary in their speech and they analyze vocabulary by doing tests. In the last stage they should write a piece of writing with new words. For example, in teaching week 3 (https://classroom.google.com/c/NjQxNjI4NTM5ODE4/a/NjQ1MzQwMjUwNDk4/details) the topic is improving receptive skills, the topic is travel and tourism. They learn tips to improve their reading and listening. Furthermore, they learn new vocabulary and idioms based on sub-topics. In order to apply the vocabulary in their speech they should make a video using new words that they learnt in the vocabulary section and they analyze vocabulary by matching words with their definition on studystack.com (https://www.studystack.com/picmatch-4033872?authuser=0 ). To use vocabulary in their written speech they should write their opinion on the topic “Is tourism good or bad” on kiala-edu.com (https://www.kialo-edu.com/p/6c942c6a-390f-4430-8590-87171caa47c8/123667?authuser=0) and discuss this topic, leave comments on each other's opinion. In this way they not only learn vocabulary, but also discussion enhances their critical thinking and discussion is one of the forms of social engagement.

Constructive Alignment

It is apparent that the objectives, themes, tasks and assessment should be constructively aligned to reach the objectives and the outcomes of the course, module etc.  According to Gallagher: “Constructive Alignment is an approach to curriculum design and delivery that integrates learning objectives, teaching and learning activities and evaluation to foster high-level learning” (2017, p1). While creating the course I take into consideration to make all of them aligned. For instance, every week students are provided with materials and all of the materials are about the same sub-topic. Every material that they are learning including idioms, information and vocabulary is about one topic. For example, students are going to learn about letter writing in teaching week 4 and subtopic of this week is "Sports". All of the materials, including reading, listening materials, new vocabulary, speaking questions and letter topics refer to sports. Furthermore, the assignment for this week is also about sports. In this way, learning new vocabulary and applying new knowledge to their written and oral speech become easy and this is helpful for the learners to reach desired outcomes.

·       1^st week-   Introduction to the course (topic: science and technology)

·       2^nd week – How to improve speaking? (topic: education)

·       3^rd week – How to improve receptive skills? (topic: travelling and tourism)

·       4^TH week- How to improve writing? (topic: sports)

·       5^th week- Task 1: Letter writing (topic: environment)

·       6^th week – Task 2: Essay writing (topic: books)

 

Theory of Connectivism

The rapidly developing technological era has impacted IT (Information Technology) in educational spheres, too and this has led to the emergence of new theories, such as connectivism that affect on teamwork skills and the autonomy of the learners. The theory of connectivism (Siemens, 2004) is newer than other learning theories such as behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism. It is important to connect people who distribute knowledge in the social environment in the education sector. According to Kamenetz: “In the era of almost total connectivity, of an acquisitive social media, universities must find ways of learning more permeable and fluid paths toward open source content and student-centred learning experiences” (2010, p. 130). In other words, connectivism is being relevant to digital society. Connectivism “is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, into its nodes, and therefore, learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those nodes connected into networks” (Downes, 2012, p. 9).

The course that I created is based on the theory of connectivism. I uploaded various speaking interviews from all over the world and all of my students get knowledge from various students who have different cultures. Furthermore, all of the articles that are aimed at improving speaking and reading are about global problems all around the world. While reading articles, students will have an overview of what is going on on other edge of the world.

SAMR model

To create tasks to revise learned vocabulary and tips I utilized different online tools and the SAMR (Puentedura, 2013) model helped me a lot to organize them thoroughly. It refers to substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition. Tunjera (2020) explains four aspects of SAMR. They are as follows:

1.     Substitution is the usage of technology for the type of task that can be done traditionally, for instance, using interactive worksheets with the help of online tools. I have used studystack.com, wordwall.net, liveworksheets.com etc. to create worksheets and they helped me so much. Before using them, I thought that creating worksheets or games was difficult and could be a burden for me, as a teacher. However, I find it a very helpful and productive way of teaching since I do not have to check students’ work one by one. Instead I spent my time creating more interesting and useful activities.

2.     Augmentation is using technology as a tool to increase learning effectiveness significantly. I gave online feedback on my student's writing with the help of online grading tools. As an example, I used liveworksheet.com to check how students learned topic vocabulary.

3.     Modification is described as utilizing technology to recreate assigned activity. For example, I assigned discussion topics on padlet.com and kialo-edu.com where students can send voice, video and written messages and discuss the assigned topic. Furthermore, they can leave a comment on other students answers.

4.     Redefinition is used to create new types of tasks and learning process that cannot be possible without using it. It should provide students with new experiences which enhances the process of reaching outcomes of the lesson and engagement.

I tried to create something interesting like that and tie it with my class, but I couldn't manage.

 

Universal Design for Learning

UDL (Universal Design for Learning) first applied by Rose and Mayer (2008) in education to provide a curriculum availability to the students through various forms of learning and engagement (Lancaster, 2011). Applying the principles of UDL increases positive learning outcomes, including individual student development theories, such as students with disabilities and it provides equal access to learning not only for information. Furthermore, UDL is not for only students who have disabilities but also enhances practices for students who are not disabled (King-Sears, 2009). For instance, setting challenging learning outcomes for students by enabling simultaneous instructions to eliminate challenges. In my course, I created the LOs taking the students' levels into account and they are intermediate-level students who are going to improve their level to advanced. So that uploaded advanced vocabulary to learn, advanced listening and tasks to do.

 In addition to this, effective UDL includes continuous evaluation of students' learning process by assessing each outcome and this plays an important role in indicating whether students are meeting the LOs of the course. To do so, I created different tasks for each outcome of each lesson. For example, in teaching week five there are 4 LOs of the lesson. (https://classroom.google.com/c/NjQxNjI4NTM5ODE4/m/NjQ1MzU4NTY0OTA0/details )

1.     Recognize the most useful ways to improve writing skills.

2.     Apply learned skills in the context.

3.     Apply topic related vocabulary in their oral and written speech.

4.     Compose a well-structured complaint letter.

The lesson materials include passive reading, listening materials; video lessons about the structure of letter writing; video lessons about how to write complaint letters; vocabulary for sub-topic environments.

In the assignment section of this lesson, students have 4 tasks to meet the LOs of the lesson (https://classroom.google.com/c/NjQxNjI4NTM5ODE4/a/NjQ1Mzg1NjE4MTI5/details).

1.     They should compose a complaint letter.

2.     They should fill in the blanks with learned vocabulary on studystack.com.

3.     They should watch an interactive video on edpuzzle.com about environmental problems and answer the questions while watching the video.

4.     We discuss how to write letters and environmental problems on zoom.

Furthermore, I used a color blindness stimulator for teaching vocabulary materials.  (https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/) 

Motivation Theory

   Motivation is described as the ‘engine’ of learning by Paris and Turner (1994) and influences how we learn, and what we learn when we learn (Schunk, 2012) it urges us to take challenges to engage actively on the task. Seven learner instructor interactions influence students' motivation in online education (Thach, 1995).

1.     LOs 

2.     On-time feedback

3.     Information presentation

4.     Monitoring learner progress

5.     Learning activities

6.     Discussions

7.     Determining learner needs

 To keep learner-instructor interactions make students motivated I established LOs of each lesson, provided on-time feedback on their work, and facilitated learning activities according to their needs and preferences. Furthermore, online discussions are indispensable parts of my course that had been facilitated padlet.com, kiala-edu.com and on Zoom platform since they interact with their peers that help to build a social presence (Lin,2008). Rovai and Lucking (2003, p. 6) assert that “interaction is the primary mechanism through which community is built and sustained”. Maintaining an online community is also the most important part of successful online learning as it motivates learners.

 

                                  

References

 

1.       Adams, N.E. (2015). Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning objectives. Journal of Medical Library Association103(3),152-3. [online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.3.010 [Accessed 20 November 2023]

2.       Bloom, B. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives – The classification of educational goals – Handbook 1: Cognitive domain. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd. [online] Available at:https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/educationallearningtheories3rd/chapter/chapter-10-blooms-taxonomy-2/  [Accessed 21 November 2023]

3.       Downes, S. (2012). Connectivism and connective knowledge. Essays on meaning and learning networks. My eBooks. [online] Available at: http://www.downes.ca/me/mybooks.htm [Accessed 13 November 2023]

4.       Gallagher, G. (2017) Aligning for Learning: Including Feedback in the Constructive Alignment Model [online]  Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319211051 [Accessed 21 November 2023]

5.       Gul, R. et.al. (2020). Preferences of the Teachers in Employing Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in Their Instructions. Education and Social Research (SJSR), 3(2), 258-266. [online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.36902/sjesr-vol3-iss2-2020 [Accessed 21 November 2023]

6.       Kamenetz, A. (2010). DIY U: Edupunks, edupreneurs, and the coming transformation of higher education, White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing [online] Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1002/abc.21129?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.  [Accessed 21 November 2023]

7.       King-Sears, M. (2009). Universal design for learning: Technology and pedagogy. Learning Disability Quarterly 35(2), 8-17. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292924009_Universal_Design_for_Learning_Technology_and_Pedagogy  [Accessed 30 November 2023]

8.       Lancaster, Paula (2008). Universal learning design. Colleagues 3(1). [online] Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/colleagues/vol3/iss1/5 [Accessed 30 November 2023]

9.       Paris, S. G., and Turner, J. C. (1994). Situated motivation. In P. R. Pintrich, D. R. Brown & C. E. Weinstein (Eds.), Student motivation, cognition, and learning: Essays in honour of Wilbert J. McKeachie (pp. 213-237). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. [online] Available at: https://www.scirp.org/%28S%28351jmbntvnsjt1aadkozje%29%29/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=3157525 [Accessed 10 November 2023]

10.   Puentedura, R. R. (2013, May 31). SAMR: Getting to transformation. Hippasus.  [online] Available at: http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2013/04/16/SAMRGettingToTransformation.pdf [Accessed 30 November 2023]

11.   Rose, D. and Meyer, A. (2008). A practical reader in universal design for learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press [online] Available at: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED515447 [Accessed 30 November 2023]

12.   Schunk, D. H., & Usher, E. L. (2012). Social cognitive theory and motivation. In R. M. Ryan (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of human motivation (pp. 13-27). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [online] Available at: https://www.scirp.org/(S(lz5mqp453ed%20snp55rrgjct55))/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=2960021  [Accessed 30 November 2023]

13.   Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning [online] Available at: http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm [Accessed 10 November 2023]

14.   Tunjera, N., and Chigona, A. (2020). Teacher educators’ appropriation of TPACK-SAMR models for 21st century pre-service teacher preparation. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 16(3), 126-140. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342602414_Teacher_Educators'_Appropriation_of_TPACK-SAMR_Models_for_21st_Century_Pre-Service_Teacher_Preparation [Accessed 30 November 2023]

My article review

 

Article review

 One part of our coursework from ILT was writing an article review since we read so many up-to-date articles during the module about technology vs education and other topics throughout the module. I think it is beneficial for us. 

It is true that technology and AI have been becoming prevalent all around the world, especially youngsters can not imagine their life without AI. Noteworthy one is ChatGPT which is powerful chatbot uses “Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer” has revolutionized education. As students always seek for easy ways to reach their objectives this AI greatly impact on students’ future development. We should admit that we can not prohibit to use modern technologies and facilities for students as we are living fast-paced and rapidly developing world we are not able to hide or ban them.  So, I wanted to investigate that is ChatGPT or other AI are 100% reliable, educational organizations are ready to detect any plagiarism if students utilize ChatGPT. As a result, I chose the article " Is the Education System Prepared for the Irruption of Artificial Intelligence? A Study on the Perceptions of Students of Primary Education Degree from a Dual Perspective: Current Pupils and Future Teachers" for my article review.  This paper consists of analysis of a number of research papers about AI in education published from 2017 to 2023. It is about Lozano and Fontao's research investigates whether the education system is ready for the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

 

The article was written by Alba Lozano who works at Vice Rectorate of Research, University of Barcelona Spain and Carolina Blanco Fontao who works at the Department of General and Specific Didactics and Theory of Education, University of Leon in Spain. The article was published in the Education and Science Journal in 18^th July 2023.

The objectives of the study are as follows:

1: Study the level of previous knowledge and use of ChatGPT by the students.

2: Evaluate the perception of the application by students.

3: Evaluate the perception of the application as future teachers.

Involving 81 second year Primary education students that use ChatGPT in a classroom activities questionnaire that is divided into four parts is used to collect data. While the first was to collect demographics, the second one was to assess students’ prior knowledge about ChatGPT, and the third one focused on students’ opinion about utilizing ChatGPT, including its advantages and disadvantages. The fourth part investigated students’ views about usage of ChatGPT as future teachers.

 

Admittedly, AI, including ChatGPT, offers significant opportunities in education by improving communication between teacher and learner. As an innovational tool, it can enhance teaching methods and also improve students’ learning experiences. For example, AI enables individualized online learning and impacts positively on the academic performance of students by improving their motivation, teaching process and helps teachers to create more interesting and engaging contents, assessment and activities.

 

Nevertheless, there are some concerns related to implementing ChatGPT into education. As a matter of the fact that AI is getting improved day by day that gives students opportunity to cerate written content on their own and this can lead to the decrease in the occurrence and the importance of the assignments. Apparently, this poses a considerable challenge for the educational organizations and the teachers since detecting the cases of plagiarism gets difficult. For this reason, educators need to integrate new methods and technologies to identify difference between original student work and AI generated piece of writing. Utilizing ChatGPT in education causes challenge that educational organizations have to analyze the use of it in order to increase its positive effect on education and also maintain the principles of honesty, transparency in education.

For example, I work as an English language teacher at university. AI is great opportunities for students and also teachers. I do not have to check students’ essay word by word, instead, I use Grammarly.com to check their work. Furthermore, assessment was one of the biggest time eaters for me. After I learned how to use google classroom.com and different online tools I have no problem with evaluation process since AI itself can do it. However, there are some drawbacks of implementing AI in higher education, such as plagiarism as mentioned above. Students don’t want to create anything, such as essays, coursework etc. and AI does instead of students and it is the biggest fear for the teachers since day by day it can couse the loss of creativity and students' own voice.

The findings from this study reveals that there are some concerns about job displacement which AI may replace certain jobs done by people in education sector and also ethical uncertainties that some think using AI in education involve issues related to data privacy, fairness and decision making. Furthermore, there are some worries about the loss of learner centered teaching. The study by Lozano and Fontao  shows that both students and educators have significant concerns about integrating AI and ethical aspects of AI use, the potentiality of the change in teaching methodologies and it highlights the importance of taking actions to implement training programs and to improve educational curricula to address current shortcoming of AI in education. By this way AI supports and enhances teaching and learning process rather than disrupting it.

 

 

 

My map

 

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

 

The Learning Management System (LMS) is an online platform that facilitates connection between teacher and students offering effortless way of sharing resources, activities and providing gateway to engage students even after classroom hours. Almarashdeh (2010) defines LMS as a useful platform that can be utilized for distributing materials at a distance. The LMS is a technology that is based on web which includes solution for managing, planning learning events in educational organization (Alias, 2005). By the help of LMS not only teaching process gets productive and easy, but also learning process for students get engaging. Furthermore, students become the owner of their learning process as the students become more autonomous leaners.

Many LMSs are gaining popularity around the world. For instance,

·      canvas.com

·      bridge.com  

·      Moodle

·      Drupal

·      Instructure

·      Google classroom

These LMS are gaining popularity among educational organizations around the world. Each of them has their special features that makes them different form others. Pallof and Pratt state that “the online classroom is a potentially powerful teaching and learning arena in which new practices and new relationships can make significant contributions to learning” (2002, p26).

 In Uzbekistan local universities used Moodle in quarantine times that was developed in 2001. This platform based on the social constructionist principle and it was user friendly, accessible, flexible (Kasim,2016). But 2 years later higher educational universities changed the platform they work on into Hemis. This LMS is also very popular all around the world as it is convenient. Nevertheless, if anyone wants to use them to create their course the fee should be paid after 1 month later for both of these platforms.

To create our course we have been chosen Google classroom. It works on all browsers, devices and students can take part in discussions, submit assignments, all of them in one place. Google classroom is available for anyone who has Gmail or Google account. The most exciting aspect of this platform is that it is totally free.

  By using Google’s learning management system teacher and also learner get their work easier since this system boost collaboration, foster communication and streams assignments. Furthermore, students can organize their piece of writing on Google Drive automatically, complete, hand it in and communicate with their teacher and groupmates. A good LMS should create cooperative learning environment before and after teaching process which enables students to oversee the pace of their learning, allow the learners tracking their progress (Watson et all., 2007).

1. Almarashdeh,A. et al. (2010). The success of Learning Management System among distance learners in Malaysian universities. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology. [Online]. Available from: http://www.jatit.org/volumes/research-papers/Vol21No2/2Vol21No2.Pdf    [Accessed 10 November 2023]

2. Alias, N. A. et al. (2005). “Innovation for better teaching and learning: Adopting the Learning Management System,” Malaysia Online Journal of Instructional Technology, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 27–40,

3. Kasim, M. F. et al. (2016). Choosing the Right Learning Management System (LMS) for the Higher Education Institution Context: A Systematic Review Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysi [online]. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v11i06.5644   [Accessed 10 November 2023] 

4. Palloff, R. M., and Pratt, K. (2002). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom: The realities of online teaching. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons. [online]. Availablefrom: http://jotlt.indiana.edu/article/download/4279/19289 [Accessed 10 November2023]   

5. Watson, W., and Watson, S. L. (2007). An argument for clarity: What are learning management systems, what are they not, and what should they become. Tech Trends. [online]. Availablefrom:doi:10.1007/s11528-007-0023- [Accessed 11 November 2023] 

                                                   

A field trip to Jalinga

 

  On the 2^nd of November 2023 we had a trip to Jalinga studio in Tashkent. It was intriguing that I had never heard about this studio before. This studio is automated that you do not need have to be taught how to use it, you just need introductory instructions from the staff before recording your video.

  In this rapidly developing world, every sphere is getting modernized and innovated and people prefer to watch short videos to get what they searched for rather than reading some long information. So that online teaching platforms that include videos are gaining popularity all around the world. Jalingo studio was created to help teachers to create high-quality interactive educational videos without help.

  Interactive and up-to-date Jalinga studio consisted of touchboard, lecturers screen, camera, light sources, backgrounds and projectors. Touchboard and the screens behind the board make teaching process much easy as the screens show the words that you want to tell during the recording.

  We recorded our videos about our blog introducing the aims of the blogs that we are writing.

About my teaching experience

 

Hi there,

  I am Durdona who is an English teacher at both public school and university parallelly after graduating from university. I started my career a year before but I have so much to share with you…

 Last year graduating from pedagogical university I decided to continue my education and accepted to the master’s degree program at two universities. They are both the most popular and prominent universities in Uzbekistan, but one is international which is WIUT another one is public university. Once I started my education in another city, I realized that I needed job as air. Then I searched for job from so many educational organizations, such as private schools, universities and also public schools. However, the majority of them didn’t want to hire me as I was a student. But one day my teacher at university announced English teacher vacancy at our university and I applied for the job and I got hired after interview.  

  I started my job as an English teacher and taught the students who are almost my age. I was inexperienced and I had no idea how to engage students to the lesson, how to organize the class or how to interact with them. Often times students didn’t pay attention to the class, they just used mobile phones and etc. Then I started to work on myself and watched online videos about teaching and engaging students. Moreover, my studies at WIUT started which is something that urged me to change as a teacher. I took two modules in the first semester. Support Students’ Learning (SSL) had great impact on my experience. I use to be always strict and wanted to keep the border between my students but it was wrong. I had never thought about students’ interests, their learning styles and there were so many things that I had never heard of and had not taken in to consideration before. During the sessions I learned new thing and implemented them in my teaching.

  I started to ask questions from students about their daily life, hobbies, interests and commented on them which helped me to build rapport with them. Once they knew me the atmosphere in the classroom changed into positive vibes. Furthermore, I tried to make the activities that were related to their sphere. For instance, as I taught in the economy faculty, I created flashcards about banking tom learn new vocabulary or even if I want them to prepare role play the context should be in the bank. They started to change their opinion to the lesson and became enthusiastic.

  Students’ interests are the most important thing in the class that make the learning environment vivid and interesting, productive)))

 

So, how is your experience? Feel free to share on the comments below))