WEEK 07 (16 – 22 November 2009)

Teaching Large Classes; Using PowerPoint Interactively

Large classes are a challenge in any area, but they can be especially difficult in language teaching and learning. There are a number of ways to keep students engaged, even in large classes, thus learning. Hint: Just lecturing is not one of them!

Many people use PowerPoint, but it’s rarely used effectively and INTERACTIVELY. It’s important to move a PowerPoint presentation out of straight lecture mode.

Learning Objectives
Teaching large classes
Condition: After reading about examples of different student-centered, interactive large classes
Audience: Participants in the course
Behavior: Will share ideas about what techniques might be useful in their own settings
Degree: In at least one post on Nicenet

Using PowerPoint interactively
Degree: In at least one post on Nicenet
Audience: Participants in the course
Behavior: Will share ideas about how they could use PPT more effectively to encourage student interaction (possibly including having students create their own presentations)
Condition: After reading about ways to encourage interactivity with PPT

READINGS

TASKS
Readings are required! Go carefully through them and use them to help form a basis for your postings in the weekly discussions. We have two related topics this week, and a lot of suggested readings. You only need to read two readings and respond in ONE forum, but I think you’ll enjoy looking at most of these.ReadingsEngaging Students in Large Classes (read the first one, then choose a second one)

Choose one of the following as well. Keep thinking about where technology could help.

Interactive PowerPoint: choose any two to read

Additional Resources

Teaching Large Classes

Interactive PowerPoint

Advanced – creating PPT for students to use on their own or in a one-computer classroom

Weekly Requests and Reminders: 
Continue your blog at www.blogger.com. Post a reflective comment on this week’s work, where you talk about what you did, what you learned, and how you might apply that information in your teaching. Post at least one comment on another participant’s blog. Add good sites to your Delicious.com page. Remember to have tags and notes for each site you add.

You’ll need to start thinking about your Final Project/Action Plan this week – what can you do to apply some of the things we’re talked about in this course to your own classes? Use the Final Project/Action Plan checklist to help you with this. Your action plans will be due on December 6.

 Discussions: Go to Nicenet, log in, and participate in this week’s topics.

  1. Look at “Teaching Large Classes,” then choose one of the additional readings in the Large Classes section. What ways could you add technology to these techniques to improve learning? Think about project-based learning, WebQuests, and some of the ideas in “Personalizing Language Learning in Large Classes” to help in your response. What techniques and technology could you use for your classes?
  2. PowerPoint is very commonly used in teaching, but it is rarely used interactively. Watching the screen is not interactivity. Read at least one of the articles in the Interactive PowerPoint section to find ways to turn a lecture into an interactive experience for students. What could you do in your classes with PowerPoint AND be more student-centered and interactive? (Think about what students can do with PowerPoint, for example.)
  3. Optional: Try to create an interactive PowerPoint lesson, using information from the Additional Resources section. Share what you create in the Participant Projects section of our wiki, and tell us about it here.

Make sure you save good sites on your Delicious.com page!