IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

It seems like it never arrives, but now it's here... welcome to us Winter!

Merry Christmas for all of you!

Activities about 'AULAS FELICES'

'AULAS FELICES' is an educative programme based on postive psicology and leat to primary and asecondary students. It is for free and it provides resources to work on every field. 

"AULAS FELICES” es un programa educativo basado en la Psicología Positiva y dirigido a alumnos de Educación Infantil, Primaria y Secundaria. Es gratis y de libre difusión. Pretende aportar recursos para trabajar en las áreas y también en tutoría, potenciando las Competencias Básicas más transversales, así como la Acción Tutorial y la Educación en Valores. Su estructura puede resumirse así:

Below you can see the three activities I like the most from Aulas Felices. These three activities would be chosen if I had to put in practice some activities like those in class. I think they are really interesting and work perfectly with the creativitiy and capacity of the students. 

BREATHING AT THE BEGINING OF THE CLASS: 

When I was a child and I went to primary school, my teacher used to use this technique. Relaxing students is very postive because the focus on their breathing and it makes them to concentrate themselves and then, they work more concentrated. If we can use this technique in secondary school, we can mix it with the zen technique. Then, we can tell a story while they are breathing in and out as a way to clean their minds and just think in what the teacher is talking about. 

CORNERS OF CREATIVITY:

What is this, exactly? We try to motivate our students but they already have their own motivations, so we must let them to show their own motivations. So for me, creating corners in the class let students to be more creative, because their imagination can be widespread and interesting for us to know which are their skills and hobbies. 

TASTING THE HAPPINESS OF LIFE: 

I find this activity very cuddly. Because we should reinforce the human aspects of the education and implement activities with this kind of objectives. Even as teachers we make mistakes a lot of times, and most times we are more worried about the content than the form. We just focus on the academic skills and we forget about the human skills, which are even more important than the academic aspects. 

MOTIVATIONAL GRAPH

When we are teaching, the students do not have the same level of motivation and attention during the whole class, and through the graphic we have below, we can differentiate 3 levels. 

The first one is at the beggining of the class, here the learning curve starts to peak because the motivation process starts to be achieved. So this is the moment when we can catch the attention of our students. 

The second level is in the middle of the lesson, here they are like: "Teach us more please! We want to learn everything now!"

And finally, the third level is the end of the class, when the students are focused on when the class is going to finish are their learning here is inefficient and even harmful for them. Motivation now is gone. 

MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES

There is a common belief to think that teacher do everything perfect, we are the authority so we have how to teach without any need of innovation or change. But we as a teachers are aware that we have to be always learning, I mean, if we do not want to fail, we have to improve our techniques daily. We are not going to teach in the same way our teacher taught us when we went to the high school, because the time pass by and we have to motivate our students and motivate ourselves. 

It's really hard for a teacher who is 30 years working in a high school to make their students become motivated, because it's a long time and s/he has to innovate a lot in order to make their students think about their education. 

For me, the motivation is extremely important, but not just for students, for loving what they are studying, it is also important for teachers, because if a teacher is not motivated in what s/he is doing, s/he cannot transmit the motivation to their students, so h/se will be (instead of motivating) so boring. It is like a loop in which everything is linked by. 

Here you have a link to test your strategies to motivate your students:

http://www.zoltandornyei.co.uk/uploads/motivational-strategies-english.pdf

INDEX OF LEARNING STYLES QUESTIONNAIRE

After completing my questionnaire from the North Carolina State University website https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html , this is my personal result. 

Here, in the picture you have above, you can understand better which are my learing styles. 

Summarizing I can say that I'm:

- Active: learning by doing

- Intuitive: discovering

- Visual / verbal at the same time: more visual (1 point more)

- Sequential / global at the same time: more sequential (1 point more) doing things by steps instead on focusing on the whole part at first.  

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE SELF-ASSESMENT

For all of you who do not know what the term 'multiple intelligence' is, it is the way students or people in general learn. I mean, if we focus on teaching, students' learing styles may be linked somewhat with what their main intelligences are. Teachers must take into account these so-called different intelligences when they are planning their lessons in order to adapt the lesson plan and materials to the necessities of their students, to motivate and involve as many students as possible throughout the process of learning. 

Howard Gardner (1993), proposed in the book Frames of Mind the existence of seven basic intelligences. Later on, he added an eighth and even a ninth possibility.

SELF-ASSESSMENT RESULTS:

I just took a look in this link https://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment and I could guess which are my results in the multiple intelligence test. I was sure about it before doing the test, I have an interpersonal intelligence at 100%! I knew that because people with interpersonal intelligence are good in social interaction and I do not have any problem in empathize with people and I like to listen to them and to be able to understand them, here you have my complete results!. 

Here you have another web to assess you strengths referring to multiple intelligence: http://www.literacynet.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html

LEARNING CONTRACT

What do you think at first when you hear the concept 'learning contract'? I'm sure you've listened to it when you were students, because it is a brilliant tool to use with secondary students. The learning contract is a guide to monitor and direct the students' learning as it's like a negotiation of an agreement between the students and the educator. It provides structure and guidelines to let the student know what s/he needs and wants to learn and also how to learn.

I found this picture on the left and I think it's a good example to show what would be a learning contract, because in my class I want us to become a team, an we, as a TEAM...:

-must respect each other 

-must love each other in the way one is

-must share our feelings inside the classroom, our worries as well as our happiness

-must speak abouour beliefs

-don't support competition but cooperation 

... 

WELCOME!!

Welcome everyone to my IDIIE blog! 

My name is Mar, I'm 24 years old and I'm from València. I have studied English and German Studies at the Valencia's College. Now I'm finishing a master's degree to be able to become an English teacher. It is an amazing experience because I've ever wanted to become a teacher. 

Here I introduce all of you to my blog for the IDIIE subject, in which I will be posting that intersting things found about teaching issues. I hope you like it!