Who’s visiting?
Jul
3
Empowering others
July 3, 2008 | | 1 Comment
I just returned from co-facilitating a 10 day intense professional development institute called Mentoring and Leadership for K-12 Chinese teachers at the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University. Cherice Montgomery, my co-facilitator, did a tremendous job with curriculum development. The participants were phenomonal – what a great group of teachers of Chinese! During the Institute we created a wiki that is serving as a jumping point for new initiatives in connecting Chinese teachers. It was interesting to work with a group of teachers whose language was not my language, Spanish. Many of the participants did not have English as a first language, adding an additional layer of complexity to our interactions. I learned a lot about Chinese, about teaching and learning Chinese, and am grateful for the opportunity to share the past 10 days with this group of gifted educators. Indeed, they have the power to shape the profession, serving as mentors and leaders for their colleagues!
Now that I am a few days post-Institute, here are some random summative thoughts:
- Technology can be a huge motivator – it can be the hook for some educators. They are interested in the technology and how it can be used for teaching, learning, creating, practicing, sharing, supporting. Voicethread, wikis, blogs – all were motivating creative environments for one reason or another.
- One huge message we tried to get across – it really isn’t about the technology but rather what you can do with it. So many of today’s technologies create opportunities to share, support, create – leveraging them is key.
- Too many teachers are still isolated in their district, building, and classroom.
- Multilingualism is a gift – knowing another language provides insight into the soul of another culture. Language and culture are precious gifts.
- Teaching is not a linear process, nor is planning. Sure, we can start with the end in mind, but during the planning process we move through various layers and ideas regarding formative and summative assessments, creative and interesting ways to practice and create experiences in our classrooms, etc. Teaching and learning are definitely more like an image map than a timeline.
- Topic does not equal theme. So often our textbooks and activities are topically organized, but that is not the same as theme. Topics=clothing, numbers colors. Theme=poverty, hunger, global citizenship in a 21st century. We are too often stuck at the topic instead of looking beyond to the theme.
I hope the participants have used the experiences to challenge old ideas, to create new ideas, and to explore the possibilities of teaching and learning a world language in the 21st century.
Cindy leading a demo lesson, Juan está triste. This part of the lesson is answering the question, ¿Por qué está triste Juan? Porque un ratoncito come su queso.
Comments
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)1 Comment so far
Thank you and Cherice for empowering me. Thanks for your knowledge and wisdom. I agree with you about technology; it is not about the technology but how you use it. Thanks.