miércoles, 9 de junio de 2010
lunes, 3 de mayo de 2010
The Big Sentence Searches Give Away!
One set includes 6 books of English language learning puzzles for children and 3 puzzle books for adults.
Sentence Searches are a fun and innovative way of improving English vocabulary and learning how to construct sentences.
Sentence Searches are now available to buy online at:
http://theenglishworkout.com/http://www.theresazanatta.com/compras/compras.html
Just look up: Sentence Searches.
You can win a complete set if you enter this competition. All you have to do is answer the following question, in 50 words or less, and the best 3 answers will receive a pack of Sentence Searches, absolutely free!
What is your biggest challenge in the classroom?
Submit your answer as a comment to this blog or email it to info@theresazanatta.com
viernes, 23 de abril de 2010
New Sentence Searches. Now available to buy online!
Entretienen, retan, diverten, son interesantes, innovadores, interactivos y !efectivos¡
Van más allá del aprendizaje del vocabulario del inglés.
¡A los niños/as les divierte mucho hacer puzzles! Los puzzles son divertidos, entretenidos y una forma fantástica de practicar el desarrollo de las destrezas tanto en inglés como en su aprendizaje en general.
¡A los niños/as les divierte mucho hacer puzzles! Los puzzles son divertidos, entretenidos y una forma fantástica de practicar el desarrollo de las destrezas tanto en inglés como en su aprendizaje en general.
Los libros dirigidos a adultos también te háran utilizar los conocimientos que ya tienes, e irás desarrollando un mejor entendimiento del functionamiento de la lengua para formar frases, preguntas, párrafos y diálogos.
Para comprar haga click en el siguiente link...
These puzzles are a lot of fun and help you to learn much more than just the vocabulary of the English language! Children will find them an interesting and entertaining way to practice both their language and learning skills.
Adults will use their existing knowledge and develop a better understanding of how words come together to form sentences, questions, paragraphs and dialogues.
You can buy online by clicking on this link…
Para comprar haga click en el siguiente link...
http://www.canadianinstitute.eu/es/publications/compras.html
Good news! We have published 6 new books of Sentence Search Puzzles for children, and 3 for adults.
Good news! We have published 6 new books of Sentence Search Puzzles for children, and 3 for adults.
These puzzles are a lot of fun and help you to learn much more than just the vocabulary of the English language! Children will find them an interesting and entertaining way to practice both their language and learning skills.
Adults will use their existing knowledge and develop a better understanding of how words come together to form sentences, questions, paragraphs and dialogues.
You can buy online by clicking on this link…
domingo, 17 de enero de 2010
Towards an Understanding of Understanding!
"Nurturing understanding is one of the loftiest aspirations of education and also one of the most elusive."
Tina Blythe and Associates, The Teaching for Understanding Guide, c. 1998 by John Wiley and Sons Inc.
There is no doubt in my mind, after more than twenty years of teaching, that I am most effective when I am teaching for understanding. But what exactly does it mean to be able to understand something? How can I know when my students are developing understanding? How do they develop understanding and what criteria can I use to choose and create activities that help my students develop understanding?
These are a few of the questions that I am continually seeking to answer as both a teacher and a parent. Tina Blythe´s book which I have quoted from above, has been and continues to be a wonderful guide to bring me closer to an understanding of understanding and how I can be more effective in teaching for understanding.
These questions and several more related to the nature of understanding, formed the backbone of study more than twenty years ago for Howard Gardner, David Perkins and Vito Perrone, three professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It was 1988 when these three men brought together a group of colleagues who would work for the next five years to develop a research-based, classroom-tested approach to teaching for understanding.
It was an ambitious project. Blythe´s book explains that more than 60 school-based and 30 university-based educators researched and contributed to the work of the Teaching for Understanding Project. The culmination of this five year project was the presentation of the Teaching for Understanding Framework, a "tool for designing, conducting and reflecting on classroom practices that nourish student understanding." (Blythe, 1998).
Over the next few months, I will share with you what I have understood about understanding from Blythe´s book and how I have tried to create instructional practices that bring me closer to achieving understanding in my classes.
In the meantime, I encourage you to get a copy of Blythe´s guide. It is well worth the investment!
Yours in understanding,
theresa
Tina Blythe and Associates, The Teaching for Understanding Guide, c. 1998 by John Wiley and Sons Inc.
There is no doubt in my mind, after more than twenty years of teaching, that I am most effective when I am teaching for understanding. But what exactly does it mean to be able to understand something? How can I know when my students are developing understanding? How do they develop understanding and what criteria can I use to choose and create activities that help my students develop understanding?
These are a few of the questions that I am continually seeking to answer as both a teacher and a parent. Tina Blythe´s book which I have quoted from above, has been and continues to be a wonderful guide to bring me closer to an understanding of understanding and how I can be more effective in teaching for understanding.
These questions and several more related to the nature of understanding, formed the backbone of study more than twenty years ago for Howard Gardner, David Perkins and Vito Perrone, three professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It was 1988 when these three men brought together a group of colleagues who would work for the next five years to develop a research-based, classroom-tested approach to teaching for understanding.
It was an ambitious project. Blythe´s book explains that more than 60 school-based and 30 university-based educators researched and contributed to the work of the Teaching for Understanding Project. The culmination of this five year project was the presentation of the Teaching for Understanding Framework, a "tool for designing, conducting and reflecting on classroom practices that nourish student understanding." (Blythe, 1998).
Over the next few months, I will share with you what I have understood about understanding from Blythe´s book and how I have tried to create instructional practices that bring me closer to achieving understanding in my classes.
In the meantime, I encourage you to get a copy of Blythe´s guide. It is well worth the investment!
Yours in understanding,
theresa
viernes, 14 de agosto de 2009
Making learning visible!
Part of the teaching for understanding framework that has been developed by educators including Howard Gardner and David Perkins at the Project Zero Group at Harvard, involves the notion of "making learning visible".
The essential idea here is 'if I can "see" what my students are learning, then it should be easier for me to determine what they do and don't understood'.
A key characteristic then of 'teaching for understanding activities' is that they contain a "make- learning- visible component", that they provide us with an opportunity to observe what students are understanding.
This makes good pedagogic sense to me. As an effective teacher, I want to know, as best I can, and at every possible moment throughout my classes what my students are understanding and not understanding. This knowledge provides me with important, information so that I can make better, on-the-spot teaching and learning decisions to help make my students' learning more effective. My choices about my instructional practices become better "informed" with this instant feedback!
I know that if I wait until the quiz at the end of the unit to see what my students have understood, it is often too late to help my weaker students. A poor grade, the frustration of failure, the humility of "not getting it", all this negative baggage just makes it more difficult to turn the situation around in the next unit. Intuitively, I can see how the 'damage' has already been done and that now my job is double! Not only do I have to provide new content and input now, but I also have to somehow remediate what has not been learned! Uggghhh!!!
Over the next few weeks, I would like to share with you my experiences and the activities I use, as a teacher and teacher trainer developing and experimenting with "teaching for understanding strategies, techniques and activities that make learning visible."
Theresa
The essential idea here is 'if I can "see" what my students are learning, then it should be easier for me to determine what they do and don't understood'.
A key characteristic then of 'teaching for understanding activities' is that they contain a "make- learning- visible component", that they provide us with an opportunity to observe what students are understanding.
This makes good pedagogic sense to me. As an effective teacher, I want to know, as best I can, and at every possible moment throughout my classes what my students are understanding and not understanding. This knowledge provides me with important, information so that I can make better, on-the-spot teaching and learning decisions to help make my students' learning more effective. My choices about my instructional practices become better "informed" with this instant feedback!
I know that if I wait until the quiz at the end of the unit to see what my students have understood, it is often too late to help my weaker students. A poor grade, the frustration of failure, the humility of "not getting it", all this negative baggage just makes it more difficult to turn the situation around in the next unit. Intuitively, I can see how the 'damage' has already been done and that now my job is double! Not only do I have to provide new content and input now, but I also have to somehow remediate what has not been learned! Uggghhh!!!
Over the next few weeks, I would like to share with you my experiences and the activities I use, as a teacher and teacher trainer developing and experimenting with "teaching for understanding strategies, techniques and activities that make learning visible."
Theresa
miércoles, 21 de marzo de 2007
Teaching tools for learning for understanding
One of the very important ideas that form a part of the teaching for understanding (TFU) framework is the idea of creating opportunities to demonstrate learning in the classroom. David Perkins and the TFU group out of Harvard call these "understanding performances" or "performances of understanding". It occurs to me that perhaps I can create learning tools to use in my classrooms that help "make learning visible" (another idea from the TFU framework and working group), especially when I am working with young learners who aren´t so able to articulate what they have learned.
Welcome!
This blog is written by me Theresa Zanatta, an English teacher who has been introduced to the "teaching for understanding" framework.
Two summers ago, the summer of 2005, I took part in an on-line course on the "teaching for understanding" framework offered through the Department of Education at Harvard University. I took this course because I have always been motivated in my teaching by a desire to help my students "understand" and not just memorize what I was teaching.
My teaching objectives have always been to help students understand how they learn, what they are learning and why they are learning what they are learning. This to me is the "essence" of learning. Howard Gardner´s work has always interested me and a desire to better understand a pedagogy of understanding led me to this course in the summer of 2005.
Since that summer, I have continued to read about, explore, try out, and just plain experiment with this concept and how I can operationalize it in my various English classes with learners of all ages, here in Barcelona. This blog is about my learning experience and my exploration of a pedagogy of understanding.
Two summers ago, the summer of 2005, I took part in an on-line course on the "teaching for understanding" framework offered through the Department of Education at Harvard University. I took this course because I have always been motivated in my teaching by a desire to help my students "understand" and not just memorize what I was teaching.
My teaching objectives have always been to help students understand how they learn, what they are learning and why they are learning what they are learning. This to me is the "essence" of learning. Howard Gardner´s work has always interested me and a desire to better understand a pedagogy of understanding led me to this course in the summer of 2005.
Since that summer, I have continued to read about, explore, try out, and just plain experiment with this concept and how I can operationalize it in my various English classes with learners of all ages, here in Barcelona. This blog is about my learning experience and my exploration of a pedagogy of understanding.
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