Session+3

=﻿Session 3=

Session 3.1 - Monitoring understanding

 * **How do you monitor students' understanding in your classroom?** I use a variety of methods to monitor understanding in the classroom. As students are practicing what they have learned either through written exercises or oral / conversation exercises, I usually circulate, offering feedback. I will then ask students to perform their dialogues, write their answers on the board, or explain what they have learned to the class. If I student struggling, I will stop to help them, or assign a student who has already finished to help them. Finally, I often have them complete a ticket to leave at the end of the class which they hand in and I check over before handing it back to them.
 * **How might that practice change as you implement more technology?** ﻿There will be a shift in focus. I will be able to spend more time on speaking as more technology is implemented. For one thing, next year we will have a brand new language lab to use. I will be able to have them practice with all of their classmates without ever leaving their seats. I will also be able to either listen in and comment or record these sessions and give feedback more easily. Students will also be able to perform things on the computer which will be monitored at the teacher station and can even be shown to the rest of the class. I think as more technology is implemented, it will become more student-centered and some of the responsibility will switch to them. I will be able to teach them to monitor each others understanding while I oversee all of it. They will become independent and I will be able to more effective at monitoring their understanding.

3.2 Stragey overview
It is important to activate prior knowledge in before reading activities, use that prior knowledge while reading and then connect back to it after reading. Before reading, it is also important to preview the text, as well as making sure to introduce new vocabulary. Another way to prepare student for a text is to brainstorm and predict what will happen. This is one of my prefered ways of preparing students. I also often have my students look at the pictures and summarize what they think will happen, or scan the text to find words they understand and make correlations. While reading, students should ask questions, make connections, visualize, infer and draw conclusions. I often encourage my studenst to draw pictures of things they think are happening. Students should be able to synthesis the new information with their prior knowledge that was activated in the prereading activity. Finally, in the after-reading activity, students should be able to review and reflect through discussion, debate, retell/summarize, answer questions or write in a journal. If they made predictions, they should be verifying their predictions. I like to have my students participate in post-reading discussions.

3.3 Wordle as a before reading strategy

 * What does it seem that Wordle can do for the user? Wordle organizes important words and terms in to a visual display of these words. The user can look at the Wordle and make inferences as to what the reading might be about, based on the words chosen for the Wordle.
 * How useful does Wordle seem to be as a before reading strategy for students? ﻿It is very useful as it helps organize their thoughts and gives them insight as to what the text is going to be about. It is fun for the students to use and they seem to like it.
 * What type of learners would benefit from using a Wordle? Visual learners

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What observations and predictions about your article can you make based on this Wordle? What connections to your background knowledge can you make? This is a really amazing tool! I copied and pasted an entire fairy tale, both in French and in English. I assume it makes the most common words come up largest, which based on my background knowledge, I know that these are the main ideas. It helps organize /predict what is going to be important in the text and allows students to focus on it.

Session 3.4 - Annotated Article - During reading strategy
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I have always been a huge fan of marking up the text. My texts are full of comments and highlights, etc. This became problematic for me when I took computer based standardized tests like the GRE. In order to fully understand a text, I need to mark it up. I enjoyed using crocodoc - it made reading on the computer possible for me. And it was so easy to embed it here!

Session 3.5 - Top Five Vocabulary - After Reading Activity
la bete -a beast, a monster la vertu - virtue, goodness of character une fee - a fairy orgeuil -pride, greed, conceit son esprit - referring to a person's character