Tuesday 29 September 2015

PGCEi face to face day 2

Exploring learning theories

Day 2 of PGCEi was well spent in exploring the various learning theories. Though I had read some of them as a part of the IB documents , but had really never connected them to my own teaching practices to justify them. For the first time the IB documents and programme felt to be so dynamic as it was informed by what modern theorists had to say about learning. I could see so many paradigm shifts happening of other educators in the room as they kept on questioning and reflecting on their own practices. 

My takeaway from the day were many :
  1. How the zone of proximal development was further refined by Bruner and later by Woods and the concept of Contingent control in the classroom introduced.
  2. Also the Howard Gardener's multiple intelligence theory kind of challenged my prior understanding of the visual, audiometric and kinaesthetic learning , saying that all the intelligences need to be developed.
My own definition of learning

Behaviourism- 

Stimuli can be linked to produce response -- Pavlov

 

Language and Learning in International Contexts

In the second half what we were introduced was even more interesting as I had read all of that while framing and developing language policy of the IB schools in which I was a part from evaluation and authorization over the two years.However the contexts of all of that were made so relevant now.We were introduced to BICS and CALP (The acronyms BICS and CALP refer to a distinction introduced by Cummins (1979) between basic interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive academic language proficiency.)

My takeaway of the day:

Cummins quadrant -I kind of struggled to place my practices in the various quadrants. To achieve CALP it was mentioned that we had to have practices linked to quadrant C. 

ACTIVITY TIME:

We did some case study analysis and answered in group the following questions?
  1. What strategies you could use to support EAL in your class?
  2. What is the value of the home language?
  3. How can literacy skills of CALP be developed?
In the context of China and our school these questions are so valid and relevant and needed reflection and connection. I answered them to my own context.
 The day ended by learning how to write a piece of critical writing under crilical literacy.. It was a big insight to academic writing.



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