Reflective Journal #6: APA!!

Last Tuesday's class was a little bit different. It was time for the APA style themed class. the activity at the beginning of the class was fun, yet i had no idea it had to do with APA style referencing. Honestly, although i was wondering why we would spend almost half of the class time on the learning how to write references correctly, when we can learn that later on; i found it very helpful and it answered a lot of questions i had about the referencing and corrected many many mistakes that i used to do while writing any paper. the effect of the APA activity was obvious when i was writing the second summary and reflection, i felt so proud of myself that i could write the paper in the APA style with minimal mistakes - hopefully. One of the moments that made me think a lot during the days after the class was when the Dr. told me and Marwa that we need to learn the APA for future research in our Masters thesis. it got me thinking: "Am I going to pursue this much further? Am I qualified enough?".

The second activity about describing the learning community that we work in was eye opener. it made me think about the ugly truth of the huge gap between different educational institutions in Egypt. But i really have no idea how can we decrease that gap? what is our role as educators in providing a successful learning community for our students amid all these huge differences between educational institutions?
May be we can discuss that in the next class.

Reflective Journal #5: Drawing and Cellphones

I have such a lousy drawing skills, so when we were asked to express what we think about learning communities only through drawing, I thought to myself "wow I'm done with this activity I can't do it". It took me less than a minute while I saw my friends getting started with their drawings to realize that if they can do it, then so can I. I started drawing stupid things and then it turned out to go just fine, I was able to express a couple of things I had in mind; the group work, the peer tutoring, use of technology, teacher being the support system for the students and the safe environment - which i expressed by the trees and my colleagues thought it was about field trips. rotating the drawings among the rest of the class helped me to gain insight about what each one of the class thinks. moving on to talk about what form of technology we use inside our classroom; I thought about what i really use inside my classroom - which is basically the projector and occasionally the smart board - and i felt "is it really enough?" and hearing friends discuss their frustration about the lack of support from school administrations toward providing technology in classroom made me feel that i'm not alone in this, there are people out their with the same frustration. and then the idea of students using their cellphones as a means of learning seemed unappealing to me, as the first thing that they will do is go straight to their bbms, because i put myself in their shoes, i'm a technology addict, the first thing that i'll do inside the classroom if i'm allowed to use my phone is to go through all the messages that i received while i was away from the phone. But making students use their phones as a part of the learning process is out of the box, and makes teacher get out of his comfort zone, risking the chaos that occur with this approach, but again, chaos can come out of any idea that is tried for the first time, and eventually when it's tried more than once, experience is gained towards handling all the problems that were first faced, and the outcome would be meaningful, fun learning experience for the students ans success for the teacher. So i guess i may try that approach soon :) :)

Reflective Journal #4: Hands on the wall

Tuesday has become a weekly ritual for me, meeting at 5 after a long day of work and driving seems disastrous but surprisingly i'm always excited going to the class. Beginning with the projects presentation of the rest of the colleagues triggered much more ideas in my head concerning my projects, so I started writing down notes so as to organize the ideas later. Also listening to my friends with their ideas made me wonder how these brilliant minds and thousands like them in our country are not given the credit they deserved; from workplace or from society. Generally speaking, I guess teachers are not given the credit they deserve!

"Hands on the wall" experience was intriguing, what I felt about it in the beginning was different from the purpose of the exercise actually. First thought as I faced the wall was "wow, that's really uncomfortable, I wonder how students feel when teachers punish them this way!!!" But the the exercise progressed, I started to see where this was going. I loved the fact that although I thought I cannot reach higher with my hands, I did my best and challenged myself into reaching higher. Honestly I don't know what triggered me or motivated me to try to reach higher! may be it's just to prove to myself that I can do better.

Having to leave early was unfortunate last week as i'm sure I missed some interesting activities. :S :S

Reflective Journal #3: Recalling Psychology class

Well, coming late to class last Tuesday made me a little bit nervous at the beginning, but when i mingled with my class mates and started to record the answer to the question posed by the Dr, i felt very relaxed. The question was about describing the physical, emotional, psychological and social development of teenagers. I was happy that I could answer the question easily based on my previous study of human development and psychology in 501 course.Then moving on to the motivation issue, i found what i read in the paper that i used for summary presented in class, the students will be motivated when they feel that they are responsible for their learning, that they are part of the decision making. I'm personally convinced with that because i encountered a similar experience earlier in the classroom that proved to me that students performed much better when they took part in making a decision concerning improving their learning process.
Also the project progress meeting was interesting because it felt like a brainstorming session where ideas are shared among all of us and this helps in developing our projects more and hopefully result in positive outcomes.

Reflective Journal #2: Blogs and ideas bonanza

Last Tuesday's class was one of the most interesting classes that I attended throughout the diploma. The exchange of ideas, the opinion and the opposing opinion, the ongoing debate about exploring the blog! I found out that we all agree that motivated adolescents can have the best learning experience and gain the best outcome, but the debate was on how to motivate them and why do they need to be motivated. I personally thought that my discussion with Ms. Sahar about the underprivileged students was very challenging to me, because it got me to think about students growing up in difficult environment from a different perspective. Also the exchange of project ideas was very interesting, actually since last Tuesday, my mind has been preoccupied with the community-based project and I've been discussing it with my supervisor and my colleagues which has triggered another session of brainstorming within our department!

One last thought: Next time, I need to write my reflection right after the class, my thoughts and ideas would be fresher then :)