Poster

In our school we noticed that we are facing a problem by which all the students are bored and unmotivated to learning at all. After discussion and investigations we noticed that teachers are following the traditional kind of instructions, like they give all the information and ask the students to memorize them. There is no contributions, no space for creativity, and no space to check the students abilities. As school admins we decided to do a training sessions to adjust the teaching process according to students need in order to make them more engaged and interested. Those training sessions will train the teachers on how to vary their instructions, how to use different interesting materials in the class, and how to incorporate ICT tools and gamification based learning. 

In this poster you can check the plan that we designed in order to solve the above problem. It includes the timeline of the training sessions, the main problem and the suggested solutions.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LRESLmQll2v-2wQNEyNhySAtD1MGaOqb/view?usp=share_link

    

Wordwall

 Wordwall is a game that can help instructors to prepare their learning activities in interesting way that will leads to students engagements and motivation. This game almost includes all the topics like( sciences, math, English), and it contains different categories and templates( quizzes, match up, anagram, random cards..). Teachers can either create their own activities or they can choose from the recent list already prepared activities. 

This video provide you a set of steps that you can follow to create a quiz. The steps are very clear, and show you how to create an account and give you an idea on creating learning activities for your class.

Gamification

Today we are living in the age of gaming. Many  games are present in front of us as teachers, so we have to search about which one  of these games we want to use or which one is good or best fit with our students. 

• Nearpod can help teachers to make their lessons more interactive. In this game many themes are available , and you can choose the theme that best fit with your lesson. Such themes can really make the game more attractive and can direct students attention toward the topic. Also this game give you the opportunity to manage your time by limiting  the period given to the students to answer something, and help you to monitor the students performance, by which you can easily detect who is answering and who is not. You can use this game in different ways, for example you can use it at the beginning of the lesson to review something, or you can use it at the end of the lesson to check for understanding. This game is useful due to many aspects. One of the aspects that I like the most is the ability of the teacher to pause the game at any time to check or discuss something with the students.  I like the way how students can choose their characters, this really something nice and can motivate them
• Genially, in this game many templates are available, one of the most interesting templates that you can use is the escape room. This template can really motivate the students and encourage their critical thinking, by which they will try to work hard and think in logical way to be able to find the answer and move out of the room. In fact this game is really useful and it can add the sense of fun and joy to the class, it can increase the productivity of the students and let them be intrinsically motivated to learn. 
• Jeopardy, in this game you can include several questions, by which you can categorize them in the way you want. This game can challenge the students to answer in specific categories. Its useful, especially if you let the students play in groups, this can generate the competition in your class. Moreover this game is very simple and easy to use by teachers as it is a simple question and answer activity. 
•  Another games that we can use: Bingo, world wall, Kahoot and puzzles. Such games can help us a lot in our teaching process; help us in planning, implementing and evaluating student's. moreover they make learning more effective and engaging.   

How to be a Digital Citizen?

 To be a digital citizen you have to follow some guidelines as:

• Cooperate in an ethical way.
• Give proper credit or citations when they use someone's work.
• Learn more about copyrights issues.
• Learn how to have digital privacy.
• Think before you post anything.
• Learn how to be secure and maintain your personal data.
• Choose a strong password for your accounts, and try to change it usually.
• Report any bad behaviors.
  

Tools that can be used in online assessment

 Informal checks for understanding:

It's checking for understanding while I am teaching. For example, I can check weather my students have a background knowledge about photosynthesis by asking them to state to me the main conditions needed for photosynthesis on the Padlet application. OR after explaining some point in the lesson I can ask the students to answer some true and false questions by using kahoot or quizlet or mentimeter . Those online tools help me to check if things are going on the correct track or if I need to explain something in.

Test and quizzes:

Those are the regular types to check for understanding, i can use google form to make a test or quiz at the end of my lesson. So in this way I'm really checking the students' understanding of the concept by using online tools.

Academic prompt: 

I write a prompt which is: many of us try to plant something but the plant dies. Write the reasons behind this and what you can do to save and let them grow well. 

I put this prompt on the google classroom, and ask the students to answer on it, and there is no specific answer. I make the answers visible, so all the students will response or reply to each other’s. This is a beneficial way to cover some misunderstandings, for example may be one of the student state something wrong, so others will reply to him.

Projects 

I can ask the students to make a video or game about the lesson. Or, I can ask them to work in groups on google slides to explain certain topic by themselves.

Integrating Technology In Teaching

Nowadays there are a lot of ICT tools in front of us as teachers. We can vary the usage of such tools and  in a way that fit our students' needs. Integrating technology in teaching can help us to move from teacher centered learning to students centered learning and help us to emphasize the teaching process. For example, if we are going about photosynthesis and we are talking about what are the main conditions that are necessary for the plant I can ask my students to open the simulation app and perform the experiment, so that the students can control the conditions that are necessary for the plants. They can control the variables in the way they want, they can know what conditions are needed by the plant in order to survive; how much mineral salts they must add or which specific intensity of sunlight is better. So online tools and applications can help us a lot as teachers to achieve our learning objectives in interesting and engaging way. As a science teacher, technology tools really makes my subject more enjoyable and interesting, and it makes my students more engaged and motivated. Moreover, it facilitates my work as a teacher, helps me to deliver the information in a clear way, and lets me move from a traditional approach to a student centered approach.

A Teaching And Learning Experience I Wont Forget

A teaching experience that I won’t forget was the day I used self-assessment method with my grade 7 students. In self-assessment, students were able to reflect on their own personal test. they were able to identify their weak points and they set targets for future learning. For example, I gave the students rubric and asked them to assess their own work, like to put a check mark on the points that they did correctly and X on the wrong points. By doing so I helped my students, especially those students that don't get high grades in the assessments, to be more motivated and more engaged. Moreover, this method made the learning process more effective, as the students are knowing their weak points and trying to set a target to improve their learning.