Learning strategies

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Learning strategies

Portfolio tasks

As agreed in class, the deadline for these is the Wednesday of the week. For each logbook entry, include a date, like in Karsten’s logbook (see script). Playful self-expression, incl. drawings, voice messages, videos, memes, etc. is encouraged! Happy logging!

Task 1

Reflecting on the video about Leni Dam, make a logbook entry briefly discussing the following:

What strategies (from your group’s strategy type, but not only!) did you notice being used in her class? Provide specific examples. What stood out for you?

What else, e.g. not necessarily strategies-related, caught your attention? Any surprises? Any confusion? (Confusion is precious, as it can create stepping stones to new learning!) Anything that you’d like to learn more about? Any questions for Leni? :)

Any other module-related thoughts you’d like to share? Think ‘reactions’, like those you share at the end of each Practical Preparation 1 session, to let me know how you are, what works for you on the module and what doesn’t.

Task 2

Read Leni Dam’s article entitled Educating students to become lifelong learners (enclosed in your scripts). Once you’ve completed that task, you will have learnt a fair deal both about Leni’s teaching philosophy and its practical manifestations - think

the documentary⁠

we watched and Karsten’s logbook in your scripts. With all of this in mind, log a short (300 words max.) fictional email addressed to Leni (e.g. Dear Leni, ...) telling her about how you feel about her work, what specifically (e.g. through examples) you like and dislike, what scope there is for innovation regarding learner autonomy in Macedonia, and any questions you would like to pose to her. The more personal you make this task, the more engaging it will be and the more powerful it will read!

Bring along a page of an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) course book of your choice to work with in class.

Task 3

How is it going for you on this module? Any reflections which you would like to share with me?

Paste a picture of the course book page you analysed for the kinds of learning (meta-)strategies it promotes. Analyse which strategies you feel are addressed by each activity. Then, design a few activities to supplement the range of strategy support offered so more strategies are present.

Task 4 (self-organised learning)

Describe in 100 words max. your imaginary (or not so imaginary!) group of learners in terms of their age, proficiency levels, educational needs, personalities, etc. Help us get a clear image of your group.

Choose a topic you’re very passionate about, e.g. favourite book, film, band, album, lyrics - anything that you care deeply about and is likely to be aligned with your learners’ needs and preferences. Develop an imaginary set of activities (a unit of sorts), to take your learners on a Strategic Self-Regulation journey. Please prepare activities for a lesson with an introduction, main part and wrap-up, making sure there are activities belonging to all 6 strategy types (cognitive, SI, affective, meta-cognitive, meta-SI, meta-affective). Use the checklist presented in class to guide your materials development process:

Have the following been addressed in your activity sequence:

Strategic Self-Regulation Model (+body) - Rebecca Oxford

Learner autonomy - Leni Dam

Self-organised learning - Sugata Mitra

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Inclusion through differentiation for content, process, output and physical environment

Flow Theory - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Student and teacher agency - Paulo Freire

Information processing theory

Schema theory

On 29th November, bring along for peer review a copy of your materials (4 pages max., double-sided printing in black and white OK), alongside a little reflection on Flow Theory as a P. S. to your materials: How likely are my activities to result in flow in my class? Why do I think so? To learn more about Flow Theory, listen to

its author’s TED talk - good luck pronouncing his name: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi⁠

! :)

Imporant note: while it’s alright for you to brainstorm by browsing the net or chatting to AI, to be considered for assessment, the sole author of your activities needs to be you. Feel free to be as daring as you wish in developing your activities - the further away from standard course book materials they are, the more engaged the materials development process and the more engaging the materials for the audience! A degree of innovation is a requirement for this task; materials which resemble too closely those from course books as we know them cannot be taken into consideration for assessment.

P. S. To illustrate what I mean by subverting the mainstream, take a look at the first 3 minutes of

this Smooth On Podcast episode⁠

to see how the host chooses to draw the audience into the chat.

Elena’s overall feedback to the group following reviewing your first draft activity sequences:

The topics you chose for your materials appear to have really set most of you free, creativity-wise! Which made for a very engaging review. A few pointers below for further improvement, though.

Some materials currently look more like Teacher’s Books; while this is a useful approach, please make sure that you first present what your students will see, and move your analyses to a Teacher’s Copy of sorts, in which to enclose your language aims (i.e. what you’re hoping your students will achieve through engaging with your materials) and your analyses using

the checklist above⁠

; note on the checklist: Inclusion was very little addressed, so useful to give it more thought when revising - e.g. what tweaks to an activity might you need to propose in the Teacher’s Copy to be more inclusive of different learning needs (e.g. an elaborate writing activity might be an obstacle to a dyslexic learner; a loud group work activity might be a challenge for an autistic learner)? Also, (meta-)affective strategies are particularly scarce - see the Appendices in Rebecca Oxford’s (2001) book for some example activities to get inspired from!

Some of you used learning strategies tips in your materials, which is a great idea, as that is one way in which you can implicitly teach learning strategies - e.g. Working with different peers helps you explore new ideas and ways of working. Tips would be particularly useful for the ‘unusual’ activities you might suggest, e.g. to support (meta-)affective learning strategies, to let the learners where you’re coming from.

The sequencing of the activities in terms of topic and/or cognitive challenge seemed to sometimes be an issue. Put yourselves in your learners’ shoes and reflect if each activity supports them in developing their skills further. A useful tool to help you think about the level of cognitive challenge is

Bloom’s taxonomy⁠

, which ranks cognitive processes from simple to complex; to illustrate, for this portfolio task you’re operating at the highest level of Bloom’s taxonomy, producing original work. Keep up the good creative work!

Task 5

Read Chapter 2 of educational philosopher’s Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) - this is the first section of your scripts, immediately following the syllabus. Then, in your logbook, outline how you can tweak your materials to come closer to Freire’s educational ideals. Then do the same following our discussion with Leni Dam in class. Add your thoughts in your logbook - these ideas can later be moved to form part of your Teacher’s Book (see the text in yellow above for my feedback on the group’s work so far). Please note that you can now share your materials in the same spreadsheets where you shared your logbooks - there’s no deadline for this, I thought I’d let you know for when the time comes to share:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hhOnjQZ5sGA1_HGf4tQRz5fPnXswIaifp4HHpe8zV5s/edit?gid=0#gid=0⁠

⁠

Also please briefly comment on how you are on this module - what works for you and what you would like to see improved.

Task 6

Having now covered all the module content (see the updated checklist in

Portfolio tasks⁠

), please revise your materials (Student and Teacher Copy) making sure all theories are appropriately addressed. By the usual Wednesday deadline share your second drafts in

Students' logbooks⁠

. You can share in one of two ways:

by adding your materials to your logbook (Column B in the Excel sheet) and giving viewing rights to ‘anyone on the internet’ or

if you want your logbooks to be kept private, share a link to your self-developed materials (Column C in the Excel sheet), again, giving editing and viewing rights to ‘anyone on the internet’

Every author will have a maximum of 5 minutes (these will be timed) to ‘make a pitch’ for their materials, convincing us to use them in our future teaching contexts, if/when appropriate (e.g. How are they different from anything out there on the market? Why should we bother?) Place a particular focus on the less ‘visible’ theories addressed in the materials. To define ‘visible’, SI strategies are pretty visible in the group set-up of an activity; focus instead on discussing those theories that may not be as immediately accessible to the reader.

Any questions, let me know!

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