Re-thinking learning for the 21st Century
Written by Vivienne Kraus
This year, I added another element to prepare for the Harkness-inspired discussions that we had in class. As a way to build vocabulary and fluency, the students’ homework was to record their response to a given question using Flipgrid (https://www.flipgrid.com/). For example : Quelle est la place de la technologie à l’école? Use at least 10 […]
Written by Vivienne Kraus
I had first learned of this technique from a colleague who teaches English. Wanting to learn more, I invited myself to one of his classes to observe this discussion format. From what I saw, students came armed with research on various points about the text under study (Shakespeare if I recall). While seated in a […]
Written by Vivienne Kraus
A quick update on what I implemented from #cohort21 over the past year (I was a participant in 2015-2016). My action plan was based on getting students to communicate authentically. I implemented a 3-step structure for conversations, which became the routine start of almost every class: Students ask each other questions posted on a […]
Written by Vivienne Kraus
Wasn’t it just September? Wasn’t I just creating a cringe-worthy video to enter the Cohort21 lottery?? (Did I mention I won?!!) Here is my Action Plan and Reflection created using @Piktochart (as suggested by my fabulous Cohort21 colleagues @DerekDoucet1 and @CathyITRussell). You can access the cooler and much clearer online version here: https://magic.piktochart.com/output/13015371-cohort-21-action-plan.
Written by Vivienne Kraus
Faire d’un pierre deux coups. We have been working with design thinking at our school thanks to @Think_teach and of course here at Cohort 21. I felt pretty comfortable and enamored with the process, and had dabbled using it with my guinea pig class as a reflective assessment as learning tool. At a Round Square conference I […]
Written by Vivienne Kraus
…that of a teacher. And that of a French teacher trying to get her students to speak more in class! Thanks to Celeste Kirsh (@teach_tomorrow), I attempted to up the ante beyond “Talking Stick 2.0” (https://cohort21.com/viviennekraus/2015/11/21/talking-stick-2-0/). No longer was it just about using the plain popsicle sticks to determine the number of one’s contributions to […]
Written by Vivienne Kraus
My action plan My goal for this year was to provide more opportunities for my students to communicate orally in French in an authentic manner. I had heard of Harkness tables from the English Department at my school, and I have been playing with this idea over the past couple of years. I didn’t realize […]
Written by Vivienne Kraus
Here is my official Action Plan: Use co-operative structures during class to effectively build students’ oral proficiency in French in an authentic manner. In my last post, I mentioned the co-operative learning structure Talking Chips from Kagan Cooperative Learning by Dr. Spencer Kagan and Miguel Kagan (@KaganOnline). I had been eager to try new structures – RoundRobin […]
Written by Vivienne Kraus
Well I’ve gone and done it. I’ve tried the first of three co-operative structures to encourage discussion in my FSL classroom. I’ve selected these from Kagan Cooperative Learning by Dr. Spencer Kagan and Miguel Kagan. Thank you to @Think_teach for pointing me in this direction! This strategy is called “Talking chips”. I’ve referred to it as a […]