Joint Productive Activity

ACTIVITY 6: JOINT PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY

REPORT:

The activities I choose were according to my students´ age. They like to play, so I looked for activities where they could play and learn at the same, but working in teams. The focus was on review the objects from the classroom and to learn by using a task based lesson. I separated them by having in each team students from all the stages, on this way the teams will be equal and if they were in a competition the oldest were going to help the youngest to finish faster.

RESULTS:

The students were likely to work on these activities, they had some problems on solving the activities because they were a little difficult, but by helping each other they finished faster. On the first activity that was to solve a “sopa de letras” with objects from the classroom: some groups took just 12 minutes to finish, but there was one that needed 23 minutes, at the end they were happy for finishing it.

The second activity was to read about the Komodo dragon and answer some questions about its characteristics: some of them even the oldest had some problems, but I explained them and helped them at the end. And the last activity was to play when they finished their questionnaire. I thought they were going to be bored, but it happened just with the students from 1^st grade, the others were really worried about finishing the activities.

REFLECTION: 

I liked the fact that students work in teams. All of them participated and helped each other, in fact I almost never apply activities like these ones I mean teamwork, now I see that it doesn´t matter the age of the students they are able to work together and help others in order to finish their work. 

Observation report

I´m sorry I´m late with my report.

Well, first parents got to the classroom, students were already in the classroom. I had everything ready before parents arrived. We did the activity in the classroom, but I had to take more chairs to the classroom because they were not enough for everyone.

Then parents got in the classroom and sat down, they were a little nervous, that´s why they were not very dissposed to participate at first. The children had already chose the games we were going to do in the class. Some of the parents had a little difficult because they don´t know the language, so when they had to answer something in fact their children answered instead. In one activity they made a circle for the first game which was (la papa caliente) one child, one parent and so on, we played and they had fun. The second activity was (loteria ) of verbs one that I made. When we finished that game we started other one were they had to draw in the whiteboard what they heard and it was the activity they liked the most. The activities finished and everyone left the classroom, some parents said thanks.

Dealing with differences

This last week I worked on simple present tense with my students from 3° to 6°, the activites were easy for them and they finished them without any problem. They copied from the whiteboard and without asking they worked. Talking about my students from 1° to 2°, they worked on objects, quantities and colors, those were a little difficult for them, but they understood and worked on it. The last two days of the week I started working on speaking activities where they went in front of the whiteboard and talked about them and then we read a tail, that after they one by one were reading it. 

I think they are responding well to the activities and that is good for me. 

A hard, but happy week!!

This week as we know was a very special week for children, so I was very kind with them.
Three days of the week, we worked on activites for review, because they had their english test last Thursday and Friday, so I helped them with the activities. They were very accesible and disposed to work on that because they wanted to remember what they worked on in the normal classes and get a good grade on the subject. 
They copied some activities, I explained what they had to do and they worked and asked all the questions they had. 
On the other hand, because it was their special week, I played with them some activities in order to make them feel happy, they really enjoy to play in the class. When they play, they learn without notice themselves. I always play a lottery that I made and sometimnes they say (oh nooo, no that game again), but I explain to them that they need to learn the verbs and this is a very good way to learn them without  being writing. 
I´m happy to see that they are leaning so much, but on the next weeks we will start working on speaking activities which will be very good for them.  

Partner proffesional dialogue

It was a very good activity that I liked because it was diffferent to the others. Students had some problemns as I said  before with the simple present and on the other hand the students on first and second didn´t have problems with the quantities. For the conversation they had a little problem with pronouncing the words.  

This activity was very useful and funny. There were some reasons why I think that. At first I was nervpus about the parents going to the classroom and work with me and they looked anxious too, some of them don´t know the language. The students had fun working with their parents and also their parents learned too, about how to use the verbs. Finally they were happy and said that they had fun, but they still have some problems on writing sentences in simple present tense.

Post-reflection dialogue report

1. What aspects of the development of your unit plan did you find useful? I think that all was useful, but the fact that students had to write some opinions about the class and that their parents go to the classroom was good. 
2. What did you find was not useful? I think that all what we were going to do was good and useful.
3. Suggestions for improvement? I think that if students give opinions about the classes can be good to find more and better ways to work. 
4. Do you have suggestions for how we might continue or follow up this work and dialogue? It may be good if we as teachers do a dialogue at least once a month with others to give some advices on how to improve our classes. 

Lesson plans:

What we did?

This week I worked on simple present tense with my students from 3rd to 6th grade. This topic that we can think that is not too difficult. for some students it is very difficult and confusing, so they get in troubles by trying to understand it. even when they have problems, they give their best and try over and over to write complete and correct sentences. We just started working on simple present tense in affirmative and I am entrusted that they will be able to get the idea. 

I want them to learn it because it is a very important part of english, on that way they will be able to talk about situations of their everyday lives. I will tell you how it will be when they have tolearn in negative or interrogative, maybe it can be more difficult or easier, who knows, every student is different.  

With my students on first and second I worked on quantities, they had to say what they can see using objects and numbers. It is a very easy topic for them, in fact they don´t need me to explain them, some of them get very fast the idea. And for last as it has been done we played on Thursday and Friday, we play the lottery of verbs and numbers, where they a card with a number and in two teams they will go in front and form the quantity the heard. They get confused, but I really like this game, they are learning to build quantities in the two languages.  

Situated learning

Well, first sorry I´m late I didn´t see we have to do this activity.

Now after I read the article about situated learning, I understood that is when the students learn from helping each other and being a part of a community, students can also learn by practicing what they learn. Besides students learn from observing the environment. 

Now according to my receiving institution and the work I´m doing with the students there I found some points on where I see that situated learning is matched to my social service. Learnig is a process where students need to acquire the knowledge taught by the teacher. Since the moment when students get in the classroom in fact they can learn many things talking about the environment, social behavior, friendship and topics seen in the classes. All these can be done in the classroom working with my students.

As I have seen learning a subject can be matched to other one, according to the topic is being worked on. Being a teacher in elementary I have seen that as a teacher we have to teach using transversality, that is when students learn about two subjects at the same time. I think this is one of the parts of situated learning. When I work on numbers for example I can then work with my students on math problems, as an example, or children on first grade that are learning the alphabet, they can learn it in english and spanish at the same. In my opinion transversality can be one of the points.

Sometimes students need to learn in other contexts not just in the classroom, being sitting on the chair and listening to the teacher talking all the time. Students need to learn outside the side, studen ts can learn a lot being out of the clssroom, because the practice what the learn. It is not the same when a student just write and copy from the whiteboard than when they practice it,for example they are learning verbs, so it will be easier if they go out of the classroom and act out the verbs by listening them or even in the classroom, but playing a game board using the verbs. It is proved that students learn a lot when they play too not just by writing.

For last, beign a part of a community is very important, too. Here is where students learn by helping others. In the class, when students finish their activity first, some of them tend to help others who hasn´t finish, they also learn by helping because they see again what they did or maybe explaining to others, they can remember more by repeating.

In my social service I think  that these can be the most important, working on transversality, practicing,changing the environment (the place) and helping each others. Here I share a picture of the cards for a lottery that I made some years ago and I still use it to play and they learn the verbs at the same.