DAY 6

Day : 6 - 15 October 2014 (Wednesday)

A. Resources - Including Multi-Media & Visual Organisers (Multimodality)

The day kicked off with Mr. Peter’s session where we learned more about whom we are and what is/are our learning style(s) and our intelligence preferences via Resources – including multi-media and visual organisers (multimodality) topic. We learnt that most of us are visual learners and a few in the category of auditory and kinaesthetic intelligences. By knowing the type of learning preferences of learners, lecturers can identify the right materials to be used in delivering lesson. However one might think that this means more burden to the lecturers as they have to prepare different kinds of materials for one lesson. This is not always the case.   

Meet “multimodality” the saviour of the day! Through multimodality we learnt how to incorporate textual, audio and visual modes in combination with media and materiality to create meaningful and suitable lesson for each learner. This is what we would like to suggest; use graphic organizers to present information visually such as bar chart, quadrants, storyboard or venn diagrams. Graphic organisers can be used by CLIL teachers to present concepts, organise ideas and support the production of oral and written work. Not only the students will enjoy looking at all the graphics but they will also understand the lesson better.

B. Scaffolding Content & Language Learning

Class session in the afternoon started with Mr. Chris showing a brief clip from YouTube on Scaffolding and Coaching by Professor Jan Herrington. This brief clip was followed by a note taking on several related questions in relation to scaffolding.

Scaffolding is the process of supporting learners in the development of new skills. According to Lev Vygotsky, a Russian Psychologist (1896), scaffolding is the steps that teachers adopt to support learners so that they can understand the new content and develop new skills.

Vygotsky discussed on the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what s/he can do with help.

Scaffolding techniques can be used by the teacher and learners as well. Learners can be supported by teacher or their peers through collaborative tasks based on questions, links to previous knowledge, constructive feedback and self-reflection.

There are various techniques that can be used to scaffold where different learners work on different aspects of the tasks. At the end of the tasks, learners will be able to put them together and come up with the intended learning outcomes.

Impact / Reflection: 

Activity 1: It was a note taking activity where we watched and listened to a brief YouTube clip before placing suitable information into the spaces provided. The content of the clip was broken down into five parts and each part should be filled in with relevant notes taken from the clip. As we listened to the clip, we filled in the spaces provided with relevant answers. 

Activity 2 & 3: These two activities were alike. Second activity was on matching words with appropriate meaning whereas the third activity was a Jigsaw Puzzle where we had to rearrange words to create a complete sentence / idea. We were given a sentence to be arranged according to the correct sequence to get across the idea or concept or definition of something.

Scaffolding helps to break down tasks so that it becomes easier to look for and understand information.  It was quite a refreshing thought to present ideas the way scaffolding did in this exercise. It also encourages learners to work in groups for both activities.  Other than that, it is also an applicable technique that suits all level of learners and provides some variations to the teaching and learning methods