Culture the Pillar of Happiness

“Culture is the pillar that drives GNH more than any other. Good thought, good speech and good action and being polite, courteous and respectful – not before high officials or Lamas – beget respect and therefore happiness for oneself.
Most of us want to become doctors, engineers and teachers but none of us express our desire to serve our parents, return the love, affections and support we received from them. This shows the nature and kind of children we are.
If we cannot think well for our parents, we are the least likely person to take care of our country.
How many of say La, Laso, to parents? Our parents deserve our respect. Now a day none but few address our relatives as Acho, Au, Atta, Anna and as a result the sense of affection and care by the elder to the younger – a simple GNH is lost.
Therefore let us respect and love our parents, brothers and sister from the heart, so we achieve one of the simple GN”.

This was the best speech of the week delivered by my daughter Phuntsho Peldon Wangmo of grade IV.
Any comments please.


Thanks

Week 10 : Moment of Truth

Collecting authentic information for evidences was the foremost challenges posed by my study. At the same time, I had to face other challenges such as inadequate references, location of school away from the centre, lack of consultancy, limited time and burden of heavy work load having to teach as well as look after the school administration. In the beginning, I was a bit worried on how would I be able to complete this course, but moral support and encouragement of my colleague gave me added strength to marshal the task that I undertook. The starting was smooth but the course of continuation became harder and harder.
Nevertheless, I was determined to carry out this Herculean task and learn appropriate strategies for teaching our today’s youth. I guess this online course would be able to remove some of the confusion of the ways of our today’s teaching and learning.



Along with course of my online class, every single topic was discussed with my colleagues here, their suggestion were crucial for my study because we are the one who have first hand practical experiences and about using technology in teaching and learning purposes, integrating technology in fact I believe that we the workers in the field know better than anyone else. From the analysis of the teacher’s suggestion I found all most all the discussion I carried during online class are essential and applicable provided we are equipped with sufficient basic equipment.
I have gained a good amount of knowledge and skills by participating in this online class. The thing that I have learnt throughout the process will create a lasting effect in my life because it is invaluable. I performed this study with full dedication, for a good cause and not just for certificate form aboard.
Unquestioningly, this online class helped me broaden my knowledge and change my perspectives of today’s teaching. I believe the teaching skills I conquered during this course, (although late but still gaining momentum in our country) would be meaningful to others. For the reasons, I think this course regarding BUILDING TEACHING SKILLS THROUGH INTERACTIVE WEB hopes to act as an eye-opener generating rewarding discussion among my small school teacher, making maximum utilization of little resource we have and hope to influence other nearby teachers. Finally, in a nutshell, Building Teaching Skills Through Interactive Web will never be a failure but a stepping stone to success.

I would also like to entire participants for providing timely and unfailing support and assistance through the course of discussion and task. I would like to thank my project partner Miss. Nesrine Ourari, Tunisia for going through my draft project report and giving very valuable suggestions and direction. I would like thank her for being my guiding spirit.
Last but not the least; I would like to thank the system of University of Oregon USA for offering their services and experiences of many years. My deep gratitude goes to Professor Robert Elliot for being with us the entire course of time, working with us in odd hours and making the class live, for the many insightful discussion we had. It has been a personal education working and travelling with Mr. Robert.


Thanks

Jigme Norbu, Bhutan

Week 9 : Learning Styles and Technology Tools for Multiple Intelligence

Each child is a unique individual with a distinctive learning style. Learners often feel isolated and are unable to connect with the process of learning because either the learning is too easy which often leads to boredom or too difficult leaving the learner frustrated and as a result not interested in their learning. It is therefore very important that when planning for teaching we need to keep in mind learners preferred learning style, readiness, ability so that we can connect the learning with the learners.

Differentiated instruction provides children equal opportunity to explore learning in their own preferred style. Learners no longer feel isolated and are therefore actively engaged in the process of learning. Student motivation and task persistence increase when students can work with topic that are of personal interest. To best fulfil the needs of varied learners and to keep trace/focus on individual use of technology is only the alternative tools we the teachers are left with. With the use of technology varieties of learning activities could be designed. Teachers could create academically diverse classroom, include students working at different readiness levels, having varying interest and learn in a variety of ways.

Thanks

Week 8 : Creating online/offline resources and online class.

I was in dilemma this week! On our nicenet class discussion, I didn’t know what to post and where to post; both the task seemed similar to me.
As instructed I succeeded in downloading four important software for developing teaching resources; 1. The popular HotPotatoes, 2. SightWords sentence builders, 3. Question Writer and 4. Teacher’s Pet.
These tools are relevant and appropriate for my situation. Teaching resources are integral components in any classroom. The many benefits of teaching resources include helping learners improve reading comprehension skills, illustrating or reinforcing a skill or concept, differentiating instruction and relieving anxiety or boredom by presenting information in a new and exciting way.
It is important to understand and articulate what effective teachers do, and therefore what may be missing among other teachers in terms of professional skills, knowledge or values. In this regard, good teaching and learning takes place when teachers are prepared with varieties of resource/ teaching aids.
With the advantage of software for developing teaching resources that I have. I will be installing all the software in computers we have in our school, request teachers to develop their own worksheet, implement and get their feedback on practical uses of those tools.

Thanks

Jigme Norbu

Week 7: Learner Autonomy.

In this world there are millions of people like sand on the shore of sea. Each of us looks at things from different angles. Everyone is right in their own way. Individually, people differ in their ideology but similar type of experience can remove such difference. Further, what troubled me were the unfounded remarks made by different participants in this course. I loved working with kind of people.
Learner Autonomy
Creating Learners autonomy and implementing it in our school curriculum wouldn’t be difficult; it depends on teachers and the curriculum makers. Our school system is guided by curriculum, where fixed time and period is mandatory, if we want to go beyond that, syllabus coverage is a questionable. Teachers have less/little freedom to change the designed activities. It may be because primary kids need instruction and proper guidance, but, it is high time that our curriculum makers give extra thought on developing activities demanding Autonomous Learning for higher class.
What do learners need to become autonomous?
• The belief that they can learn independently of the teacher and the classroom setup. Some cultures have authoritarian learning systems that produce very dependant learners.
• A willingness to undertake independent learning i.e. to take on the responsibility in terms of goal setting, time management, selecting materials and conducting self/peer assessment.
• A realistic and positive attitude to language learning (sometimes this may be undermined by previous learning experiences, requiring coaching from the teacher).
• Strategies – this is where the teacher becomes invaluable as a resource to the aspiring learners. There is a need for learner training, as autonomy does not happen overnight. Remember, autonomy does not equate with working in isolation. The teacher, the class and the school are still part of the learner’s environment.

Thanks

Jigme Norbu

Week 6 : Creating Student – centered classes and Interactive PowerPoint.

Hi,

This week we were lucky to have Mrs. Max Koller, Editor in Chief of English Teaching Forum and Mr. Tom Glass, Assistant editor and Circulation Manager of Forum. They were very kind enough for sharing tips for improving English and many ideas for teaching English, introduction of FORUM to our class was of great use (www.forum.state.gov). We were very fortunate to have them in our weekly discussion.

The discussion on engaging students was flawless , reading the post and accepting comments , I have decided to make use of “WEBQUEST” and “POWERPOINT” to keep students interactively engaged using technology tools and to create student-centered learning classroom. I selected these two because it wouldn’t need internet and it is easy, interesting and attractive too. Any students activities could be designed using the above two tools. It would be the most practical tools for me.

Exercise on creating PowerPoint was another refreshing activity, with the help form Mr. Khaled (Classmate) I could create quiz PowerPoint. Thanks to him. This type of empowered activities will certainly help learn better. During the period of time I have downloaded many slideshow and hope to make better use of it soon.

Thanks

Jigme Norbu

Week 5 Reflection

Hi everybody,

Reading through “Knowledge in action: The promise of Project-Based Learning” by Helde Spruck Wrigley. I don’t know what I did, but certainly learned the following on BPL; Project based learning is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real world problems and challenges. With this type of active and engaged learning, students are inspired to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subject they are studying.
Assessment has been an integral part of the education system since it was introduced as on-going assessment in the primary school in 1986 in our country. Today assessment of each student’s performance is a central concern from teachers to use a wider variety of assessment techniques rather than the simple assessment of techniques using paper and pencil test only. Assessments are carried not only to give grades, teachers’ role is crucial if assessment is to be effective. It is said that a teacher is the best person to judge the quality of performance of his or her pupil. The way the teacher observes, guides, evaluates and provide feedback, influences the way pupil learn, grow and develop into mature adults.

From here and there I managed to create my own webquest, in the process of creating I learned a lot and wish I could just implement it right now. It is not necessary to have internet for webquest we can do it with MS Word. Following the instruction I am still trying to create one for my children because it is essential for school like ours.
Webquest engaged children, built teamwork, and motivate them. Not only this, I quote, “When predictions are made about life and work for the coming decades, there are a few points on which there is nearly universal agreement:
• Tomorrow's workers will need to be able to work in teams.
• Individuals will move through several careers in the course of a lifetime.
• The issues facing citizens will become more and more complex, and societal problems will resist easy fixes or black-and-white categorization.
• The amount of information available to everyone will grow at an accelerating pace; much of it will come directly from a growing number of sources without filtering or verification.

References ; 1. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/webquests/index_sub1.html


Thanks
Jigme Norbu

Week 4 : reflection on week

Hi everybody,

This week, extensive discussion on reading and writing websites was carried out. Website poured like a rain in our discussion. I took the opportunity to copy and paste it on my delicious. Thanks to my entire classmate. Searching for website related to reading and writing was exciting one. I understood that, other than teaching manual, there are lots of manual where we could enhance our teaching exploring through internet.
Describing my project class was another activity where I could share with my classmate on the situation of my present class, who would be the first to graduate from this school with computer skills.

Since I became a teacher I have been planning my whole life, sincerely, I haven’t heard of Development of technology enhanced lesson plan may be there wasn’t need for it. Now with the advancement of world towards technology and our country trying to catch up with it, our teachers need to know the existence of technology enhanced lesson plan. All the detail components of planning are taken care of in this technologically enhanced lesson plan. I have a dream of implement this type plan successfully when our school children become competent and ready to accept my plan.

News: with the recommendation and support from Mr. Robert I am able to convince my higher authority the need of computer in our school. One of the Primary School (Trongsa Primary School) even shared two sets of their computer for my project class. Thanks to Principal and faculty of that school.


Thanks

Week 3 Reflection

We see our reflection every time we look in the mirror. This mirror is important not only to see our physical appearance but also to see our mental and emotional make up. Great Rishis have termed such a mirror as mindfulness. To be mindful is to be reflective, the very process of human development. To be a reflective teacher, one will need to acquire several attitudes and abilities. “Action without reflection and reflection without action are both unacceptable stances in education”. This statement by Bennett & Rolheiser (2001) calls for an intense connection to the reflection and action.
All most all the teachers in our community depends on the supply of teaching learning materials or certain instruction form higher authority for us to develop certain activities. We are still depending on the curriculum to develop activities for our children. Teachers never took time and opportunity to do so either.
Haven’t I been instructed I too have been same old teacher who would turn his same old yellow page for teaching. Now equipped with browsing tools and tips, I am confident to look for what? and where?
I was not able to begin from where? So I just typed “Listening and speaking” in my now favorite search engine “sweet search” (www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/listening-and-speaking-strategies.cfm ) and found out many interesting facts on this topic. We can get numerous ideas on how we can develop children’s listening and speaking skills; as games, simple classroom activities, we can even download videos and audio for these activities, if we have high net connection. It is important for us to look for other alternative activities and not just followed what is given to us in teacher’s manual. We can even substitute and find other advance activities for our classroom.
www.delicious.com something similar to what I used to do; hyper linking the page and book marking, but this can be only used in my computer. With the instruction and guidance from course leader I could develop my own delicious page. I am surprise to find out that we can use page form anywhere. Right now I have added the links pertaining to this class activity only. I am planning to add as many important URLs as it is very convenient for me to browse and search.
Writing project (concerning technology) and thinking of writing project was always a problem to me. The problem added fuel to the burning fire when my computer refused to upload the sample project. I request Mr. Khaled my class mates to send one but unfortunate for me he send me the same URL which I was not able to upload. Thanks for support and advice any way. I had no other alternative than to ask Mr. Robert to send me the samples through my mail, which I immediately received, thanks to him.
Most of the project I read had similar situation like mine, the pros and cones tackled by the authors alerted me for preparedness, that is why I proposed to my higher authority for few more computers for our school for my project class, I hope I get positive response from them. Otherwise, as suggested by Mr. Robert I should be able do my project even with one computer.

Jigme Norbu.

WEEK 2 : Reflection

As I have mentioned in nicenet that there are largely two types of development that teacher need to explore;

1. consider all the ways in which the teacher can learn and improve independently.
2. Experience of other, read books on teaching and browsing internet.


Teacher can also help learn themselves is to think carefully about what they do. People often say that making mistake is a learning experience, but this is only so if it is recognized as a mistake and the learners for it are carefully thought through.
Our tutor used to say “Teachers need to reflect on their practice” and so, on the course too. We should always remember that reflection on our practice is an essential part of a developing teacher.

First day of a week is always been an excitement for me since I joined this course, new mails, new topic to discuss and new comments to read. Google!, Yahoo! and Altavista! was only the search engine I knew. This week, going through new (for me) master of search engine called www.noodlettool.com introduced by our tutor Mr. Robert, I was able login many other search tools; namely www.onestopenglish.com, www.oup.com, www.publishing.combridge.org, Reading through post posted by class mate I was able to find many other search tools which I haven’t heard before. I did scanning of few and found out they are all important and relevant for our daily teaching. I have listed down the entire search engine and pasted on my wall where it is easily accessible. My excitement would have been doubled have I had the opportunity of having high speed internet.

Planning is an important part of teaching. As well as helping the flow and progression of an individual lesson. Planning a lesson is not done without writing objective(s). This week course, browsing through Pennsylvania State University’s ABCD method of writing objective, I had to give second thought whether we could implement in our school. So I called upon few English teacher and discussed with them, teachers said; our present practice of writing objective using ‘SMART’ (S- specific, M – measurable, R – Realistic, and T – timely) idea do not differ from ‘ABCD’ method. We finally came to conclusion that a good lesson plan does not teach the class, it is the teacher how he/she implement the plan. But the floor was also reminded that if we have good lesson objective teacher automatically teaches well.

Final project: describing a class and imagining how children would be benefited from making a technology-inspired change was the toughest activity I had. This activity wouldn’t have been the toughest if all of my present children have had an opportunity of having computer knowledge before. My children are yet to learn basic computer skills in years ahead. Any way I am confident that plans of our education ministry of providing IT class to all school going children do not go in vain.

Jigme Norbu

Week 1 : Getting to know our teaching Life

Teaching is to offer the best possible education to all children and young people. Because some fundamental human values are unchanging, there are aspects of school life and learning that remain the same from generation to generation. On the other hand, the world in which children and young people are growing up is constantly changing, creating challenges for each new generation. As such, aspect of teaching in the today’s classroom is subject to change in response to such new challenges. We as an educator must carry out this task “Using Technology for Teaching” and must move forward – preserving the good of the past, while meeting the Challenges of changing times!
We as an educator must seize this opportunity.

Thanks


Jigme Norbu

Experience creating a blog Week 1

 Creating a blog for oneself is an interesting experience. I never thought that we can avail lots of information and share using simple and free blog.

Of course, I had trouble creating one for myself, but now I think I can also share this idea amongst my colleague here and encourage them to create one for themselves.

Hope all of us here enjoy reading and share our ideas through the blog and learn many new things.

Thanks


Jigme Norbu