Sunday, February 17, 2013

We've graduated ! This is my collaborative story at Voicethread!

Today, we graduated and ended a MOOC we attended as teachers of English from different parts of the world. I would like to thank all moderators and fellow participants for their support, kindness and collaboration. I do encouarge every teacher to join these EVO sessions,no matter how busy is their schedule. It is always great to learn new skills and learn much from experts in the field. I have attended many webinars so far and had new relationships from everywhere. Such a nice experience that teaches us all how to learn to cooperate and better one's skills. I am indebted to everyone in the course for their positivity, care and collaboration.
Digital storytelling is gaining a lot of interest these days. And though, I know I cannot implement these newly-learned skills nowadays in my classroom, I am still hopeful about the future and this hope keeps me long to learn more.
 What is more motivating is that we are going to carry on our collaboration via a facebook group and we will be able to publish on a blog created to share our digital stories! Last but not least, I am proud to share this collaborative story we created together on Voicethread. It's been a rewarding experience indeed!

My first session as a Teacher Trainer

    Such a long absence! I am happy I'm back with some good news ! 
Yesterday, I had my first session as a trainer . As a matter of fact, my mentor Mr.Melki, designated me as a teacher Trainer this year. This nomination means a lot to me. He has always proved to be a supportive, caring mentor. I am so endebted to him because he has always inspired us. I've never felt that he's bossy or imposing pre-set outlines on us. He has always encouraged us to be creative and that was always done in a caring, gleeful and spontaneous ways. He has always made us feel he's a caring colleague and counsellor but not a BOSS ! He's always been ready to help and ready to listen to our concerns and worries. 
It is of great importance for teachers to feel at comfort with their mentors so as to help teachers give the best of themselves. 
As for my announcement to you, yesterday, was my first session as a teacher trainer. The first moments were a bit stressing, because I heard that my mentor would not be attending the session with me! It is true it was not the first time I stand before a nice cohort of colleagues, but I was worried about the quality of my presentation and to be up to the teachers' expectations. 
Truly, I was well-prepared as I spent days and days preparing the materials relevant to my session, which is about Lesson planning. Though I had many fears about the session. I kept thinking what if technology failed? What if my laptop stopped working at once? all those fears were cramming into my little brain and stressing me more. To be more positive, I had relegated all those fears and started to take courage with both hands and face my dear colleagues with a huge smile. Hopefully, all positive thoughts started to follow. Besides, all the teachers reacted positively, collaborated nicely and wonderfully shared their works with all their fellow teachers. 
To be more precise, this session was a kind of workshop. The first  part of it was a presentation about the theory backing the way we design our lesson plans. Then, during the second part, we worked together in a practical way. We designed together different lesson plans for the same lesson; which was a listening text. We listened to the text, then worked in groups to prepare a lesson plan and finally present our lesson plans. 
The experience of working in groups, sharing experiences had a statisfying impact on teachers and this was mirrored in the exit slips I asked the teachers to fill in for me as a kind of feedback to the session they attended to! I was very happy to read their answers to my three questions anonymously! 
The questions were three: The first question : How often do you plan your lessons?
The second question : Can you state something you like about this session! 
The third one is: State something you hate about this session! 
Below, are some of the colorful exit slips of my fellow teachers. I would like to thank them all for their cooperation and positivity. More than this, I learned much from them! I am grateful !