Personalized learning seems to be coming more and more important in today’s classroom. As described in Katie Varatta’s article “Students co-determine with the teacher what learning targets they need to accomplish and how they could show evidence of their learning.” The problem is that there are many different interpretations of what personalized learning actually is; some districts are ploughing ahead and implementing it in their schools, whilst others are just waiting to see how things progress before they actually go about incorporating it into their classrooms.
Personalized learning is really where students have more choice in their learning and are able to work more at their own pace, moving ahead when they are ready or getting help when they need it. Students can choose content that interests them and are able to present what they know in a variety of ways. Teachers need to plan carefully however and define the content carefully, which takes time. Often students are not so good at managing their own time, so will have to be monitored. There needs to be some kind of built in framework, so that students aren’t able to fall between the cracks. I teach foreign language – both French and Spanish - to high school students (grades 9-12). There are some apps out there that help with language learning, but the selection is quite limited. In the articles I read, it seems that there may be more personalized programs specifically available for Math which define what a student needs to work on and so can help them plan a series of lessons. In French and Spanish I have used the Quizlet app before with my students which certainly does give them more freedom to work at their own pace and choose the kinds of activities they would like to complete. Each class has a page where I load the vocabulary, so that each member can see it. I like to work this way because I can make the vocabulary specific to the chapter that we are working on in the book. Students can then choose from a series of activities; they can just review the flashcards, or they can play the matching game. There is also a way for them to be tested on the new vocabulary that they are trying to learn. I paid for teacher status on Quizlet so that I can see records of how much the students have played the games and what their success has been in learning the vocabulary. This application also allows the class to play the game Quizlet Live. This is where students are put into teams and then they all work together to define the vocabulary words given. Each student has specific answers. I have used personalized learning in other ways in my class too. For example, my Spanish 4 students completed projects about music/bands that they were interested in. They were told that they had to make a presentation about a Hispanic band/musician, and that they had to include some kind of a history, examples of songs/music, influences on the musician/band, and a comparison with a US musician/band that they were familiar with. They could choose how they wanted to make the presentation, and this was how the use of Educational Technology came in. They could use google slides, PowerPoint or Prezi and present to the class; they could make a video of their presentation to the class, or they could pretend to be the musician themselves and talk about their music/history in front of the class playing examples of the music. In my French 1 class students had to make a presentation in pairs about a famous person they admired. They had to give five basic facts about that person in complete sentences in French. They needed to plan a short description but could choose their presentation medium. They could interview their partner in front of the class, with one person pretending to be the famous person, they could make a PowerPoint/Prezi/google slides presentation for the class or they could make a video either of them presenting information, or interviewing their partner. In this way students were given many choices to make – the person they wanted to describe and how they would go about meeting their learning goals. The personalized learning that I have done in my classes has been successful and students seem to really enjoy being able to make their own choices about their learning styles and how they will present the knowledge that they have learned. I am really excited to learn about other modes of personalized learning that may be out there for foreign language learners.
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Last semester the driving question that I ended up deciding upon was “A Comparison of the Effectiveness of the Quizlet Application versus Traditional Teaching Methods in the Learning of New Foreign Language Vocabulary”. I felt that when I did the study I really only scraped the tip of the iceberg, in that the amount of data I was able to collect was so small, that really it was hard to prove anything one way or the other. This semester, I would like continue upon the same tact, but maybe approach things in a slightly different way. Last semester I taught students two lots of vocabulary, one set using traditional teaching methods, and a second set using traditional teaching methods plus Quizlet in class. My research questions were as follows:
1) Does the Quizlet application help students learn new foreign language vocabulary more effectively? 2) Does the Quizlet application engage students more in the classroom? 3) How do students perceive the Quizlet application? The issue I felt was that there were too many variables to really be able to get a concrete answer to all of these questions. For example, I taught students the first set of vocabulary without using Quizlet, but there was nothing to stop them using at home. When Quizlet was used, there was also no way of knowing how long students actually used it for. This semester I would like to try and control this variable a little more. When students are informed that there is a test, I propose to ask them to record how long they actually spent using Quizlet in the days running up to the test, and compare the results, in the hope that I would get something a little more accurate. It is also difficult to get a fast turnaround as each new set of vocabulary takes at least a couple of weeks to teach. In the study that I did, I did indeed find that Quizlet engaged students more in the classroom and when surveyed about the application, they were on the whole, very positive about it. This evidence was also corroborated by other studies that were part of my literature review. This seems to be the most researched area regarding Quizlet’s influence on the ability for students to learn new vocabulary more effectively. Other studies were also inconclusive when test scores were compared. I think my research could be continued with other language applications that are available for students; there are many that are starting to emerge - Duolingo, Busuu, Babbel – but I think studies needs to be done with specific parameters as it is hard to compare data when there are so many variables – ie the amount of time spent using the app, how the time was spent etc. This could be invaluable where the learning of languages is concerned; in our hectic lives often instructors do not meet with their students every day, but with these applications, students still get a chance to practice their language skills every day if they want to. My study is finally complete, which is exciting! I spent a lot of time reading over the research that is out there, which is not really significant, and trying to analyze it, but really no definite conclusions can be drawn. There have been few studies into my topic, and even less into the Quizlet app itself, although it does generally seem accepted that Quizlet is the app to use when learning new vocabulary. In my study I compared two pieces of data; a test that was taken after students had learned words using traditional teaching methods and a test that was taken once students had learned words using both the Quizlet app and traditional teaching methods. I feel as if it was just a dip in the ocean as far more studies need to be done to make this study bring more weight to the argument that Quizlet does in fact help students learn vocabulary better. What is evident though is that students really enjoy what Quizlet has to offer. They like the accessibility of online flashcards and the games that they can play on the app. This is clearly shown in other research that has been carried out, and was also apparent in the responses to the survey that I administered to my class.
When analyzing my data, it made me realize that there were more complexities to the analysis than I had thought. When students learned new vocabulary using the Quizlet app, I did not stipulate or record in any manner how much time they spent outside class reviewing using this app, so it was difficult to see if it made a difference. I know that in class we spent time playing the Quizlet game, but when we didn’t use Quizlet I spent about 5/10 mins with each pair of students before the test, quizzing them to help them prepare for the assessment, which I’m sure helped considerably. I had been absent the class before and felt that I wanted to spend a little time doing some serious review with them before the vocabulary test. Also, taking a test is neither cut or dried, there are so many variables that can affect the results besides just whether they used the Quizlet app or not. I think there are a couple of ways that this study could be extended; more test results could be obtained using the same methods as before (ie some vocabulary is taught with Quizlet and some without and the results are compared), or perhaps when students take a test they could provide information about how much they studied and what study methods they used. I could ask students to record the amount of time they spent using Quizlet as opposed to other learning strategies the day before the test and the day of the test and then use this data in a study. We could perhaps do this for tests over the course of a couple of months, to see what data we might come up with. It would be interesting to see the results. |
AuthorI am a French & Spanish teacher at Justin-Siena High School wanting to get new ideas to motivate my students. Archives
March 2019
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