Dear Family & Friends,
Our teachers definitely get their "money's worth" in quantity of time while attending a Mwangaza seminar, as we meet again each day after the evening meal for an hour of working together on developing lesson plans with the Mwangaza student-centered focus. We hope they also find they receive the quality needed for growth in skills to address the challenges they face in their classrooms and school communities.
Bringing Monday evening's expectations/experiences to this Tuesday journal, you can see (and maybe read) that Monday night was focused on writing the content objectives, chosen from their subject area syllabi, first in the technical language of the syllabi, then in student-friendly language. For Form I (freshmen) students learning in their second language, being able to see and read the objectives, what they are expected to learn during the day's lesson, is a step toward actual learning and ultimate academic success. Our teachers quickly identified this as one important difference between Mwangaza's expectations and the government's lesson planning expectations.
We used the example sometimes given as a guideline for a speech or homily: Tell them what you are going to teach, teach it, then tell them what you taught. One teacher, who knew the answer to his own question, asked "Do you mean I should be sharing my Lesson Plan with my students?"
For example: Zephania, an English teacher from Enaboishu LSS (Marieth Mlay's school) wrote these (pictured below):
Formal (from the syllabus):
1. Students Will Be Able To express kinship.
2. SWBAT express the occupation of family members.
Then he changed the technical content words, which were probably not known by the students, into more conversational language which the students might have heard or would more easily comprehend.
Informal (Student-friendly):
1. SWBAT talk about their family relationships.
2. SWBAT mention the work of their family members. "Mention" is an interesting word in education here, as includes being able to list and explain, much more than the "by the way" meaning mentioning carries for us.
One of the this year's first-time experiences for Mike was watching a group of English teachers work together to select 5 objectives from the English syllabus, then continue to work together, thoroughly discussing how each of them could/should be re-written in student-friendly vocabulary. Only after they had established their "group standard/model" did each then begin to work on his/her own objectives, using their group's standard/model to guide individual choices.
After selecting 5 content objectives and writing them in informal language Monday night, the teachers were to select the one objective around which they would prepare a lesson plan for presentation to the rest of the teachers/us on Friday. Then, starting Tuesday morning, as we continued to present the components of Sheltered Instruction, teachers were to follow-up by writing the related parts of their lesson plans.
John and Salome started Tuesday by leading the participants on a tour of Mwangaza's Sheltered Instruction Resource Book, helping them become better acquainted with the contents and organization. Then they turned abstract to concrete, presenting 4 written "classroom scenarios", each of which described circumstances where less than the best teaching/learning was happening. In small groups, the teachers worked to identify the issues which needed improvement, then went to the Resource Book to find "best practices" solutions. The discussions which followed with groups sharing their ideas made us optimistic for reaching high expectations by the end of the week.
Notes on the board helped the teachers look at the scenarios in relationship to 1. Preparing to learn; 2. Learning new content; and/or 3. Checking for understanding. Below, a teacher is reading one of the scenarios before beginning to discuss with her table group.
Later in the day, we presented/modeled methods and strategies to link new learning with previous learning, beginning with vocabulary which would be used in the new lesson. Teachers struggled somewhat with the differentiation of words into ordinary, technical, or process. These struggles seem to reflect similar challenges in re-writing Formal (technical language) objectives as Informal (ordinary language) objectives. Connecting vocabulary with which they are familiar to the new meanings/uses can help the students feel that they already know some important information needed for the lesson. Showing them how to address new vocabulary through roots, context, etc teaches both the vocabulary and learning strategies they can use again and again. Discussing and defining the process words, sometimes referred to as "command terms" or "performance words", helps the students learn what actions and understanding is required -- for this lesson and when the terms are used again in other lessons.
By connecting the focus of the lesson with the vocabulary of the lesson, teachers began to see what language skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening) they will have the students learn/practice/apply during the course of the lesson. From there we helped them set Language Objectives for their lessons -- like the content objectives, these are expected to be shared with the students so they will know the expectations.
Teachers are beginning to connect the ideas/methods/strategies in the Resource Book with those in the Sheltered Instruction text.
the teacher is competing a Graphic Organizer which Salome used to demonstrate a strategy for helping students organize and recall information, at the same time she was checking for the teachers' understanding of our previous presentation.
These 2 teachers had brought together several resources: notes from our presentations; the Resource Book; the Sh. In. text; and the government's syllabus for teaching English language.
From 7 - 8 pm Tuesday evening after dinner, the seminar hall was very active, each teacher was working hard, and consulting with facilitators, to complete these early stages of his/her lesson plan.
You are probably tired from reading so much detail, and we certainly remember being tired by the end of that evening also. But will return soon, refreshed and with more words and pix from the rest of the week.
Peace and love,
Mike and Sharon
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