Innovative Strategies Workshop Webpage

INNOVATIVE TEACHING and LEAR= NING

STRATEGIES WORKSHOPS

PPD Klang / Klang District Education Office, Malaysia<= /st1:country-region>

May 2008

Ms. Mary Thomas of SMK LaSalle Klang, Ms. Shanti Subramaniam of SMK ACS Klang, Dr. Andrew Poh Sui Hoi of HELP Graduate School, Kuala Lumpur, Mr. Zainuddin bin Othman of PPD= Klang, Dr. Scott Beck of Georgia Southern Universit= y, Mr. Muhamed Radzi bin Abdullah of PPD Klang, Ms. Lily Lee of SMK LaSalle Klang, Ms. Ghajendri Selvaratnam of Multimedia University, and Ms. Rumuthamalar Rajaratnam of SMK Pina= ng Tunggal.

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In May 2008, a seri= es of workshops for teachers of Klang was planned, organized, and implemented by Ms. Shanti Subramaniam of SMK Methodist A= CS Klang and the organizing committee headed b= y Mr. Muhamed Radzi bin Abdul= lah of PPD Klang (Klang Educational District) and Ms. Mary Th= omas of SMK LaSalle Klang.

Ms. Shanti Subramaniam of SMK ACS Klang.

Funding for the wor= kshops was provided by the U.S. State Depar= tment / IREX ILEP Small Grants Program through a grant written by Ms. Shanti Subramamian, Dr.= Scott Beck, and Ms. Ghajendri = Selvaratnam. Institutional support came from multiple sources including: <= b>Georgia Southern University, Mala= ysia American Commission on Educational Exchange (MACEE), Pengetua SMK Methodist ACS, and, = most importantly, PPD Klang.

Ms. Katherine Poh of HELP ICT, Ms. Lily Lee of SMK LaSalle, Shanti Subraman= iam of SMK ACS Klang, Dr. James Coffmen of MACEE, Dr. Scott Beck of Georgia Southern University, and YM. Raja Aziah of Jabatan Pelajaran Selangor.

PHASE I of the workshops took place on the 14^th and 23^rd of May for approximately 20 teachers at SMK Methodist ACS K= lang. A parallel workshop was conducte= d on the 15^th and 16^th of May at the HELP International College of Technology in Klang<= /b> for 40 Language Panel Head Teachers from all the secondary schools in the= Klang district.

The workshops were conducted by a team of presenters, including:

- Dr. Scott A. Beck, Assistant Professor of Te= aching and Learning. College of Education, Georgia Southern = University, USA.

- Ms. Ghajendri Selvaratnam, Lecturer in Foundation Studies, Multimedia University, Malaysia.

- Ms. Rumuthamalar Rajaratnam, Engli= sh Teacher, SMK Pinang Tunggal, Sungai Petani, K= edah Darul Aman, = Malaysia.

- Dr. Andrew Poh S= ui Hoi, Director, Centre for Teaching and Learning, HELP Graduate School, Kuala Lumpur, Ma= laysia.

The purpose of the workshops was to encourage Malaysian teachers, especially English language teachers, to incorporate student-centered, interactive methods of teaching into their classrooms. For = this reason, the bulk of the workshop time was spent with the teachers actively participating in, rathe= r than hearing about, innovative teaching strategies. A minimal amount of time was spe= nt discussing the theories behind these strategies. Instead, the strategies were bri= efly explained and modeled and then the teachers engaged in the activities as = if they themselves were students. In this way, the workshop structure itself served as a model of the interact= ive activity-based instructional approach advocated by the workshop’s organizers and presenters.

Dr. Beck’s presentations occupied the majority of the workshop time and focused on t= he following, interrelated instructional approaches:

Writing Process, Writers’ Workshop, and Poetry Templates including:

o An overvi= ew of the five-step Writing Process of Brainstorming, Drafting, Revising Conten= t, Editing Mechanics, and Presenting / Publishing.

o Brainstor= ming and Drafting of poems about childhood experiences using a Poetry Template=

§ &nbs= p; Poetry Templates based upon G.E. Lyons’ “Where I’m From” and Malaysian poet Shirley Geok-Lim’s “Riding into Californ= ia.”

o Implement= ation of the Revising and Editing steps in small, cooperative Writers’ Workshop groups.

o Presentat= ion of the poems to the entire group.

Wo= rkshop participants listen to and discuss each others’ “Where I̵= 7;m From” poems about their memories of childhood.

One participant shares a very moving poem about a tragic event and it’s impact upon her childhood.=

Dr. Beck presented = on Reading Process, and Literature Circles including:

o An overvi= ew of the five-step Reading Process of Brainstorming, Reading, Responding, Exploring, and P= roject Creation / Presentation.

o An overvi= ew of Literature Circle roles such as Summarizer & Discussion Director, Pas= sage Picker, Word & Phrase Wizard, Illustrator, Historian & Geography Guru, and Connector

o Applicati= on of these steps and roles to stories, including historical / geographic background information.

Dr. Beck explains Literature= Circle roles and the Reading Process.

Dr. Beck also prese= nted on Non-fiction Reading and Writing including:

o GIST cooperative summarizing activity for difficult texts.

o Role Play= ing as a means for increasing and evaluating student comprehension, particularly= the “Brief the Prime Minister” activity.

o Student Developed Rubrics as a means for increasing student “buy-in” = to the grading process by using their input is selecting evaluation criteria= and setting scoring values for these criteria.

Other activities pr= esented by Dr. Beck included:

-&= nbsp; Ice-break= er “3 Lies and 1 Truth”

-&= nbsp; Theoretic= al Braid of Chomsky, Vygotsky, and Neuroscience as a basis for evaluating teaching strategies for their appropriateness.

-&= nbsp; Using literature as a means to learn about the funds of knowledge of diverse students through the Read Book / Read Child approach.

-&= nbsp; Story Innovations and Variants as a means to enrich students’ understandi= ngs of stories.

-&= nbsp; Primary a= nd Secondary sources and the difficulty of reconstructing an event after it = has occurred, ala a journalist.

-&= nbsp; Sentence Manipulation activities by Killgallon.

Many of these activ= ities were drawn and modified from Daniels and <= span class=3DSpellE>Steineke’s Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles. Dr. Beck’s presentatio= ns and activities were complemented by sessions led by the other presenters.

One participant plays the role of a Member of Parliament petitioning the Prime Minister to encourage Malaysians to diversify their diet by eating more potatoes.

A small group of participants uses a laptop and PowerPoint to create an electronic storyboard summarizing a novella taught in Form 2.<= /b>

Ms. Selvaratnam introduced the use of computer-based Storyboards as a means to develop students’ technological skills while either summarizing a text that they have read or developing an outline for a project or yet-to-be-created story or text. The particip= ants worked cooperatively to create illustrated PowerPoint storyboards summari= zing commonly used Form 4 stories and poems.&= nbsp; The participants were also challenged to take a generic storyboard= and use it as a story skeleton to build a fully formed story in a specific setting.

Ms. Selvaratnam guides a participant as she creat= es a PowerPoint storyboard of a poem read by Form 4 students.

Ms. Rajaratnam presented to the Language Panel Head Teachers = on how to incorporate Process Drama into the classroom. She introduced a wide variety of Process Drama methods and spoke of how they could be used in any content = area. She then challenged the particip= ants to implement these methods “on the fly,” using the large grou= p as their students. The partici= pants obliged by showing how impromptu songs and role play can enhance and enri= ch classroom instruction and engage the interest of students.

Ms. Rajaratnam helps a group create a drama activ= ity for the other participants.

Dr= . Poh explains the importance of teaching how to thin= k.

Dr. Poh lectured to the Language Panel Head Teachers on the process by which stud= ents can be taught to think abstractly and thereby make good decisions. His lecture presented a method f= or teaching thinking skills both independent of and incorporated throughout = the curriculum. He asserted tha= t his method is applicable to students at multiple levels and across multiple disciplines.

During the workshop period, Dr. Beck meets with students at a variety of Klang district schools including Ms. Shanti Subramaniam’s Form 6 English students a= t SMK ACS Klang.&n= bsp;

He taught them about the comparisons and contrasts between the Malaysian and= U.S educational systems and the lifestyles of teens in both nations.

Thank you to everyone who made th= ese workshops a great success.

PHASE II of the workshops will be conducted in June 2008 in all the secondary scho= ols in the Klang district when the participants in Phase I will serve as trainers for their local teachers. In this way, the “Training= the Trainers” structure will be completed.