The seventh week of our course is rushing to an end. However, fantastic and new technologies and techniques are still pouring in.
I have learned how to make my learners autonomous; our students need some sense of independence and inter-independence while learning. That is why their voices and choices have to matter and teachers have to shift from the centers of attraction to facilitators and companions. Thus, this week calls for more democratization in education or better still what I dare call the decentralization of education, with more responsibilities shifting to the learners who form the core of all pedagogy.
Padlet has been my new catch for this week. Or should I say I have been one of Padlet's new catches this week? This tool had charmed me with its great features, privacy-security and simplicity--you just double click at the wall of the site and find yourself adding things to it. It is a great tool for posting home works, undertaking collaborative work/research, and even for promoting further learner autonomy. Our task for this tool helped me to come across a nice article by one of Cameroon's emerging scholars and writers in the name of Harry Kucha Kucha who recently completed a PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK. He co-authored the article with Richard Smith in which they distinguish pedagogy of and for autonomy; the article is titled Pedagogy of autonomy for difficult circumstances: from practice to principles. It draws its raw material form Kucha's personal experiences as a teacher of English in Cameroon--experiences similar to mine. According to the two authors, " „pedagogy for autonomy‟ describes approaches to classroom-based learning where the goal of promoting learner autonomy is explicitly in the mind of the teacher, whereas in a pedagogy of autonomy students‟ existing autonomy is engaged but developing this capacity is not an explicit goal."
They conclude that Kucha's stories fall within pedagogy of autonomy as he was rendering his learners autonomous without any conscious knowledge of pedagogy for autonomy.
This week I continued writing my project plan, developing it into something concrete with focus on aspects like the final product, expected response and resources. In respect of the course task demanding us to find a project partner, I have found Abeer Ali, from Iraq, as my project partner. Both of us are working on plans because we don't have students this term. Hopefully, I will finish developing the plan next week and send it to my partner for peer-review as required...
Do you like photos again? Then take these ones with me in my native traditional wear known as Bamenda grass fields/NorthWest Regalia. This is the unique cultural identity of Cameroon, particularly Bamenda grass fields/North West Region where I hail from. Remember to watch the short video on it below.
There are three short videos here too talking about this attire and how I have been faring with my nephews on typing in a laptop. Besides laptop typing, my lovely nephews have also been narrating some folktales to me and I am recording them. Another nephew of mine amused me today when I asked him more than thrice to tell a tale to no avail but immediately he noticed I was going to film him with my laptop he quickly started narrating.
You can then imagine the excitement and motivation that technology creates in children/learners.
Enjoy your week.
Nsah Mala
Cameroon
Hello, Nsah Mala,
ReplyDeleteI love reading all your posts, they are all so super and narrative as if you are a famous writer, Oh, alas! I forgot it, but you are a writer, sorry. I enjoy reading all your writings here and even am saving them in the separate Word document. Because I adore your language style and the vocabulary abundance. Are you a native speaker of English?
So, you live in the community with Teacher-centered culture of teaching and so do I. Of course, there are Student-centered schools in Russia in the cities, but I live in the village.
The former name of Padlet was "Wallwisher”. First time I made the acquaintance of this simple and flexible tool in 2011 while was participating another on-line course. Yet I wasn`t able to use it well because of the slow Internet. You are right it is very handy tool to use it during the classes and out of them, i.e. while the learning is autonomous. It`s opportunities are enormous starting with contributing links to a webquest and ending with doing the homework assignments. It is really a versatile special tool and I am agree with you and Kucha that „pedagogy for autonomy‟ describes approaches to classroom-based learning where the goal of promoting learner autonomy is explicitly in the mind of the teacher, whereas in a pedagogy of autonomy students‟ existing autonomy is engaged but developing this capacity is not an explicit goal."
Hang in there!
Victor
Hello Victor!
DeleteIt is nice reading from you. I must say it is a great honour for me to have a great person like you saving my blog posts for personal use. I am grateful. You did wonder if I am native-speaker of English. The answer is this: YES and NO. YES because my language of instruction from th efirst day in school has been English--French came in in secondary school. English and French are the two official languages of my country. NO if native only means coming from Britain, USA, etc. And this can of definition of nativeness i now outdated and out of fashion. I love English, Literature and Writing with ALL MY HEART.
I am happy you also read the article by Kucha and Smith. You are lucky to have known Padlet even before this course. It is a simply great tool. Hahaha. I am laughing because of the oxymoron in SIMPLY GREAT.
I agree with you that rural pedagogy in Cameroon and Russia is largely teacher-centered. Poverty and lack of access to new technologies partly account for this rather unwanted practice, but reality is reality.
Thanks a lot for commenting.
Nsah Mala
Cameroon