Module 5: Cascading New Knowledge Activities
"A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier."
Tom Stoppard
[Click here for a downloadable pdf handout of this reading.] 
Like a healthy attitude, good teaching ideas are also contagious. You have a unique opportunity to become an innovation carrier in your institution or region if you get involved in cascading activities with your colleagues.
Cascading can take many shapes and forms. In this activity, we are going to explore what you can do in your teaching context to develop yourself and your teaching AND at the same time make good teaching contagious.
Below is a list of things you can do in collaboration with your peer teachers in order to spread some teaching ideas and insights from this course. Read through the list and choose three activities which are of particular interest to you and which you think may be effective in your teaching context.
Cascading can take many shapes and forms. In this activity, we are going to explore what you can do in your teaching context to develop yourself and your teaching AND at the same time make good teaching contagious.
Below are a number of ideas for cascading activities. Consider which of these you might be interested in:
Option 1 – Work with a colleague
- Talk about an idea /concept from the course and make my colleague excited about it
- Teach a new activity, collect feedback from students and show all of these to my colleague
- Invite a colleague to come and observe me teaching an innovative activity
- Prepare an innovative lesson and invite a colleague to co-teach it with me
- Be a guest teacher in my colleague’s class
- Prepare an article to publish in the English Teaching Forum
- … (add your own ideas)
Option 2 – Work with other colleagues in my school /district /region country
- Create a sharing board in the staff room – start by putting up on the board something you would like to share with your colleagues. Encourage others to do the same.
- Start a teaching innovation club in your school /district – set up informal meetings for teachers to come and share their success stories and /or new teaching ideas and /or things they have read. You can lead the way by sharing some of the course materials and leading discussions
- Online sharing – start a blog or Facebook group and share how you have implemented course learnings. Run a model lesson based on the course materials
- … (add your own ideas)
To really start thinking through how you can make some of these happen, choose three, and fill in the table(s) below. (Here is a downloadable Word version of this page . If you have Word, you can edit this document and turn it in.) You do not have to turn your tables in, but you should do this activity on your own to prepare your thoughts for our next discussion topic.
| Things I may do | My comfort level | Will this be of interest to my colleague? How do I know? |
|---|---|---|
| Talk about an idea /concept from the course and make my colleague excited about it | ||
| Teach a new activity, collect feedback from students and show all of these to my colleague | ||
| Invite a colleague to come and observe me teaching an innovative activity | ||
| Prepare an innovative lesson and invite a colleague to co-teach it with me | ||
| Be a guest teacher in my colleague’s class | ||
| …(add your own ideas) |
| Things I may do | My comfort level | Will this be of interest to my colleagues? How do I know? |
|---|---|---|
| Create a sharing board in the staffroom – start by putting up on the board something you would like to share with your colleagues. Encourage others to do the same. | ||
| Start a teaching innovation club in your school /district – set up informal meetings for teachers to come and share their success stories and /or new teaching ideas and /or things they have read. You can lead the way by sharing some of the course materials and leading discussions | ||
| Online sharing – start a blog or Facebook group and share how you have implemented course learnings | ||
| Run a model lesson based on the course materials | ||
| …(add your own ideas) |
Suggested Further Reading
Allan, D. (2015). I think, therefore I share: incorporating lesson study to enhance pedagogical knowledge exchange. Educate: The Journal of Doctoral Research in Education, 15(1), 2-5. Retrieved from http://www.educatejournal.org/index.php/educate/article/view/429
Alshehri, E. (2019). Classroom Observation for Professional Development: Views of EFL Teachers and Observers . Arab World English Journal, 1(1), 57–71. Retrieved from https://awej.org/index.php/special-issues/92-application-of-global-elt-practices-in-saudi-arabia/1453-classroom-observation-for-professional-development-views-of-efl-teachers-and-observers
Bayram, İ., & Canaran, Ö. (2018). Reflections on a teacher-led CPD model for EFL teachers . International Online Journal of Education and Teaching, 5(2), 419–431. Retrieved from http://www.iojet.org/index.php/IOJET/article/view/406
Priajana, N. (2017). Continuing professional development activities for English teachers . ELT Echo : The Journal of English Language Teaching in Foreign Language Context, 2(1), 37–48. Retrieved from http://www.syekhnurjati.ac.id/jurnal/index.php/eltecho/article/view/1592
To cite this page:
World Learning. (2018). Cascading new knowledge activities. In "Integrating Critical Thinking Skills into the Exploration of Culture in an EFL Setting" [Online course].
Nhận xét
Đăng nhận xét