Discussion Assignment
As you respond to the following discussion prompts, critically examine and integrate in your response how your thinking might be influenced and how your understanding of global competence is shaped. Associate the theories presented in the learning resources in this and previous units, with the lived reality of students in your schools and communities and analyze problems, issues, successes, failures, and impacts of various philosophical approaches regarding being globally competent. In two to three paragraphs respond to the following:
1. What does this statement mean to you, “Teachers are reflexive practitioners?”
2. What commitments can you make to developing critical thinking in students to develop them as global citizens?
Discussion Requirements
Your Discussion should be at least 300 words in length. Use APA citations and references for the textbook and any other sources used; you should use at least 1 APA citation and reference, but you can use more if needed. Refer to the UoPeople APA Tutorials in the LRC for help with APA citations.
Discussion Responses
It is your responsibility to respond to three classmates by providing comments, asking questions, or having a conversation about their main post. Feedback should be appropriate, meaningful, and helpful. For instance refer to how your own experience supports/contradicts the opinions developed by your peers. If you think they are too general or not rooted enough in personal experience, you may also ask for more detailed examples supporting these opinions. In particular make sure that the examples provided are properly referenced and that you are able to access them. Overall, your comments should contribute positively to the conversation by broadening or clarifying it. Feedback should be at least 3-4 complete sentences.
Discussion Rating
After posting an appropriate, meaningful, and helpful response to your three classmates, you must rate their posts on a scale of 0 (unsatisfactory) to 10 (Excellent). The rating scores are anonymous; therefore, do NOT mention in your remarks the separate rating score you will give the peer. The instructor is the only person who knows which score matches the comment given to a peer. Some classmates may worry that some peers will not provide a fair rating, or be unable to provide accurate corrections for grammar or other errors. It is the instructor’s responsibility to ensure fairness and accuracy.
Please review and follow the guidelines on the discussion forum rubric for assessing your peer's responses to the Discussion Assignment
Hello Dr. Lozano and Dear Colleagues,
Because of my own learning characteristics, theory and philosophy are just words that make sense to me when they are complemented by practical and real-world goals. The first thought I have when I think of the various philosophical approaches to building global competence is, "Okay, super! How can I do that?". So the first source of information that caught my attention was the module by Gatumu, J. C. (2011) Reflective Teaching. This module is skill oriented. It focuses on aspects of reflective teaching at work. It attends to the nature of reflective teaching, self evaluation, action research, peer mentoring, micro teaching and professional development. Here I began to study each point separately, recalling cases from my own practice.
The nature of reflective teaching
This academic year I took two groups for training. In the first group there were initially three people and in the second group there were four people. Only two students showed up for the first lesson in the first group and three students in the second group. For the second lesson, one of the students in the first group asked for individualized instruction, and in the second group of four students, two students refused to work with me immediately after the lesson and the third student took a week off. I was puzzled by the situation. I began to look for reasons for such behavior of the students, especially since I had not yet had time to create any relationships with them so that they could create any impression of me.
Self evaluation and action research
The first place I started my analysis of the situation with the groups was with my behavior, my choice of textbook for the lesson, my lesson plan and the stages of the lesson. I chose the main textbook for the lessons and took into account the teaching materials that my students had. I tried to be age-appropriate for the group and allowed one of the students to keep the camera off if she was shy about showing herself in the first lesson. But evaluating my behavior did not give me the answer to what was going on.
Peer mentoring
At a complete loss, I turned to my peer mentor for help in identifying the mistakes I had made. To begin, I asked her to tell me about what the students had said about my lessons. And then I had a surprising revelation. It turned out that these two groups were trained by my mentor last year. They created their own microclimate and competitive atmosphere. There was also one student who never did his homework, then the group developed a motivational plan with points for each task. At the end of the activity, the winner could choose to win a prize of a certain amount. When the students in the group found out that they would have a different teacher from the new year, they were upset. And when at the end of the lesson I did not assign points for the work in the lesson, the students were disappointed.
Micro teaching
The result of the fact that I did not know about the scoring system from the very beginning. To be precise, I took the supervisor's words about the point system as a kind of entertainment and did not give it that much importance. The fact that I did not study the point system, the encouragement at the end of the month and the motivation of the students was my main mistake in the process of working with these groups.
Professional development
"Teachers are reflexive practitioners" means to me that mistakes were, are and will be before, during and after the lesson. I cannot be absolutely sure that tomorrow will be exactly the same as yesterday. I can only learn to adapt to new conditions and look for ways to solve situations. And as a result, I still have four out of six students with me who have accepted me and the new rules of the game. This gives me a sense of satisfaction. It gives me strength and motivation to go on.
Gatumu, J. C. (2011). Reflective Teaching.
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