Final reflection

3 things I have learnt.

I would say that I've learnt more than just 3 things. But, one that I would like to keep discovering is the tools you have offered to do the elevator pitch. At this point of my professional career, I'm trying to get as many 2.0 and 3.0 tools as possible, i want to discover how they work and put them into practice with my students as soon as possible. It's always a good way to encourage them. 

I also would like to mention the thinking routines. They are very interesting to integrate in our planning, and also, if we already do this kind of routines it would be great to be conscious about it. Furthermore, I take with me some ideas about class activities that use Cooperative learning, as for example: 

1) Jigsaw - Groups with five students are set up. Each group member is assigned some unique material to learn and then to teach to his group members. To help in, the learning students across the class working on the same sub-section get together to decide what is important and how to teach it. After practice in these "expert" groups the original groups reform and students teach each other. Tests or assessment follows. 

2) Think-Pair-Share - Involves a three step cooperative structure. During the first step individuals think silently about a question posed by the instructor. Individuals pair up during the second step and exchange thoughts. In the third step, the pairs share their responses with other pairs, other teams, or the entire group.

Finally, the Blooms Taxonomy would be an important aspect to remember. 

2 things I will do in my lessons.

Rubrics is going to be one of the aspects I will implement during this year. I find them very useful, and if the items are short and clear, students can easily understand what they have to assess and how. It's a very rewarding activity. 

Moreover, from now on I will take into account the SOFT and HARD CLIL; and for sure I will offer a better scaffolding to my students. 

Last academic year I was working as an English teacher and I started to do arts and crafts in English, so it was the first year that the clay corner was done in English. 

1. Show and tell: there are many techniques that we can use when we work with clay. So in the first session I showed them some of the techniques they had to use during the term. I gave them a piece of clay and I showed them a picture with a technique, I made it while explaining the name of the technique, at the same time they started using it. 

2. Pre-teach vocabulary: there is a lot of material they are familiarized with in their mother tongue but they don’t know the word in English. All the classroom, material and objects are labeled in English. During the first session I also introduced the material we would use during the term, so I show them the material and say the name, as well as I showed them the label.

1 thing I will continue learning about.

I will continue learning about CLIL in general. For me it's a way to get a deeper knowledge and taking part in CLIL courses allows me to plan didactics units that I can put into practice. I can refresh my previous knowledge and learn a lot more from the people I'm doing the course with.