Establishing a positive classroom climate

Nowadays it's very common to find different nationalities in a classroom, no matter which grade. It's very important that children feel comfortable, that will help them to integrate in the community and make friends. If we want our students to be successful in their academic goals, we need to provide all the tools and resources they need to feel this way.

Teachers who manage this type of multicultural classrooms, have to pay special attention to the integration of these students in the community.

They also have to be aware of bullying. Some cultural groups are more susceptible to be bullied since they don't want to report the cases and be accepted by their peers.

It's very important to build a strong relationship between teacher and students. That is essential for having a good communication in case the student has a problem and feel comfortable enough to tell it to the teacher. Some children are afraid of telling their problems because other students can label him/her as a informer, that's why is very important that your students feel that they can trust you.

Building this type of relationship could be as easy as asking the student how everything is going, if they feel as part of the group, in case they need extra help with any activity you will be available, etc. You always have to let them know that you are a reliable and supportive person at school.

Some of the strategies I would like to follow to facilitate the integration and the participation of every single student in the classroom are:

• At the beginning of the year I will encourage students to introduce themselves. I would ask them for nationality, previous years and some details about their families, like how many brothers and sister or which language is usually spoken at home.

• After have some information about all the students, I will arrange the classroom by groups of 4-6 students from different nationalities or cultural backgrounds to encourage diversity and respect. I think that could prevent bullying since all the students will have the same "opportunities" to be bullied because of cultural reasons.

• As I'll planning to teach Biology, I can introduce some bullying cases that happened with some famous researchers. 

• I will ask students to bring some pictures of important places in their country related with the nature. They also need to write a brief description about the place. This will be use to decorate the classroom's walls.

This multicultural environment could be more susceptible of bullying. That's why it's very important to teach that diversity is something good. There are some interesting anti bullying programs. The school where I'm working uses "Second step" with low rates of bullying cases.

It's also important to teach respect between peers and teachers and talk about some problems happened in class.

Why do you need a mobile/tablet in your classroom?

Overall approach

Technology has an essential role in our daily routine, that is why children should master a productive and responsible use of them.

Integrate technology in the classroom has a positive impact to students, they can explore further than the traditional methods, like for example,  books.  While learners are having a lecture, they can use tablets or smartphones to watch real videos or images, so they can visualize the issue explained and keep this information in a easier way.

Communication is also important. Technology allows teachers, students and parents to stay in touch easily. Emails or a determinate platform can be use to share relevant information, so there will be a lot of data about students, knowing the specific parts of the content they are struggling with, facilitating  teachers' intervention.

For all of these purposes a laptop can be used too, but we have to recognize that a tablet or mobile it's easier to transport and the batteries last more hours than a laptop or a computer.

 

Best practices for technology in the classroom

Students can empower their presentations using real images of their work, it might be an experimental or a research project. Not only images can be used, they can also record video or voice and join it to the assignment. It will provide teachers an overview about how students can plan the activity, do their task and perhaps the most important part, process the information obtained into a project.

Tablets or smartphones could be used as devices for answer teacher's questions. Some students have a hard time each time they have to raise their hands and answer a question in front of their peers, using that system students can build some self confident. Using technology for this purpose, teachers can be sure the classroom  understanding about the topic she or he is teaching. It can be a very helpful tool in order to detect cases which need intervention. Imaging you ask a tricky question in order to check if students understand the content. They can choose their answer of a few options given to them or write some notes. Teachers will collect the data, analyze it and get a general view about how their explanations are working.

Think and share. We know that brainstorming has an awesome effect in creativity and critical thinking. Better solutions come up when you work as a team. Electronic devices can be use for that goal. After introducing the main concepts of your lesson let the students do some research; they can use YouTube for an interesting lecture, pictures, to clarify the instructions you gave them or interesting articles to discuss as a group. They can share with peers, discuss about them and have a deeper knowledge than if they do it by themselves or just keep the notes taken during class.

Information can be accessible from many places, having access to a lot of information that could not be available if they have to carry with them heavy books. For example, if the student has to travel, he or she can access his notes for all subjects in the same device. In teachers' case, they can check all their students' progress, grading and planning assignments.

Resources

·         Mobile learning (2015). Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/

·         How Brandi McWilliams teaches with Ipad (2015). Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/education/real-stories/brandi-mcwilliams/

·         Teaching with Web-based resources (2015). Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-with-web-based-resources-edwige-simon

·         1.1 Ipads in Minnekota classroom (2015). Retrieved from http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/administration/technology/iPads/Pages/default.aspx

21st Century skills

On this post, I will talk about which are the 21st century skills and examples of how implement them in a Secondary Biology class.

We can divide these skills in four categories:

• 4 C's
• Technology
• 21st Century themes
• Life and career skills

I think that integrate the 4 C's (Creativity, Critical thinking and problem solving, Collaboration and Communication) in a science area is essential. After the students have the basic theorical knowledge, they can start to work in groups, trying to solve problems and come up with a solution. This type of learning will be more satisfactory for the students and will increase their motivation about the subject; They will see that all the "boring" processes and definitions have an apllication in the real life. This kind of activities can make some students get interested in develop his/her career in this field.

For example, after a brief introduction to enzymes, the teacher asks the students to develop a experiment that could help us to know which of two enzymes work faster in a determinated process. This activity will develop the creativity of the students, they have to design an experiment, will increase their critical thinking and problem solving, they have to review all their knowledge about enzymes and create a logical step by step process, taking in consideration the possible problems and solutions. They have to collaborate with their peers, share ideas and points of view. They also will need to increase the communication, collaboration without communication is doomed to failure.

This activity also help to improve life and carrer skills, like flexibility and adaptability,they have to adapt themselves to the conditions and the available material. They have to develop initiative, self direction, leadership and responsability, they are in charge of the experiment, and won't have a person to guide them. They have produce a good experiment because this will be graded.

21st century skills also include some themes apart from the academic content. These themes are:

• Global awareness
• Financial, economic, bussiness and entrepreneurial literacy
• Civic literacy
• Health literacy
• Environmental literacy 

These topics could be included in the subject in some research activities. The students could complete their learning in a determined topic looking for some information or introduce a global/local new and ask the students to find more information about it.

Nowadays all of us now the importance of technology in our lifes, so it is very important to teach children how to use it properly. They should know how to find information and use the media, so it is a good practise to use the school's computer lab and give them a topic to find some information, so in case they need, the teacher can give them some advice.

Some examples of non 21st century skills' activities are:

• Grading the knowledge of an area based on tradicional skills (usually a test)
• Lessons based on teacher's explanation only.
• Lessons based only in the theorical explanation, without talking about possible applications in real life or benefits for the community
• Learning by heart test or assignments

Resources

• 21st Century skills (2015) Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework
• What are 21st Century skills? (2015) Retrieved from http://thoughtfullearning.com/resources/what-are-21st-century-skills