Storytelling - a few tips to tell stories and capture students attention

Storytelling may sound an easy task for many teachers. However, for some reasons others try not to tell them in class for many different reasons. One thing which requires for any storyteller is definitely time to prepare the story – if you have read or heard the story before then it may become easier. On the other hand, if you have never heard of it, you need to take time to read it a few times until you are confident enough to tell it by heart. Take also some time to prepare yourself for what you want to say and how you want to say it. It means verifying details and gathering information that will be crucial for your story, such as dates or descriptions of one place, one character, anedoctes and most importantly, body language. 

Make sure your story includes some action, characters somehow close to the audience reality, emotion and one big event. By this big event, we tend to believe that a story must have only one big event – otherwise it will be too long and somehow may lose its purpose. One story which shows only the protagonist may sound boring – s/he needs to pursue some adventure, justice, love or triumph. One or these feelings makes the story more interesting. It is on the storyteller hands though to focus on the activity of storytelling and its drama, keeping the audience engaged and interested.

Your story must fit the audience – what we mean by that is in case you are telling for a group of kids aged 5-6 you will avoid using refined vocabulary – keep it short and simple, always looking them in the eye, modulating the tone of your voice when one character is about to say something, facial expressions can vary according to the scene being described as well as having short pauses to collect some feedback, to verify if your audience is really paying attention to the story being told.

If you tell your story too slowly, the audience will lose interest. But if you do the opposite, they might not follow all the steps. Make sure you find a balance to tell your story in a pace your audience will find it pleased to hear.

Do not be afraid of making mistakes or forgetting some detail while you are tellling – it takes time to get used to it and improvising is also a good solution for storytellers.

Make sure you have a solid beginning, middle and end – it will help you remember the most important parts in a story and control pacing.

Last, but not least advice could be: make your story visual – you can use some elements which can become your story more realistic – by that we mean, in case you are telling a story about a king, you can have a crown of a king or maybe if you tellling a story of a cloud if you can use cotton to symbolize it. Again, during this phase of preparation and selecting the elements of your story it is important to pick a few and simple elements, otherwise your audience may lose interest in your story and will give more attention to the elements presented.

Photos conceeded by Dany Danielle - storyteller who lives in João Pessoa

How to implement Project-Based Learning in my work?

Firstly, it is important to understand the main idea related to the Project based learning (PBL),  emphasises on the students engagement and also to make the environment of the school more reliable and meaningful to the students. It means that the students are the center of the learning process and the teacher is only there to guide them in the activities.

The Project based learning can be described as a tool to plan and build projects at school. It involves most of the time dynamic classroom approaches and the students are invited to learn in a deeper way. It is a teaching method in which the students learn, build knowledge and skills through competency based curriculum. To implement the Project based learning is necessary much preparation and planning to design an effective way to develop the student skills, and also is really important to have the start point, a driving question, a real world topic, in which the school community is involved, and get the students attention to the real problem situation. this driving question will guide teachers and students during the development of  the work and should be answered at the end of the project. So, the daily lessons, contents, activities should help students to answer this driving question and its result will be reflected  in a continuously learning, when the students should be motivated to build their knowledge in an autonomy way. When the design of the project is presented to the school community,   it is important to have in mind which contents will be addressed, how the teachers could explore different possibilities of approaches, how the selected activities would support the question and utilize the curriculum contents to increase the students competences. Integrate as many subjects as possible and develop always new topics and new issues that increase students motivation, curiosity and allow to students to go in other directions providing resources, guidance and  giving  them  feedback of good things that they are doing. The goals of the project should be clear, on its purpose,improve. It is necessary time for reflection, allowing self-evaluation of activities and discuss what need to change, what work well and also share new ideas for the project.

As tapiocas:

Anderlane Lima

Daniela Soprani

Ketlen da Silva

Monique Viana

Vilma Raquel

VIDEOS SUGGESTIONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMCZvGesRz8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZViqnEc6Ko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE6WHn0-cSQ

References

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/pbl-how-to-write-driving-questions-andrew-miller

https://www.bie.org/about/what_pbl

How to implement Project-Based Learning in my work? (Carcarás Group)

         First of all, the teachers should get in mind that the most important thing is to be able to have a mindset, because project-based learning is kind of approach which the student is the focus of attention. In this approach they (students) start real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups.  "Questions may be the most powerful technology we have ever created. Questions and questioning allow us to make sense of a confusing world. They are the tools that lead to insight and understanding (MCKENZIE, 2008)”. So the teacher has to figure out a way to engage them in an interactive and practical work, they need to learn by doing. 

As we can see to use the project-based learning strategy teachers need to do more than pose a project, they need to be sure that their proposal has the potential to get some components in order to provide the students capacity to develop or improve some skills and abilities, for example teamwork, self-confidence, leadership, autonomy, entrepreneurship, respect, trust etc. 

         Significant content shows us that the problem must engage students working with an important content. A relevant thing that the teacher must pay attention is the technological world in which the students are, so they need to use 21st century skills, these skills should be focused on technological tools it will help the students participate in need to allow them to problem-solve and involve in critical thinking, creativity and collaborative work in order to be successful. Quality projects motivate students to learn and investigate. It happens by through giving the students voice and choice, teachers need to allow students to make decisions about how to investigate the problem and how to work together. The teacher can help facilitate this. The last but not the least important thing are reflection and revision which students will receive feedback about their progress.

References:

https://www.edutopia.org/project-learning-introduction

https://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-guide-implementation

http://study.com/academy/lesson/project-based-learning-definition-and-ideas.html

 Group: Aline, Daniel, Izabelly e Odair

PS: Hermano was absent in this classwork.

How to support student's autonomy, engagement and creativity in learning? By Oxente, Guys!

              

There are some important concepts and approaches which can help us to raise students’ autonomy, engagement and creativity in learning. Unfortunately, in Brazil, our classroom management reality is a bit far from focusing on students’ competences. Instead, our teachers are worried to cover inflexible curriculum making learning unpleasant and meaninglessness because it is concentrated on teachers.

In order to changing this reality, we need to work step by step on HOW to apply different practices making a movement from teacher centered to student centered methods. For instance, developing autonomy is a very hard work, it takes time and patience from teachers. With the help of different active techniques and short assignments that students can collaborate in groups and be less supervised, we as teachers, would be creating a new study environment and giving students the chance to be really part of the learning process.   

Besides that, the level of students’ interest would also increase when they notice that their learning style and creative way of showing what they have been learning are useful, taking into consideration that most of the time we (teachers) don´t give students the chance to show and improve their skills for real life world.

So, to be an effective agent of change, we need to implement these ideas, day by day, with possible challenges to the students with the purpose of making them more confident on the approach and more responsive their own learning process.

How to use digital tools pedagogically meaningful ways in learning?’’

                       Available at http://profisabelaguiar.blogspot.fi/2013/11/professor-tecnologia-e-educacao.html

The globalization and consequently rapid dissemination of the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) generate new ways of acting, of interacting and learning. We can see that people do not live in the same way as in the past because nowadays we have many tools that facilitates our life, our work and that affects many other aspects of our daily lives. On this context, we see the necessity to include this digital tools in the school environment, as a consequence to the fact that our students also do not learn in the same way as in the past, now they have a lot of resources to access dynamic information that can help them also in the process of teaching and learning.

The use of digital tools pedagogically meaningful ways in the process of teaching and learning can provide educational practices interconnected to various media, making the materials much more attractive to the students. In addition, access to electronic networks can provide interactivity between learners and teachers who can already communicate, exchange information, perform group tasks, and even enhance bonds of friendship. In this sense, using technology to help the work of the teachers and to engage students can generate improvements in the teaching and learning process, because we can not separate the educational process and the technological world.

According to this perspective, Moran (2013) says that the process of teaching and learning are in this century increasingly being challenged. There are countless sources, distinct conceptions, instant information. The consequence of this is visible in the educational process. Educating today is more complex, the subject in this contemporary society, with a fragmented identity, is also complex. It is interesting also to see that technologies reach more the students than the teachers. So, it is necessary to rethink the whole process, redesigning to teach, work together with the students, guiding activities and finding new ways to work meaningfully.

ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) are one of the resources most used by postmodern society, which is increasingly communicated through technological devices. Related to school, there is a need to integrate new proposals for the use of technological resources to pedagogical practices, making the school an environment to research, teaching and collaboration.

In this context, new pedagogical approaches have been developed to promote a more active learning, including the integration of the methods used in traditional classes with online activities, this approach is called blended learning (GARRISON and KANUKA, 2004).

Working with new technology, for instance, are quite difficult because there are lots of poverty in Brazilians schools, but nothing is impossible if you want to do it. In this context, one of plausible action is creating groups of interested students once they will bring to this challenge tools and knowledges not available in teachers know-how, considering that many of the teachers currently active in our state of Paraíba belong to the generation that do not have intimacy with technology, but their students certainly have it. In addition, this type of work encourages teamwork and collaboration among those involved, which in our view is a good exercise in citizenship.

References:

MORAN, J.M. Como utilizar as tecnologias na escola. São Paulo. 2013. Disponível em: <http://www.eca.usp.br/prof/moran/site/textos/educacao_inovadora/utilizar.pdf> Acesso em 21 nov. 2016.

GARRISON, D. R.; KANUKA, H. Blended learning: uncovering its transformative potential in high education. Internet in Higher Education, n. 7, 2004.

By: Nego Group

   

SCHOOL VISITS - Oxente Guys

Last, but not least, we want to share with you our impressions during some school visits we have been to in Finland.
There is a link attached below that summarizes our ideas in a PPT format.
Enjoy the reading.

Oxente, Guys!
Gabriela Machado
Luis Melo
Marcelo Sales
Moysés Barbosa
Teresa Cristina

How to engage students?

As tapiocas

Anderlane Lima

Daniela Soprani

Ketlen Oliveira

Monique Viana

Vilma Raquel

                                           

Lack of interest, poor performance and indiscipline has become increasingly common in classrooms, it is not surprise that traditional teaching methods do not work, students can no longer engage with them. So, how to evoke in students the desire of learning? How to involve them in their own learning process?

We, as teachers, know our students, then, it will be a lit bit for us to find clever ways to engage our students, and we need to think about possibilities to face this challenge in creative and efficient way.

To exist an effective and lasting learning it is necessary that there are definite purpose and reflective self-activity of students. Thus, the real learning takes place when the student is interested and shown engaged in learning, that is, when it is motivated. It is the inner motivation of the student drives and vitalizes the act of studying and learning. Hence the importance of motivation in the teaching and learning.  

Encourages a sense of well-being and comfort in the classroom, greater engagement in activities and learning, there must be a quality relationship between students and teachers, who along with mutual respect becomes a key element in the development of self-motivation.

Human beings learn, as experience experiences and develop thinking. Thought it is the way of intelligence to express themselves, so it is in thought, who lives learning. Every change of thinking, the learner produces its own knowledge. In other way any student has a particular way of receiving informations, and each new experience he rearranges the mental structures to adapt again to the world. The develop of thought is the mixture, the interposition of the particular mental structures of individuals and the environment, so much richer and more diverse are the experiences, the greater the development of thought and better the quality of knowledge, learning.

• Organizational autonomy: when the teacher allows students to make decisions for themselves, within the terms and classroom rules;
• Autonomy practice: when the teacher gives students options and different ways to present their ideas (through different media, for example.);
• Cognitive autonomy: when the teacher allows the student to self evaluation in certain  situations from a pattern of self reference;
• Work with technology's: The students are in general interested in technology and when the teacher knows and works with it, it’s easier to get the students engaged in the learning process;
• Make learning groups, and help the students to support each other in a collaborative work.
• Encourage your students to find their learning goals;
• Getting out of classroom. Trying to use different environments;
• Always encourage your students to believe in themselves;
• Having fun classes.

Anyway, the teacher should always choose, in our view,  a variety of educational process or methods to promote the engagement of the students.

References:

http://blog.educacao.mg.gov.br/?p=12900

http://www.mestregr.com.br/blog/4-formas-inteligentes-de-envolver-os-alunos/

http://www.planetaeducacao.com.br/portal/artigo.asp?artigo=2798 (picture1)

http://info.geekie.com.br/volta-as-aulas-3-maneiras-de-usar-a-tecnologia-para-motivar-os-alunos-apos-as-ferias/ (picture 2)