It was an exciting and fruitful first onsite day! After working with one another online for 3 weeks, we were so glad that we finally were able to chat in person. This year, all Nian Gao participating teachers are eager learners. We have made lots of progress on our lesson plans. Through two mini PDs and group time, the concepts of Backward Design, 3 modes tasks and activities and lesson planning were further discussed and clarified. What a productive day! Looking forward to the following fantastic 9 days! (niangao 17)
Our onsite face-to face program has finally begun. After more than two weeks of learning online, all the Rice Dumpling members were all excited to meet everyone in person. No time was wasted. Even on day one, the day was packed with review activities, mini PDs on writing lesson plan and 3 modes of communication activities and group work time. Although there were still a lot need to learn and to be done in order to complete the lesson plans, but we felt pretty good about our progress. Many questions were asked and group discussion was productive. The two week onsite program is definitely off to a good start! (Zongzi team17)
This morning before we started to go through the first lesson, Ms. Lu, the master teacher, guided the group to review the unit plan one more time. We had discussed it during two online meetings, but we all felt that the discussion today clarified our new concepts we learned. In order to connect with online program, we reviewed some guidelines today, for example, TELL, Can-dos, Backward Design. Teachers continued to work on their 1st lesson plan in the afternoon. They were asked to finish their first draft by tonight. Our goal is to complete our individual 2nd draft by the end of tomorrow. (Yuebing team 17)
Day2: 06/30/2017
Our Nian Gao team had another busy yet fulfilling day! Starting off the morning, thoughts and ideas were flying around, effective and meaningful activities were introduced and discussed, and satisfying progress was made on the lesson planning at the end of the day. Big shout out to Dr. Liu's Chinese lingustic mini PD, it helped teachers understand the uniqueness of Chinese language. Big thanks also go to the people behind the theme. Dr. Kwoh, Ruiqi, Michelle and Shaoqun were thoughtfully providing the comforting and tasty meals and refreshments, preparing the needed materials effciently, reminding teachers to take breaks, etc. We are grateful to be part of 2017 Berkeley STARTALK team. Have a good long weekend, everyone! (Niangao team 17)
The Rice Dumpling group started the day discussing and finalizing the unit plan and end of the unit performance tasks. Two heads are better than one. We came out closely relevant simulated real life scenario for our final interpersonal performance task and were really happy about it! The mini PD on Chinese linguistics in the morning was very informative and participant teachers got to clarify concepts and had their questions answered. After that, the mentor teacher spent one-on-one time with each teacher participant to go over and fine tune their first lesson plan. Time is never enough! By the end of the day there were still bits and ends need to be discussed and reviewed. However, the group energy was high and everyone was working hard and highly motivated. It was a very productive day and many tasks had been accomplished. Every Rice Dumpling teacher deserves two big thumbs up today! Great job! ! (Zongzi team 17)
We started the day with the reflection of the first day. Master teachers quoted teacher participants' reflection. Later, we continued working our 1st lesson plan. Liu laoshi, our linguistic teacher, came to do an one-hour review lesson. She clarified some confused parts teachers. Some teacher participants were interested in getting teaching credential, so Kwoh laoshi made a simple introduction for the program. More information will come on July, 14. We continued working our lesson planning in the afternoon.(Yuebing team 17)
Day 3: 07/05/2017
It was another packed day! We had our first trial microteaching this afternoon so every teacher finally had the opportunity to put what they learned into action after lunch. Nian Gao team members were working one on one with the master teacher to go though their teaching plans and materials one more time in the morning. After trial mocroteaching, everyone received a booklets of "Love Notes (comments)" from all 11 participant teachers who observed. We learned how to improve our lesson plans, and also learned lots of other teaching strategies by observing other teachers. (Niangao team 17)
Today we had our 1st trial microteaching. What a day! The Zongzi teachers were nervous about the teaching and at the same time working very hard on completing the lesson plan and preparing teaching materials. This is the first time that every teacher participant had the opportunity to observe each other teaching. After the trial microteaching they were all so hard on themselves and wished that they could have done more preparation. However, they all agreed that they the trial microteaching was really beneficial. Through teaching they had better ideas on how to deliver the materials. At the same time feedbacks from other teachers are helpful and definitely make them more aware of issues on pacing and comprehensible input. (Zongzi group 17 )
In order to prepare the 1st trial micro-teaching in the afternoon, we discussed the observation form in groups. Then, we continued working on our 1st lesson plan. The whole afternoon all 15 teacher participants did their 1st lesson plan. This year we tried to let all participants can give feedback to others. Every teacher wrote their feedback on a pos-it. All notes were collected to keep in a colored paper. We called it a "Love Notes". That's very interesting! (Yuebing Group 17)
Day 4: 07/06/2017
The morning Demo teachings from the master teachers not only have Nian Gao team members reviewed some important teaching principles but also got to reflect on what we have learned. Our group also continued our conversation on our first trial micro teaching in the morning. Each member gave constructive suggestions for others. The evidence of having clear and correct understanding on how to teaching WL was all of us now can work with a much faster and easier pace on our co-teach lesson plan. In preparation of tomorrow’s trial micro teaching, we spent our afternoon time working on our 2nd lesson plans. As the fist week ends tomorrow, we all felt that our unit was getting more cohesive with ongoing productive discussions and sharing. (Niangao Group 17)
Time flies! This week is soon drawing to an end. After yesterday’s 1st trial microteaching, teacher participants by now have a deeper understanding on backward design, comprehensible input and using target language. To better prepare the teacher participants for next week’s microteaching, this morning each mentor teacher did a 10-minute demo teaching emphasizing on comprehensible input, setting the stage and giving instruction for guided practice. The rest of the day was spent on finalizing 1st lesson plan and discussing lesson plans for lesson 6 and lesson 7. The whole process of reviewing unit plan and lesson learning goals, and brainstorming activity ideas for the lessons went smoothly. Zongzi teachers’ growth was evident. They were able to refer to terms such as backward design, learning goals, comprehensible input, etc during the discussion comfortably and their thinking process in lesson planning was so much clearer comparing to when they were in the beginning of the week. By the early afternoon we were able to divide tasks and come up activity ideas for the last 2 co-teaching lessons. It’s really impressive how fast Zongzi teachers can grasp the concepts of what they learned so far and apply to lesson planning right away. (Zongzi group 17 )
What a tough day! Our team was working so hard today because of the 1st lesson plan was due. Our team members cannot stop editing their first lesson plan. They wanted to have a perfect lesson plan. Ms. Lu told them there was no perfect teaching plan in the world. We always learn from our past experiences. Master teachers' demonstration lasted for 40 minutes before lunch. They hoped to let all teacher participants know what they really do in their classroom. In the afternoon, we started to work on the 2nd lesson. Anyway, we are almost there…. (Yuebing Group 17)
Day 5: 07/07/2017
Today we spent the morning focusing on finalizing our 2nd lesson plans, preparing for the teaching materials and then visiting our classroom at Berkeley High at the end of the day. We saw the obvious growth in every member at today's 2nd trial microteaching. Many good teaching ideas were inspired by the peers. Co-teaching is not an easy task because teachers need to constantly negotiate and share ideas in order to have a pleasant experience. In conclusion, it has been a fulfilling week! Now our classroom is ready for welcoming our volunteering students on Monday. We are looking forward to meeting our students and teaching them!. Way to go! Team Nian Gao. (Niangao Group 17)
Time is never enough. Zongzi teachers finally got the time this morning to focus on next week's afternoon activities and culture lessons. Everyone also brought in Chinese herbs, tuina and acupressure tools to prepare for next week's culture activities. Brainstorming for cultural stations was really fun and there were many ideas discussed. It sounded really interesting and we all look forward to doing culture lesson on Chinese medicine next week. The rest of the day was spent on planning and completing co-teaching lesson 6 and 7. Zongzi teachers were able to work on the tasks independently and discuss and resolve any disagreement together. They were motivated and much more confident now when writing the lesson plan. Zongzi teachers worked very hard this week. Hopefully they can unwind and refresh over the weekend. They truly deserve the rest. Next week it will be really exciting to get to meet the volunteer students and teach the whole lesson on their own. Excellent work, Zongzi teachers! (Zongzi group 17 )
The last day of the first week we can work on together in the same room with the other two groups. All master teachers worked closely to ensure all teachers can get support. Our Moon Cake team members were happy that they can co-teach for their second lesson plan. After struggling the first lesson, we have learned a lot about how to use backward design planning for the second lesson. We are much clearer about how to use videos and other resources to begin our lesson with "Set the Stage". Our master teachers helped us to clarify our thinking over "Stage 2" session. We cannot just write activity there but we need to address how to identify evidences from it. In the morning, we work in pairs to discuss our Lesson 6 and lesson 7. The teaching materials were prepared and ready for next Monday. We didn't have time to do the second trial micro-teaching as planned. Luckily, we still have time over the weekend to make last-minute adjustment and discuss with our master teacher later on Monday afternoon. (Yuebing Group 17)