JSP 2011-2012
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Presenting
two
cooperative
learning
environments
Knowing task-based learning
Knowing project-based learning
Knowing the difference between a project
and a task.
Introducing ThinkQuest online environment.
Presenting some examples of tasks and
projects
JSP 2011-2012
WORKING IN TEAMS
 SOLVING COMPLEX PROBLEMS
 RESPONDING CREATIVELY TO RAPIDLY
CHANGING BUSINESS LANDSCAPES
 USING
RAPIDLY
EVOLVING
TECHNOLOGIES
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JSP 2011-2012
Learner’s autonomy
 Project works
 Constructivist principles
 Interactive instruction
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The success of cooperative learning is
dependent upon the expertise of the
teacher
JSP 2011-2012
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A systematic teaching method that engages students in
learning essential knowledge and life-enhancing skills through
an extended student-influenced inquiry process structured
around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed
products and tasks.
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Group work
› Positive interdependence
› Individual accountability
› Face-to-face promotive interaction
› Appropriate use of collaborative skills
› Group processing
JSP 2011-2012
Project based learning
Traditional learning
Long-term
Interdisciplinary
Student-centred: intrinsecally
motivating
Integrated with real world
Collaborative
Production
Continual assessment
Learning by doing
Higher-order skills
Teacher-facilitated
Constructivism
Peer-evaluation
Short practices
Isolated from the real world
Teacher-centred
Subject-centred
Individualistic
Non-productive
Final assessment
Learning about things
Low-order skills
Teacher-directed
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Essential question or problem (from the real
world)
Central to the curriculum
Variety of activities
Extended period of time
Collaboration among students
Students initiative and autonomy
Use of technology
Final production to be communicated to
an audience
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Critical thinking
 Creativity
 Teamworking
 Cross-cultural understanding
 Communication
 Technology
 Self-direction
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JSP 2011-2012
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Definition of the project
› Objectives
› Timeline
› Assessment plan
› Rubric used
› Resources: traditional and ICT
› Class time
› Specific feedback
› Other teachers collaboration
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Posters
 Oral presentations
 Data show
 Presentations
 Booklets
 Reports
 Debates
 Movies
 Graphic organizers
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JSP 2011-2012
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Take a field trip to Gettysburg and write
a report on the experience.
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Make posters depicting the
architecture of ancient Egypt.
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Listen to different sounds. Make a
graph. Identify features of common
sounds that are disturbing to the ear.
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Observe and measure various school
buildings and record data.
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JSP 2011-2012
Investigate the question "How could
wars be more humane?" Use
Gettysburg as an example of a high
casualty battle, comparing it to other
battles. Complete a portfolio, including
an essay and a literary response
journal, then conclude with a debate
Complete a case study on the
pyramids using the question "How were
the pyramids built?" to address five
controversial issues: source of the
design, source of materials, time to
completion, method of transportation
of materials, and contents of the
chambers..
Identify five sound pollution problems in
the community. Form a task force to
investigate the problems and devise
technically feasible solutions for each.
Design a "School of the Future" with
scale drawings and models, taking into
account the site and anticipated
needs. Present plan to an audience of
school officials or community experts.
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Research and write a 10-paragraph report on
an animal of your choice. Create a visual
representation of your animal, using a
drawing or a diorama.
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Students learn the basic metabolic process of
the cell and create a visual drawing of a cell
showing at least two of the processes.
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Students read The Odyssey and create a
drawing depicting the journey of Odysseus.
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Have students create a mock stock portfolio
and follow stock prices over several months.
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JSP 2011-2012
Choose an animal and address the following
question in a report and oral
presentation: 'How does a _______succeed in
the wild?' Be prepared to answer the
questions from your audience.
Students are asked to run around the school
track during PE and observe their
physiological reaction to exercise. They then
are asked: “Why do we perspire?” They
answer the question based on intuition and
observation, then use their answers as a
guide to creating a further set of questions to
be investigated and answered over a period
of week.
Students discuss the meaning of the world
‘hero’ and as a class list the criteria for
heroism. They then choose someone in their
lives or community who meets these criteria,
and write an essay on the meaning of
heroism in contemporary life. As part of their
assignment, they read and discuss The
Odyssey.
Have students analyze the relationship
between the stock market and the business
cycle and answer the question: “Do the
fluctuations in the stock market over a 4
month period provide evidence that stock
markets are affected by the business cycle?
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As you begin the project, make sure all students are on the right track.
Tailor your grouping strategies to the needs of the project.
Plan how to accomodate the needs of diverse students.
If individual group members don’t carry their own weight, fire them!
If individual group members aren't working, talk with them (and their parents)
about their behavior.
Keep track of each group's progress.
Make sure groups keep track of their own progress.
Keep public records of group progress.
The Internet is only one information resource. Students often need help using
it efficiently.
Technology can be a powerful tool. It can also crash and leave you
stranded.
Think about how technology will make your project more effective. Don't
use technology blindly.
Don't be afraid to make a mistake.
Don't be afraid of making midproject corrections.
Debrief the project with your class and note ideas for improvement.
Reflect on the Driving Question
JSP 2011-2012
Task: “Activity where the
target
language is used by the learner for a
communicative purpose in order to
achieve an outcome” (Jane Willis, 2005)
 The task is central to the learning activity
 Meaningful tasks: experiments, getting a
job, conducting a review on famous
writers
 Authentic language
 Assessment on task outcome
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JSP 2011-2012
Focus
on
exchanging
and
understanding meanings
 Learners know what they are expected
to achieve
 The outcome can be shared
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JSP 2011-2012
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Willis and Willis (2007): criteria
a) Will the activity engage learner’s interest?
b) Is there a primary focus on meaning?
c) Is there a goal or an outcome?
d) Is success judged in terms of outcome?
e) Is completion a priority?
f) Does the activity relate to real world
activities?
JSP 2011-2012
IS THIS A TASK?
 The teacher asks the students:
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 Talk about your grandparents in pairs.
 Tell each other what you know about their
past lives.
 Use the phrases and patterns from the box
above.
JSP 2011-2012
The activity needs a goal or outcome so
that learners know when they have
finished the task.
 The final instruction shows that the
activity is aimed at practicing some
expressions. So, students cannot use
English in a free way.
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JSP 2011-2012
It doesn’t create opportunities for
meaning-focused language use.
 Learner’s speak to practice a new
structure.
 Learner’s don’t make free use of
whatever English they can recall to
express themselves.
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JSP 2011-2012
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PRETASK:
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Topic introduction
Clear instructions
Help on language and content
Examples
Students preparation
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Group work, cooperative way
PLANNING
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REPORT OR TASK PERFORMANCE
TASK:
 Students preparation of the oral or written report
 Students show the rest of the class their outcome
POST-TASK
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ANALYSIS OR FEEDBACK
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PRACTICE OR LANGUAGE FOCUS
 Teacher highlights relevant elements of the task
 Students analyse language, structures, patterns used
 Teacher selects Academic Language usage to be practiced by students
JSP 2011-2012
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Gap principle
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Information
Reasoning
Opinion
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Decision-making
Debate
Reaching a decision or solution through interaction
Listing and / or brainstorming
Ordering and sorting: sequencing, ranking, classifying
Matching
Comparing: finding similarities and differences
Contrasting, reasoning, problem solving and analyzing
Sharing personal experiences
Creative tasks and projects: fact finding, surveys, interviews
Other types: split information, jumbles, restoration, memory
challenge
JSP 2011-2012
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1 Introduction
Put the question to the class, to a vote and askione or two students to give reasons for
their answers.
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2 Discussion of relevant questions
Put learners into groups to discuss these statements and decide if they are true or false:
› 1 There is no land at the Antarctic – only an ice-cap.
› 2 The polar regions get very little sunshine compared with other latitudes.
› 3 The ice is several metres thick in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.
› 4 For six months in the year there is no sunshine in the Arctic.
› 5 Water keeps in the heat of the sun better than dry land.
› 6 The Antarctic is by far the highest of the five continents, rising to more than two
thousand metres above sea level.
Look at the questionnaire with the class as a whole and make sure they understand the
questions.
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3 Discussion
Put learners into groups and ask them to reach a decision.
Once the discussion begins try to leave learners to get on with it by themselves as far
4 Preparation
In five minutes their spokesperson may be asked to report the group discussion to the
class as a whole.
They have five minutes to help the spokesperson prepare for this.
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5 Report
Ask one or two of the spokespersons to present the views of their group.
Help out by asking supplementary questions.
After each report you can summarise what has been said.
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6 Decision making
Take a final vote on the question. Ask one or two people if they have changed their minds, and if so,
why?
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7 Reading
Give learners this text to read:
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WHICH IS COLDER: THE NORTH POLE OR THE SOUTH POLE?
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The North and South poles are both very cold because they get very little sunshine compared with the
rest of the earth. The sun never rises more than 23.5 degrees above the horizon, and for six months of
the year the poles get no sunshine at all. Also most of the sunlight is reflected back by the bright white
surface. So both poles are very cold, but the South Pole is much colder than the North Pole because it
sits on top of a very thick ice sheet, which itself sits on dry land, on the continent of Antarctica. The top
of the ice sheet near the South Pole is more than 3,000 metres above sea level – more than a mile and
a half high, so Antarctica is by far the highest continent on earth. In comparison the North Pole rests in
the middle of the Arctic Ocean, where the surface of the ice is only about a foot above the sea.
Water keeps in more heat than dry land so the Arctic Ocean retains the heat, making it less cold in
winter and warmer in the summer.
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JSP 2011-2012
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8 Review
Ask learners to put away their texts and summarise the passage orally. You could ask them to prepare
this in groups. There is, of course, a danger of overkill. It may be that learners have had quite enough
of the North and South poles by now. This is the kind of judgement that can only be made by the
teacher on the spot. As we are all aware, learners have ways of letting us know when their interest is
waning.
9 Language Study
9.1 Consciousness-raising
Underline all the expressions to do with comparison.
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Which is colder: the North Pole or the South Pole?
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They get very little sunshine compared with the rest of the earth.
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The sun never rises more than 23.5 degrees above the horizon.
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The South Pole is much colder than the north Pole.
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The top of the ice-sheet is more than 3,000 metres above sea-level, more than a mile and a half
high.
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Antarctica is by far the highest continent on earth.
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In comparison the North Pole rests in the middle of the Arctic Ocean….
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Water keeps in more heat than dry land.
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The ocean retains the heat, making it less cold in winter and warmer in the summer.
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You can show the class this list then remove the italicised words and see if they can recall them.
You can then remove the sentences and ask them to work in pairs to see how many they can recall.
JSP 2011-2012
VANISHING WORDS
Take a sentence which contains one or two useful phrases or grammar points and show it to the class:
Both poles are very cold, but the South Pole is much colder than the North Pole.
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Ask a couple of people to read out the sentence, then remove one or two words and see if they can
remember it:
**** poles are **** cold, but the South Pole is **** colder **** the North Pole.
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Then remove more words and ask learners to try again to recall the sentence:
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**** poles *** **** cold, but *** South Pole is **** ****** **** the North Pole
Continue this process until you have removed all the words leaving only a string of blanks:
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**** ***** *** **** ****, *** *** ***** **** ** **** ****** **** ***
***** ****
And see if learners can still recall the sentence. You can vary the difficulty of this exercise in a number of
ways:
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by choosing a longer or shorter and more or less complex sentence.
by varying the number of words you remove at each stage.
by varying the number of repetitions of the full sentence at each stage.
by allowing learners to work in groups or making them work as individuals
http://sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000F04F4-5DD2-1EB1-BDC089EC588EEDF
JSP 2011-2012
Online environment for teachers to design
and carry out learning projects.
 Components:
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› Shared online space
› Easy-to-use publishing and collaboration tools
› Global community of teachers and students
› Competition space: international contests
› Library
› Professional development program for teachers
JSP 2011-2012
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S.O.S. Save our Lagoon: Connecting Students’ Lives to Science
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Project tied to a local lagoon cleanup
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Students learned to think and act as environmental scientists:
Background research using resources linked from their ThinkQuest project space.
During the lagoon cleanup, they collected not only garbage but also data on the types
of garbage encountered.
Back at their classroom, students used mathematical skills to analyze the data and
determine patterns
The students used this information to send letters to businesses
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In addition to learning important science concepts, reported outcomes included:
› Technology skills
› Creativity and communication skills: the idea of the letter-writing campaign.
multidisciplinary activity, which linked content from students’ science and Spanish
classes, students learned how to write persuasively and format business letters
properly.
› Critical thinking and self-direction. The students used their own initiative to decide
what action to take based on their analysis of the data and their desire to make a
difference.
› Teacher professional growth: ongoing collaborations with educational organizations
overseas, received several national awards for excellence in science teaching, and
worked as a project learning coach for other teachers in Puerto Rico.
JSP 2011-2012
Forest Fires: Engaging Students with Real-World Problems
Motivated by a recent forest fire that had threatened their
school, the students chose to focus their project on the topic of
fires and fire prevention.
 The students organized the project into tasks that were
delegated to smaller sub-committees. As students worked on
their entry, they were motivated by the fact that their work
would be seen by a global audience and compared with other
high-quality entries.
 Outcomes from the project learning approach:
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Critical thinking: to survey peers and interview civic leaders. Through this
process they learned proper research techniques, including how to
avoid leading or revealing questions. This prompted them to begin
thinking more critically about other surveys and interviews they had
encountered.
› Creativity and self-direction
› Teamwork and communication skills. According to the coaches, the
project helped students learn how to discuss and negotiate goals,
resolve disagreements, and divide responsibilities among team members.
› Technology skills.
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JSP 2011-2012
www.pbl-online.org
www.eduscapes.com
www.thinkquest.org
www.epals.com
www.etwinning.net
www.willis-elt.co.uk/taskbased.html
www.teachinglish.org
EXPERIENCIAS EN EL APRENDIZAJE MEDIANTE TAREAS. Carmen Hoz (Instituto Cervantes.
Berlín) II Encuentro práctico de profesores de español en Alemania 2.
International House Barcelona – Difusión http://www.encuentropractico.com
JSP 2011-2012
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Can you think of an example of a task?
JSP 2011-2012
JSP 2011-2012