Week 1 - Personal Reflections

This week has been very fruitful since I started my first online course and had to adjust my schedule to be able to meet the requirements.

First of all, I was very curious what to do and scanned the information sent by email. I took it step by step, following the instructions but without reading guideline first. I had my hands on my keyboard and eyes glued to the screen. Of course, I experienced some pitfalls resulting from my eagerness rather than my neatness as you may read in my posts “What did I get myself into?”.

Having read recommended materials I realized that I actually used a blog as a teaching tool, but was not very successful with it due to a lack of rubrics for assessment and need for certain rules, especially the one about the demand of regular posting. Consequently, I have decided to start a new blog with my 15-year-old students who study at German bilingual class but their level of English is between B1 and B2 levels (CEFR) so now I am thinking of setting up the rules and rubrics on my own that might be part of the project we are supposed to do.

I spent so much time reading posts on Nicenet, getting frustrated what else I may contribute with when everything had been said. Then I collected myself and started reading them over and over to get to know people involved. I am amazed how different and similar we are and regardless the various cultural backround, the feeling of being the teacher is the same everywhere. It is so obvious from the posts my colleagues post there, however rubric for our assessment forces us to be very professional, perhaps more than be “human”. I love discussions with colleagues to share experience and experiences because they help us to be aware of problems we all face and teach us to resolve and overcome them.

Even though nobody wants to admit it, behind the evaluation rubrics a “competition” is hidden - who the best is, who can express their thoughts in the most academic way in as brief post as possible. Nevertheless, this is not the case but it must be pointed out that some people find it challenging to improve their writing skills – to be more considerate, to use wide range of vocabulary and grammar structures and enjoy pursuing their careers through their own personal development. On the contrary, this way of assessment might deter people who regardless their education, skills and abilities do not find it easy to face such a challenge.

In spite of my not having so much time, I devoted many hours to the beginning of this course and doing my tasks and got immersed in it. Finally, I started enjoying the course reaping the benefits from it and I look forward to practising newly acquired tools in my teaching profession.

Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to all my colleagues who found the time to read my posts and comment on them. I really appreciate it because if you do something to share, there is no a better feeling than to know that somebody at least has read the message you want to deliver.