Constructivism from my point of view

   Constructivism in teaching certainly has a lot of advantages. I think it is a better idea to lead students to sources and help them build their own knowledge instead of normal lecturing. Because this method will eventually diminish the possible questions like "Why am I learning this?, "How it is going to be useful for me in the future?" and create a self awareness on students. As the students going to be creators of their own knowledge this will led them to a better understanding of subjects. Rather than just taking readily made bits of information from the teacher, students will do research, they first take subjects as a whole and after their research they will reach to the necessary point and in that time period they will learn lots of different thing consciously or unconsciously. Additionally students will be saved from "teacher talk" which is very boring for most of the new generation learners. Inevitably there is some drawbacks of this method. First, this is almost completely a student based system. For lesson to work weed need to be sure that each student come to class as ready. What happens in they not? Because lesson will be dependent the things they brought to class, it might stuck at some point. Also this makes lesson planning much harder because we as teacher need to build the new knowledge upon the existing knowledge of the students. If we have a very high population in the class this will also become impossible. Moreover choosing this method will require us to leave from standardised testing schema and grade entered goals and rewards as well as the comparison of students. Lastly according to all those reasons constructivist education for me is very useful and not completely but mainly I will try to integrate it o me teaching process.

Don't Afraid! TAKE RISK!

       As teachers we all want our students reach to a certain level when they completed each lesson. That's why we make lesson plans. But one thing that I want to emphasize is while proceeding in that direeection some teachers try to keep their students in their 'safety circles'. Because of that the students who can do better or can create more refined work are left out in some way. Also the students who wasn't given that chance have hard times while expanding themselves.  For to produce better learning results we should encourage our students to take risks. By doing that in one way we are facing them with numerious different problems. Naturally they feel the obligation of using their creativity, critical thinking, reasoning skills which they didn't use up to their full extend while in their 'safety circles'. From my point off view this is more close to real life. When I was in primary shool my teacher knew that I was good at science so my teacher gave me projects that I tought very hard to complete and requiered me to do long researches but at the end I was rewarded more than 6 times either by the ministry of education or  by the other instutituons. Additionally while doing that teachers should build upon the strenghts of students so that they can improve more further in less time. Because students while in learning process like boats in a stormy wheather they can go wrong directions and might come up with false or missing results their strenghts gives them a good leverage where they can rest themselves and complete more complex tasks. Finally this is the way that I'm going to follow because I belive the ideas that I mentioned in my writing is true because I saw them worked.

My Collabration Environment in METU NCC

     Actually, I see collaboration as a very important part of my academic life, because collaboration gives me the security of a well and seamlessly done job. My experiences in this campus is very promising because I haven't rejected in my request from anybody else up to now. Also my friends comes up with very good points that I couldn't realized and they increase the overall quality of the work that we are doing. All of my group works, I haven't done any projects this year so far ,was ended perfectly with the help of collaborative environment because they were mostly got high marks. Sure I have some , weaknesses in collaboration such as when the conversation becomes very active    I can't catch most of the ideas also this decreases my focus on the topics. For to straighten my collaborative skills there are numerous books out there, I 'm certainly planing to make a collage from those books, also I'm going to ask my teachers from high or primary school for to share their experiences in this topic with me. What is this whole writing's relation with a teacher? Here is the answer, without a collaborative work between teachers in the school from same field or different fields it is very hard to create a standardised and well planned education schema, also collaborative works increases the awareness of teachers about students and their learning process. Due to all these reasons, for better learning environments the collaboration must be established and preserved.

About Me

     Hello everyone! My name is Yunus Can Kapucu. I'm from Turkey. I'm studying Teaching English as a Foreign Language because, I think, I'm born to become an English Language teacher. I like English language and modern English literature. My hometown is Ankara but now I'm living in Turkish Republic of Norther Cyprus and studying in Middle East Technical University (Norther Cyprus Campus). I like to read books about spies, future of the world, human emotions, computer history. I found of technology especially retro computers. I love playing tennis, riding bike. Actually I'm planning to become a cyclist as a hobby. In the future I'm planning to become a teacher who is as beneficial as a teacher can be to his students. I want to teach English in other countries also. Because I love to see new places, that makes me very happy.Additionally I like learning about different cultures. My dream is to becomes a teacher like Ron Clark or Rafe Esquith. I'm preparing this blog for the students who wants to become a teacher in the future.

Society and Teachers

     Today I would like to mention one of the most popular and canonised question related to the teachers. It is "Do teachers actually make a difference to society?".

      My answer is yes but, I can't just say it like that and here is my argument. According to the various research we know that young people learn faster and more easily than adults or elderly humans. We also again know according to the scientific researches that people develop their identity at young ages, for example Jean Piaget's Cognitive theory and Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development theory are the best support for this idea. Supposedly the formal education starts at around the age of 7 to 8, I can say we are as teachers certainly shaping the children therefore the people. Because teachers not only helps or makes the learners learn something but also through the way they act or speak, interact with others, they forms certain behaviours, styles in their student's minds. As the learning continues synchronised with the psychological development of human, they obtain some of the properties of their teachers due to the reason that I mentioned above. I can give some examples from myself. When I was in the high school, I was very impressed by the style of my English teacher so when I started to teach, I am certainly not going to give grammar rules directly without saying nothing and then continue the lesson upon them. One more example is when I was in the elementary school was very bad at teaching vocabulary so I would definitely not follow his style, because I know that it will be pain for students, if I follow that way. I hope that, my expressions are clear and you can benefit from them.

   

My Ideas

       Hi everyone! My name is Yunus Can and I'm writing this from METU Norther Cyprus Campus.

I'm a student in Teaching English as a Foreign Language programme. I prepared this short   interview-ish  writing for to give some information about my teaching beliefs. I hope it would be helpful to all of you.

1-What is a teacher job?
 
    There are many debates about this subject but what I'm going to try is to express my understanding about this definition. According to my perspective teaching is not solely sending a comprehensible information to learners for them to create their own knowledge database. For me it is more efficient and more meaningful. As teachers we are touching our student's lives and shaping them just like a sculptor. I personally believe these principles and think them as definition of my job and here they are;

• Mainly creating a person who has moral values, appreciates virtue of hardworking, values the human life, helps the people in need.
• Then creating a student who is well educated, beneficial to humanity, knows how to relate the things that he or she saw in real life with his or her classes.
• Lastly creating an adult who is able to think critically, sure about his or her future career, easily distinguishes scientific truths from false beliefs.

      To wrap-up, our main job may be teaching but we are also creators of the future. We shouldn't forget that and not focus just one area of our job definition.

2-What is my attitude to computers, the Internet and other new technology?

     I love technology very much. Actually a bit too much cause I have a retro computer collection. I try my best to follow the new advances in technology specifically computers and web based teaching systems. For me internet is an indisputable part of today's world and education systems of different countries. Computers and naturally multimedia is very beneficial both for young and adult learners. How? I grow up in one of these called "MLO" schools in Turkey. When a new technology was planned to use in nation-wide, we are one of the first students who experiment with it. When technology injected learning becomes more fun, much more attractive and very motivating. Internet is a great source of information. It helps teachers in their process of teaching and provides them a broad repertoire of materials. Using it surely increases the capacity and broadens the perspective of learners. As a conclusion I'm saying big "YES", I will use them in my class whenever it is possible.

3-What classroom activities are most helpful to learners?
   
       I don't want to focus on any activity specifically, for this reason I'm going try to express my perspective to you. I think they are the activities which;

• Involves their creativity
• Motivates them to search more about the topic
• Gives them the freedom of expressing themselves freely
• Can be related with their daily lives
• Adresses more than one sense of the learners'
• Encourages them to come up with productive questions
• Includes not only direct questions but also indirect questions which are checking the related other topics to the main subject.
• Are totally unique and was not prepared based on an outline or schema, on the contrary prepared thinking the needs of learners'.