CISLE | Samadi Parisa | English 10/11-Academic Literacies | Implementing Resources • Student to Student Support • Form a Panel

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Course #80813 : English 10/11- Academic Literacies I

Implementing Resources, Student to Student Support, Form a Panel

Reflection on Instructional Change:

The activity is " Form a Plan" from our third week of the ACUE course, and it can support students' success. Also another activity that will follow later, and I introduced it to my students and we did one activity on it is " Advisory Post Card". Both of them are from the third week of ACUE course. In this activity, I invited one of my previous students who passed this class successfully to one of my English 10/11 classes at the beginning of the semester and provided her some questions that they would think about before coming to class and when she come to class, I asked her those questions and also, I gave my recent students a chance to ask them their own questions. The questions that I asked her were related to the reading, writing, and study strategies, the challenges she had, the way she faced them , and how she used her learned skills in her new courses. Also, very soon, I am going to use the “ Use Advice Card “ activity to encourage student- to student support more. For this activity, I am going to ask my students to write a note card for my next semester students and write some advice for them to help them succeed more. I might give them some guidelines and some questions that help them to write easily. In the next semester, at the beginning of the semester, I will distribute those cards among my new students and ask them to read it and share their advice in small groups or in the whole class and reflect on their suggestions. This will help the card writer to reflect on their process of their learning as well. Since they have an immediate target audience, they think more about their own learning process. My future students also value these notes and their tips because they know they are from those who have been through the process. These notes can also be a good resource for the students.

The students can feel connected to other students who have had the same problem or challenges, or they know that these students have been in the same process, so they are not alone. This creates a sense of belonging among them. Also, they accept the advice from their peers better. They feel supported by their own peers and also, they feel responsible for future students who are coming to that class. These activities bring peer support and encouragement in students. They reflect on their own process and also the advice of other peers and think more about the actions that they are going to take to succeed. Also, these steps will help students to be more engaged with the course and they do not feel alone or isolated. They know that they can get help when they need it. This also creates a good community in the classroom.

I believe this activity was very helpful. My students gave me very positive feedback. They asked our guest very related questions about how they can succeed more in the course and what tips and techniques she would suggest to help them in this class and other classes as well. They were very comfortable with our guest and after the session, they started to ask her random questions about her major and other things on campus . They asked me to do a similar activity. After that session, Many times, we referred to that session and I encouraged students to work hard to be invited as my future guest next semester.

Steps of activities before and after "Form a Panel" activity:
1-Goal Activity/ Syllabus Activity
2- Reading Articles about Success in College
3- Free Writing
4-Form a Panel Activity
5- Post Card Activity

I asked two questions during "the observation and analyze session" from my colleagues about the activity that I should follow after this panel. Also, should I do this activity at the beginning of the semester or if we can have it in the middle of the semester when the students have some ideas about the course and projects since this class is for one year. My Colleagues responded that we could have it at the beginning of the semester as I did it this semester.