Teacher-turned-self-publisher Suzanne Medina showed how music can aid the memorization of English irregular verbs. She grouped irregular verb forms into like chunks and sang them to contagious rhythms. She demonstrated several lively classroom activities with and without the accompaniment of her recorded CD. I sure felt that this music-inspired way of teaching irregular verbs beats dry drills when it comes to memorizing the verb forms.
Teacher and author Bruce Rubin also emphasized the role memory plays in word learning. One way to assist learning memory is through repetition. One key feature of a new four-level reading and vocabulary series, Inside Reading, whose book 3 is penned by Bruce, is multiple exposures at varying intervals to enhance memory and retention.
To many college and university students, reality says that if they don't pass an essay exam, then they won't be able to progress to the next level of their academic pursuit. Writing teacher Rose To affirmed what writing instructors have been doing:
- teaching the key words in exam questions
- guiding students through a writing process
- using grading rubrics
- using tutors
- using individual conferencing.
In addition to strategies, the presenter offered these web resources:
- SDSU's writing proficiency assessment scoring guide
- Sentence patterns
- Bare Essentials Plus web exercises.
Finally, it seems to me that more self-reflecting teachers are waking up to the reality that they are not up to speed with Web 2.0 technology, hence, the popularity of the tech-theme workshops. An-Chi Chung of Alliant International University gave step-by-step instructions to her audience on how to create a blogger account. She offered a couple of sample lessons along with this sample blog site.
But it was at MiraCosta teacher Kristi Reyes's workshop that you were in for an over-the-top array of Web 2.0 tools. See her amazing handout here.
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