evaluation of effectiveness
I wholeheartedly believe in the effectiveness of this project for several reasons.
First, when I was developing this website, I was guided by the needs and wants of new immigrant adult ESL students -
doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, and scientists - people like my family members, friends, former students, and myself.
So, I could say that it is created from the heart and not for some abstract individuals, but for real people with successful
professional careers and established social statuses in their home countries, for people who uprooted their settled lives and for
various reasons moved to Canada. Most likely, in their early settlement stages, they feel lost, disoriented, and disappointed trying
to understand why it takes so long to find a job equivalent to the one they used to have back home; trying to perceive why their
credentials are not recognized and their experiences are not valued even though they came to Canada as Skillful Workers or
Provincial Nominees. A project like this one aims to support them, validate their feelings and worries, and help them integrate
while explicitly teaching them important elements of Canadian culture and workplace culture, and offering them the invaluable
opportunity to "re-imagine themselves".
Second, I believe in the strength of the project's theoretical pedagogical foundation based on the characteristics of the adult
learners and their corresponding online course development recommendations. I also trust my personal immigrant experience
as well as pedagogical experience and intuition gained by years of working with adults.
And finally, I have high hopes for the technology I chose for the project, for "the pen and paper" or "the vehicle" responsible for
the very creation of the favorable learning environment for my learners.
Being inspired by the idea of teaching Canadian Workplace Culture and by bringing it to life in the form of this website, upon the
completion of the Language Teaching and Technology course and receiving feedback from my colleagues, thus having a chance to
improve my work, I would like to offer this website to my employer at Calgary Immigration Educational Society as a modest
contribution to the community.
Reflecting on the question about what I might change in my project in the future, I am thinking about incorporating another
assessment for the students, based on their participation on the discussion board. Posting answers about their weekly readings and
reflecting on the questions, thoughts, and ideas they are learning present a unique opportunity for practicing their writing skills.
Thus, discussion board could be a useful tool for looking at my students' writing from the point of effectiveness, grammar,
discourse/fluency, and vocabulary. My only reasoning behind suspending using this assessment tool was based on my wish to
have some quality time building trust and rapport with the students, helping them embrace the very idea of a virtual classroom,
and encouraging them to participate on the discussion board expressing themselves openly and unreservedly, without having any
concerns or fears of being watched and judged for the quality of their writing. Once this trust and rapport are built, I will feel
comfortable offering my professional constructive critique related to my students writing skills.
Below you will find a tentative writing scoring grid part of which I borrowed from the Institutional CELBAN Test.
assessment for the students, based on their participation on the discussion board. Posting answers about their weekly readings and
reflecting on the questions, thoughts, and ideas they are learning present a unique opportunity for practicing their writing skills.
Thus, discussion board could be a useful tool for looking at my students' writing from the point of effectiveness, grammar,
discourse/fluency, and vocabulary. My only reasoning behind suspending using this assessment tool was based on my wish to
have some quality time building trust and rapport with the students, helping them embrace the very idea of a virtual classroom,
and encouraging them to participate on the discussion board expressing themselves openly and unreservedly, without having any
concerns or fears of being watched and judged for the quality of their writing. Once this trust and rapport are built, I will feel
comfortable offering my professional constructive critique related to my students writing skills.
Below you will find a tentative writing scoring grid part of which I borrowed from the Institutional CELBAN Test.
If you experience trouble seeing the document on the screen, please download it from below.
participation_on_the_discussion_board.pdf | |
File Size: | 327 kb |
File Type: |
References
Images of hands nurturing a plant. (n.d.). [Online image]. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca
/?gws_rd=ssl#q=image+of+a+plant+nurtured+by+hands
Institutional CELBAN Test. (July 2007). Center for Canadian Language Benchmarks and Red River College