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Essential Update #4 - My Authentic Travel Lesson
Authentic Pedagogy Example Lesson
I would like to analyze a favorite activity of mine to see how well it fits as authentic pedagogy. I normally teach English as a foreign language to freshmen at a Japanese university, a compulsory course. Although all of my students have studied English for at least 6 years in junior and senior high school, their communicative ability can be a large mix from high intermediate to near beginner and this range often exists in the same class. My master’s program preached student-centered learning, so I am very familiar with active learning and try to use progressive pedagogy.
For my analysis I would like to examine one of my favorite activities, a group presentation for a proposed vacation. This is a follow-up activity for a lesson in the class textbook (I know, a class textbook is a discursive artifact of didactic pedagogy) on traveling. I divide the class into groups of 3 or 4 and ask each group to represent a travel agency and they must present a travel plan to another city in Japan or in another country. They can choose the destination, but they need to develop sales points with reasons and examples and present their proposed trip by PowerPoint or poster paper (depends on the exact context of the class, the resources available and student preference). Finally, they present their trip and students can vote on their favorite proposal.
I will use the list of standards presented by Newmann et al. (1995) in their study on the efficacy of authentic pedagogy on student academic achievement for analysis.
Points my activity scored well are:
- Consideration of Alternatives - Students consider different destinations and activities to create the best and most attractive travel itinerary for the students in the class.
- Substantive Conversation – Students have deep discussions on the topic as they negotiate as colleagues within their groups to decide on the best travel plan and with other students to convince their “customers” to choose their proposal.
- Connections to the World Beyond the Classroom – The groups need to reconcile the what is possible from their research of destinations with the travel limitations in terms of audience, budget, interest and seasons to make the best proposal.
- Construction of Knowledge – This activity allows students to create their own knowledge because it requires an original itinerary that is imagined, planned and presented by the students. They are free to use photos, videos, text and drama to convey their ideas.
- Value Beyond School – The students gain practical experience and skills by practicing presentation skills and working with their group members as work colleagues.
My activity was not academically rigorous, so it scored poorly against these points (in my defense, I use this activity to encourage students to speak in English, not learn about the travel industry):
- Disciplinary Process or Disciplined Inquiry – They were not asked to do in-depth research or synthesize information for a complex argument. Many of the presentations contained memorized facts or superficial generalizations of positive points.
- Elaborated Written Communication – The did not need to put any of their ideas into long form writing. Instead, their writing was limited to PowerPoint slides or short points and captions for their posters.
Reference
Newmann, F., Marks, H., & Gamoran, A. (1995). Authentic Pedagogy: Standards That Boost Student Performance. Issues in Restructuring Schools No. 8
clearly stated!
Great idea!
@Desi, I really like your activity and approach for applying transformative pedagogy. An an ESL myself, I think that this activity definetly allows students to develop language skills through a task-based learning and communicative approach, as well as the development of 21st century skills (collaboration, creativity, communication, critical thinking). Awesome activity!
Hi Desi. Your idea to give students options of how they respond to the activity is great - videos, photos (pecha kucha or other format), essay, etc. Options to work alone, in pairs or groups can also be good. You may have already come across principles of differentiation, or differentiated instruction, or may not have. These resemble Universal Design for Learning principles by allowing for a variety of input and output in activities, recognizing that different people have different skills, abilities, preferences, etc. When developing language, we often focus on communication skills rather than formal modalities of expression.
Sounds great!
Yes Desi, The methodology here is constructivist and authentic generally refers to something that has value in the world, beyond the classroom. The activity you've designed is really good - let's get that straight. I was primarily trying to suggest ways to make it more authentic - that is to say, more meaningful for learners. Of course, as If teacher you are the best arbiter of this. If we do not provide enough direction students don't understand what to do, and if we offer too much direction, we box them in. It isn't easy to gage how much is enough. One tactic is to design several levels of support. Start by offering the minimum, then add layers as required until everyone is engaged. Group work can also help, when done well.
One constraint you impose is to designate the role of travel agent. This means that everyone must view the activity through the same lens. Travel interests a lot of people - some more than others - but there are lots of different ways into this topic. People might plan a trip, as in this activity; report on a trip, their own or someone else's; they might imagine a trip; read travel accounts or travel literature; watch YouTube travel channels (there are quite a few, some focussed on particular countries); review or comment on foreigners' travel stories of Japan... and so much more.
I did something like this once with Arab students. We had been reading Romeo and Juliet. I asked them to work in groups to make a presentation about wedding traditions and customs in any country and any time period they liked, together with a voice over recording of their voices, presenting the presentations as videos. It was something familiar that most were interested in and they did really interesting work.
The point is to give students the structure they need while building their ability to learn and explore independently. Your activity does this.
@Mark Johnstone,
Thanks again for the comment. You are absolutely right. I should allow them to explore the topic more in their own way. The travel agent context makes it easier for me to simplify the instruction and expectations by standardizing the activity....which goes against New Learning.
Your activity sounds wonderful and imaginative. I'd like to incorporate your ideas in to my travel plan. Perhaps instead of a point-by-point PowerPoint or poster, I may ask them to promote an area or country as a travel destination in different ways. They can research the targeted destination and present video, photos, essays, stories, recipes, etc...to convince other students to travel there.
@Mark Johnstone,
Thanks again for your insightful and helpful comment. I had to look up constructivist pedagogy and it seems I knew its principles as active learning and teacher as facilitator.
Although I believe your criticisms and suggests are valid, I don't know if they truly fit my teaching context and aims. As I mentioned in my post, I teach English as a foreign language so my aim is just to get my students to use English (yes, they are all Japanese, so forcing them to speak English with each other is already an inauthentic experience). Also, they are able to work on what they value. The trip topic is open in that they can choose the destination, activities and merits of their choices. They can highlight entertainment, shopping, history, nature, cost, culture, etc. The only limit is the context of a trip and they are travel agents. The trip idea is borrowed from the textbook section we covered and the agency was a way to put the students in a frame of mind to work together.
Helping them work through their ideas is a great suggestion and I try to do it generally in a teacher-fronted whole class discussion and a step-by-step handout. However, with a class of 40-45 students placed into 8 or 9 groups it is difficult to give direct guidance. Also, with their limited English ability and mixed motivation for taking the class, I didn't want to make the activity too demanding.
However, after thinking more deeply about pedagogy from taking this course and analyzing this activity through Newmann, et al.'s standards, I would like to improve it and offer more guidance on how to raise the quality and deepen their presentations. I would like to get rid of the You should go to Italy because they have good pasta. and replace it with Pizza lovers should go Italy to visit Naples, the birthplace of pizza.
This is an interesting activity but I'm not sure what the intent of authentic activity really is. I'd say the situation is somewhat contrived so it's authenticity seems questionable. The bullet pointed requirements clearly indicate a constructivist pedagogy.
I think you could make it more academically rigorous by adopting a more open design. To me, authenticity depends on the topic being something that students value. Since different students value different things, you would probably need to set up the activity with a preliminary session to identify the types of things students are interested in, using the bullet pointed criteria to filter and refine these ideas. When discussing this with them, you'd probably need to adapt the way these are expressed since a few are pretty teachery - particularly construction of knowledge.
Letting students take the lead still requires you to actively coach and encourage them, guide them, and talk to them - a lot - about what they're doing. But, if you take a back seat this will be more consistent with the constructivist method you have chosen, and can be very rewarding for both your students and you.