I am a teacher, blogger, and teacher trainer with more than 30 years of experience in education. I like to explore new possibilities to engage learners and enhance their learning experiences. I am the author of the blog, Learning and Leading in the 21st Century http://aysinalp.edublogs.org / where I share my reflections and insights on learning and technology.
I am a teacher, blogger, and teacher trainer with more than 30 years of experience in education. I like to explore new possibilities to engage learners and enhance their learning experiences. I am the author of the blog, Learning and Leading in the 21st Century http://aysinalp.edublogs.org / where I share my reflections and insights on learning and technology.
This differentiated choice board will give your students the opportunity to learn about digital citizenship as well as practicing the 4 C’s (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication) . My students had great fun while doing this activity. You may do it in a different way but I allowed them to choose the task they want to work on and their partners to promote student voice and choice in the classroom. The activities in the first row (horizontal) are for groups of three, in the middle row for students who want to work individually, and the ones in the final row are for the students who want to work in pairs. You can assign the tasks in the middle row for a pair of low achievers in order to enhance collaboration as they are relatively easier and shorter. Please read the instructions to use this document which also includes the Google Drive link for the PDF document. Using the Drive link will give you the opportunity to share this document with your students digitally and edit it.
On the second page, there are discussion, vocabulary, and reflection tasks for the students to complete. I hope you and your students will enjoy it:)
Improve your students’ grammar and skills with this fun and engaging bundle. This bundle is ideal for all ESL and ELL students and includes many grammar worksheets as well as reading and writing activities for mixed ability classes. It also includes texts and activities that will help you teach global literacy to your ESL and ELL learners.
Improve your students'/child's grammar skills with this fun and engaging bundle. This bundle is ideal for all ESL and ELL students and for the students who are preparing for PET and FCE exams. It includes 8 detailed worksheets on Gerunds and Infinitives, Reported Speech, Passive Voice and Conditionals with:
*detailed explanations of the rules
* gap-fill and sentence transformation exercises
* sentence completions
* reading response activities
*creative writing activities based on videos.
This is intended for use by one teacher. It is not to be redistributed to an entire school or district. It may not be redistributed or sold online.
Enjoy!
Thanks for taking the time to stop by my store!
@aysinalp1
Follow 21st Century Literacies Shop
Improve your students'/child's grammar skills with this fun and engaging bundle. This bundle is ideal for all ESL and ELL students and for the students who are preparing for KET and FCE exams. It includes 8 detailed worksheets on Gerunds and Infinitives, Reported Speech, Passive Voice and Conditionals with:
*detailed explanations of the rules
* gap-fill and sentence transformation exercises
* sentence completions
* reading response activities
*creative writing activities based on videos.
This is intended for use by one teacher. It is not to be redistributed to an entire school or district. It may not be redistributed or sold online.
Enjoy!
Thanks for taking the time to stop by my store!
@aysinalp1
Follow 21st Century Literacies Shop
This 19-page lesson is a great opportunity for the 21st century learners to learn about and practice the art of asking questions based on a digital story. Students first answer the questions after watching episode 1. They then learn about asking read on the lines/between the lines/beyond the lines questions, watch episode 2, and ask different types of questions about it. In part III, they learn about higher order thinking questions, analyze the chart on questioning for quality thinking, watch episode 3, and ask lower and higher order thinking questions about it.
In the final section, they conduct research on one of the 3 countries used as the setting of the episodes they have watched. They learn about the tools they can use to research, to evaluate and narrow down the information they have found, and to cite sources. They also learn what a big question is and come up with a driving question to conduct their research. Finally, they learn how to share their findings with their peers by preparing a visual presentation and a speech. If you have a class blog or a school website, you can share their presentations with the entire world, which will be much more motivating for your students.
The pack also includes a 21st Century style KWHLQ chart adapted from Silvia Tolisano’s KWHLAQ chart http://langwitches.org/blog/2015/06/12/an-update-to-the-upgraded-kwl-for-the-21st-century/, a research guide for the students, detailed information on public speaking and presentation skills, self and peer evaluation sheets, and an oral presentation rubric. The entire unit is suitable for ESL learners as well.
If for any reason you are disappointed or not satisfied with this product,please contact me at aysin.alp1@gmail.com so I have a chance to make it right. Your suggestions are always welcome.
Thanks for visiting my shop
This is a great reflection activity for the students preparing for exams. I have designed it for my students who are taking the IGCSE English exam but it can easily be adapted to any other exam such as SAT, IELTS, TOEFL your students are preparing for. It gives the students an opportunity to revise the key concepts they have learned throughout the year and to consider the rules, study tips, do’s and don’ts of the exam while they are working in groups to prepare a learning guide for the students who are going to take this exam prep course and the exam next year. My students told me that it helped them a lot to internalize all the rules and the expectations of the exam and get a good grade. This activity also helps to polish up students’ critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, multimedia and oral presentation skills. Since the students have been asked to prepare a digital learning guide, they are required to use tech tools effectively and creatively.
The pack includes three rubrics for multimedia presentation, oral presentation and group work; self and peer evaluation forms; a list on different presentation tools with links; tips and links on public speaking, oral presentations, and group presentations. The most exciting part of this project for the students was the presentation as I took them to the classes of the students who are going to take this course and exam next year to present. If you have time and if you can arrange that, please do so as it becomes a real life experience and makes the project much more meaningful for the students. If not, you can publish the presentations on your class blog, the school website or share it in Google docs.
Apart from the time allotted for the presentation, the students spent 8 (40-minute) lessons to finalize the project:
• 2 lessons for brainstorming and outlining.
• 3 lessons for preparing the guide
• 2 lessons for bringing the pieces together and finalizing the presentation
• 1 lesson on rehearsing for the presentation
Close reading is a perfect strategy that will help you scaffold your students with challenging texts. Your students will find it very useful not only as a text-taking strategy, but also as a technique that helps them become better readers and critical thinkers. This bundle includes a lesson plan with a list of annotation marks, a list of steps that will guide the students, a text for close reading and questions.
This resource for KS2 or KS3 is also ideal for ESL students. It comprises of 9 different worksheets aimed at teaching and practicing Simple Present, Simple Past, Past Continuous, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect and Past Perfect Progressive. It includes explanations on the usage of each tense, examples, several grammar exercises from fill in the blanks to transformations, reading and writing activities.
This four-page creative writing activity based on BBC's short video, 'The Supporting Act' is ideal both for ELA and ESL students. It includes two graphic organizers to scaffold writing a summary, before the creative writing activity. Play the video until 00:59 and ask your students to predict the rest of it. At the end of the creative writing project, you can also show this video https://vimeo.com/82282346 to your students for fun.
This 21st century research guide contains information on the Super3 and Big6 research skills, links to safe search sites and to videos on plagiarism, copyright, paraphrasing, citation for beginners, , Web 2.0 tools to conduct research effectively, graphic organizers, rubrics, checklists and a song on Super3. There is 1 ppt for Super3 and another one on the Big 6. Once your students master Super3 research skills, they can move on to the Big6 research process. You can use this guide to teach your students age-appropriate research skills. You can also post this guide on your school website or classroom blog.
Digital literacy is more than knowing about how and when to use the tools. It is the ability to process information by locating, understanding, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and sharing it using digital technology. In the past, we used to do it with printed materials, but now technology provides access to a much wider range of learning resources available at all times and allows us to communicate information in a variety of media beyond word and text; so, looking up information in the library in traditional ways is obviously not enough. To be literate today requires navigating a connected world offering students endless information with which they can interact in many different ways. Our students are familiar with technology but they use it for social purposes. They know how to copy and paste but they don’t know how to process information with the help of technology. They should master the critical skills to conduct research effectively and come up with creative projects instead of copy-pasted ones. For more information, you can read this post http://aysinalp.edublogs.org/2015/08/05/how-to-integrate-the-new-literacies-into-our-curriculum-part-3-information-literacy/ on my blog.
This 21st century research guide contains information on research skills, links to web research guides, alternative search engines other than Google, Web 2.0 tools to conduct research and to present effectively, information on evaluating the quality of content and websites, academic integrity guidelines with emphasis on plagiarism, copyright, summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and citing appropriately, tips on preparing and giving effective presentations. You can use this guide to teach your students A-Z 21st century research skills. You can also post this guide on your school website or classroom blog.
Digital literacy is more than knowing about how and when to use the tools. It is the ability to process information by locating, understanding, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and sharing it using digital technology. In the past, we used to do it with printed materials, but now technology provides access to a much wider range of learning resources available at all times and allows us to communicate information in a variety of media beyond word and text; so, looking up information in the library in traditional ways is obviously not enough. To be literate today requires navigating a connected world offering students endless information with which they can interact in many different ways. Our students are familiar with technology but they use it for social purposes. They know how to copy and paste but they don’t know how to process information with the help of technology. They should master the critical skills to conduct research effectively and come up with creative projects instead of copy-pasted ones. For more information, you can read this post http://aysinalp.edublogs.org/2015/08/05/how-to-integrate-the-new-literacies-into-our-curriculum-part-3-information-literacy/ on my blog.
This 21st century research guide contains information on research skills, links to web research guides, alternative search engines other than Google, Web 2.0 tools to conduct research and to present effectively, information on evaluating the quality of content and websites, academic integrity guidelines with emphasis on plagiarism, copyright, summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and citing appropriately, tips on preparing and giving effective presentations. You can use this guide to teach your students A-Z 21st century research skills. You can also post this guide on your school website or classroom blog.
I guarantee you that your students will love doing these activities during the first week of the school year and you will become the most popular teacher at the school. All you have to do is to design a Welcome Back to School cover page for the first activity with two cartoons. The questions on page 1 and 2 are about the cartoons that you are going to choose, so please read them before you choose the cartoons. If you follow this link http://tinyurl.com/z3vk5rb or this one http://tinyurl.com/hagfo3u, you will find several cartoons to choose from.
This fun activity will also help your students to understand media messages, learn how to analyze cartoons, and to think critically. Both activities require students to reflect on the meaning of education and learning and how they learn best. The journal entry they are going to write, the cartoon and the video they are going to make will not only enhance their creative skills but will give you lots hints about their expectations from you as their teacher.
Have a great school year!
This is a great reflection activity for the students preparing for exams. I have designed it for my students who are taking the IGCSE English exam but it can easily be adapted to any other exam such as SAT, IELTS, TOEFL your students are preparing for. It gives the students an opportunity to revise the key concepts they have learned throughout the year and to consider the rules, study tips, do’s and dont’s of the exam while they are working in groups to prepare a learning guide for the students who are going to take this exam prep course and the exam next year. My students told me that it helped them a lot to internalize all the rules and the expectations of the exam and get a good grade. This activity also helps to polish up students’ critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, multimedia and oral presentation skills. Since the students have been asked to prepare a digital learning guide, they are required to use tech tools effectively and creatively.
The pack includes three rubrics for multimedia presentation, oral presentation, group work; self and peer evaluation forms; a list of different presentation tools with links; tips and links for public speaking, oral presentations, and group presentations. The most exciting part of this project for the students was the presentation as I took them to the classes of the students who are going to take this course and exam next year to present. If you have time and if you can arrange that, please do so as it becomes a real life experience and makes the project much more meaningful for the students. If not, you can publish the presentations on your class blog, the school website or share it in Google docs.
Apart from the time allotted for the presentation, the students spent 8 (40-minute) lessons to finalize the project:
• 2 lessons for brainstorming and outlining.
• 3 lessons for preparing the guide
• 2 lessons for bringing the pieces together and finalizing the presentation
• 1 lesson on rehearsing for the presentation
This 10-page interactive end-of-the-year reflection activity gives the students an opportunity to revise the key concepts they have learned throughout the year. Students are asked to think critically and creatively while they are preparing a learning and survival guide for the students who are going to be in the same grade the following year. In order to add more fun to the activity, they are asked to complete tasks that will help the students next year understand what to expect of that grade level both academically and socially. The activities include making a visual collage of the year and a mind map of the important concepts they have learned, writing a poem/rap and a letter, designing a list of top tips or golden rules for their grade level, creating a comic strip, a cartoon or a short graphic novel showing the key points they have learnt this year, finding a title for their guide and assess their work. The links provided are differentiated for students at different levels. The pack also includes a rubric for the letter and a self-assessment rubric. I didn’t grade this activity as it was the end of the year. I gave oral and written feedback to my students, instead. I asked them to grade themselves after they completed the self-assessment rubric.
This 19-page lesson is a great opportunity for the 21st century learners to learn about and practice the art of asking questions based on a digital story. Students first answer the questions after watching episode 1. They then learn about asking read on the lines/between the lines/beyond the lines questions, watch episode 2, and ask different types of questions about it. In part III, they learn about higher order thinking questions, analyze the chart on questioning for quality thinking, watch episode 3, and ask lower and higher order thinking questions about it.
In the final section, they conduct research on one of the 3 countries used as the setting of the episodes they have watched. They learn about the tools they can use to research, to evaluate and narrow down the information they have found, and to cite sources. They also learn what a big question is and come up with a driving question to conduct their research. Finally, they learn how to share their findings with their peers by preparing a visual presentation and a speech. If you have a class blog or a school website, you can share their presentations with the entire world, which will be much more motivating for your students.
The pack also includes a 21st Century style KWHLQ chart adapted from Silvia Tolisano’s KWHLAQ chart http://langwitches.org/blog/2015/06/12/an-update-to-the-upgraded-kwl-for-the-21st-century/, a research guide for the students, detailed information on public speaking and presentation skills, self and peer evaluation sheets, and an oral presentation rubric. The entire unit is suitable for ESL learners as well.
If for any reason you are disappointed or not satisfied with this product,please contact me at aysin.alp1@gmail.com so I have a chance to make it right. Your suggestions are always welcome.
Thanks for visiting my shop
The activities in this pack have been designed to improve students’ confidence in writing, to enhance collaboration, critical and creative thinking skills, and to encourage independent thinking skills. Your students will have great fun while completing the activities in this pack.
As a warm-up activity, students will be directed to a website where they will watch five short videos on different superheroes and do the gap-filling task about each video. They will then:
• Complete a diagram,
• Make a word cloud,
• Write their own definition of a superhero,
• Create their own superhero by using an avatar and write a descriptive paragraph about it,
• Fill in a Venn diagram and write a compare-contrast paragraph,
• Write a journal/blog entry based on a quote,
• Work collaboratively to create a step-by-step “How to...” guide.
The pack includes a PowerPoint, a rubric, self and peer assessment forms on writing a compare-contrast paragraph. It also includes a video for the students to watch before they start doing their final project. This project requires group work so that the students can improve collaboration skills. The pack includes a brief guide on how to collaborate effectively and why collaboration is an effective skill. There is also a teamwork rubric that evaluates each student’s performance as an effective team member.
Since each group will prepare their projects in different formats, there is not a rubric for the guidebook. Instead, the students have been given links that will help them prepare their own rubric after they choose their medium for presentation and plan the project. If you think it is too hard for your students, you can prepare a rubric with them together in class to help them get involved in the learning process instead of giving them one prepared by you.
Each activity in this pack is connected with the next one and they all prepare the students to complete the last activity, which is a collaborative project. This project requires the students to use tech in the classroom as they are asked to prepare a digital guidebook. Several links for the tools are available in the pack and the students are asked to choose the best medium to deliver their message in order to improve their digital fluency skills. One device per group will be enough to complete this project. If your students don’t have or aren’t allowed to use devices in the classroom, they can do the project with pen and paper.
The warm-up activity, preparing a word cloud and creating an avatar for their superheroes also require the use of tech in the classroom and the students have been given the links for these activities, too. If your students don’t have or aren’t allowed to use devices in the classroom, they can do these with pen and paper as well or alternatively, you can assign them to do these tasks at home and bring them to school the next day.
HyperDocs are 21st century lesson design templates where all components of a learning cycle have been pulled together into one central hub. They shift the focus from teacher-led lectures to student-driven inquiry-based learning through the exploration of concepts purposely crafted and packaged on a Google Doc or Slide, making room for more interactive and personalized learning. They include one or more opportunities for students to connect beyond the classroom, collaborate, create (and show what they know), share and reflect.
Using HyperDocs in any course at any level will allow you to offload your lectures and reimagine various ways to redefine the student learning experience while having more face time with students by moving around and conferring with them. This HyperDoc on Simple Past vs Past Continuous Tense has been prepared for Beginner, pre-intermediate and intermediate ESL and ELL students. You can easily use it in a mixed ability class by differentiating content and pace. You can even delete or change some of the content for some students. I uploaded my slide presentation on PowerPoint (please use it in the slide show mode so that you can access to the links) but you can access my Google slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ES7d8azlDNWc_HX3T6-0l5vI12GXms4Bcoc2104bOrg/edit?usp=sharing . Click File on the top right and click Make a Copy so that you can edit the slides. Please note that the links on the last two slides are for early finishers or for students who need extra practice. I deleted the Padlet (slide 14) and Flipgrid codes (slide 20) for students in the presentation as each teacher has to create their own Padlet and Flipgrid links for their classes.
You can find 48 creative writing tasks with picture prompts in these ppts. Unlike technical, academic, and other forms of writing, creative writing fosters imagination and allows students to have a voice. Therefore, it is one of the most effective ways to enhance creativity in the classroom. I share this ppt with the students at the beginning of the year and they choose one topic each month. It is one of their favorite tasks.
This Power point presentation includes information and practice on all of the basic short story elements and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the story. The scaffolded activities also include links to Pixar short films for the students to analyze. Finally, students write their own story by using the information they have learned and with the help of the graphic organizers provided for them. There are also extension links that will help you to differentiate learning.
There is also a HyperDoc version of the Powerpoint. You can find the link for it in the instructions document in the attachment. You can use this resource with your ESL students as well.