Designing Part ll

Previously…on Designing Part 1
“In designing IWB activities, unique features of the SMART board (interactive & caters for large audience), should be exploited effectively in order for the activity to achieve its optimum outcomes.” (fatihasEnOm, 2007)

So…I have decided to develop a listening activity. However, I still couldn’t decide on the theme. There were too many ideas in my mind…too many that I doubt if my mind has got nothing else to do other than thinking about the theme of my SMART board listening activity. I was thinking of doing ‘food or fruits or vegetables’ as a theme when I had my lunch and dinner, ‘clothing’ when I stuffed my laundry into the college washing machine, ‘family’ when my Mom called me to ask if her favourite Snowfly shoes was still on sale, ‘celebrity’ when I watched E!, ‘storytelling’ when Jahwati told me stories about her cute lil’ Zara, and many…many…many more. Until one day, when Muhafiz and I were busy looking for some stuffs for my sister at Ikea and suddenly… he mumbled something that was minor… yet very inspiring. It sounded more or less like this,

Finally, tadaaa… I got my theme ready! I decided to do ‘furniture’ as a theme and to adapt graphics from *The Sims for my IWB activity. Without wasting any time (since I’ve wasted much), I began developing a listening activity for Year 6 students hoping that I would come up with an interesting and effective activity. I think many of us agree that it is not easy to develop a lesson that meets the requirement of the curriculum specification and at the same time is interesting and effective. Thus, in order to make certain of the effectiveness of my activity, I have taken into consideration the following factors while designing my activity:

1. The Content Validity
In designing any activity or lesson, I believe that, there is nothing that is more important than ensuring the content validity since the content is the actual core business of teaching and learning process. Hence, in order for me to ensure the validity of the content in my activity, I used theYear 6 English Curriculum Specification as the main reference. (If you don’t have it, you can download from http://myschoolnet.ppk.kpm.my/sp_hsp/b_ing.htm ). I tried to select learning outcomes that are most appropriate for initial to intermediate Year 6 students so that they will be able to be exposed to comprehensible input which enables them to learn new things and acquire the listening skills taught. Besides, I tried to incorporate higher thinking order according to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives so that creative and critical thinking skills would be promoted all the way through my activity.

2. The Face Validity
Face validity in this context refers to the design of the slides. Since my activity relies solely on the SMART board as teaching aid, I think it is important to make the slides appealing to the students. Besides, I believe that good design of the slides is able to assist learning process and make the knowledge and skills acquisition possible among the students. Good graphics also enable students to remember things better. Therefore, I made an effort to carefully design my slides using the Notebook Software so that it is able to benefit the students. To avoid distraction, I tried not to plonk any unnecessary graphics, sounds, or animation onto my activity. I kept things simple but attractive…at least for me.

3. Practicality
Hmm…I don’t know about others, but for me, spending too much time, energy, or money in developing a lesson is simply not practical especially when the intended learning outcomes are at the very basic level or when the lesson as a whole is not really of that effective or when the activity can only be used once or when other simpler and cheaper tools such as tasksheet can give more and better impacts. So, I avoided from spending too much time, money, and energy for this. And for me, another thing that determines whether an activity or lesson is practical is the flexibility of the activity. Thus, to make my activity more flexible, I designed it in such a way that it can serve as two functions which are as a teaching tool as well as an assessing tool. Besides, to ensure the practicality of the activity, I told myself to make full use of the ‘IWB environment’. Hence, I tried to exploit the unique features of the SMART board to the fullest by kept on reminding myself that I must design an activity that is interactive and able to cater for large audience (25-35 pupils).

4. Students’ Motivation
I am a big fan of Gardner, Desuggestopedia Approach, Disney Channel, Nano-Nano and any other thing that has to do with motivation. For me, learning without motivation is like a Big Mac without its cheese…good enough to be eaten but, not yummy enough to be enjoyed. I believe that motivation assists students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills. Besides, it makes learning process meaningful and enjoyable. Personally, I feel that motivation can be instilled through many ways. Thus, in order to instil the motivation of learning for students through my activity, I tried to design an activity which is interesting and engaging. In order to do that, I included a series of problems so that students are able to devote their attention from the beginning of the activity, till the end of it. To make the activity more meaningful, I have also tried to include moral values into my activity.

Those are the factors that I have taken into consideration while designing my activity. I bet there were more but, perhaps I wasn’t aware of it. I strongly believe that those factors are very important in ensuring the effectiveness of my activity. I am glad that I was able to complete the activity despite the fact that, it may not be as good as others’. I like my activity…and I am proud of it too...and the most important thing is that, I believe in the effectiveness of my activity. Till then…ta!

*My Activity* Oh ya…besides The Sims, I also adapted some graphics from Yahoo! Avatar.

*Note : The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game created by game designer Will Wright and published by Maxis. It is a simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons ("Sims") in a suburban household near SimCity. The main objective of the game is to help the Sims to organize their life and livings so that they can reach their personal goals such as having good career, house, health and relationships.