Design and Evaluation of Training Programs - Week 10

Introduction: Hello and welcome to week ten of the course Design and Evaluation of Training Programs and Workshops. Today we will do several activities to explore the topics of demo teaching and loop input as well as hear your Moxie elevator pitch! We will also go over expectations and guidelines for the pending course assignments. 

Task 1: Moxie Elevator Pitch

This week you submitted your Moxie papers. Let's take a moment to share the highlights with your partners by completing this elevator pitch. You will have 5 minutes to prepare your pitch and 90 seconds to deliver it. Click your link below and begin outlining what you will say. 

• Student A: CLICK HERE
• Student B: CLICK HERE
• Student C: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Sharing your PD Journal

Let's take a moment to share one of the entries you made in your PD Journal in Week 9 for the section called "Expand Your Teaching Skills". As you share your highlight, let's think about how this tip connects to how we as individual teachers can develop in our practice and how we as trainers can use these techniques to support the growth of the teachers we work with. We can use the RACE framework to facilitate our discussion. 

Click to see full sized image.

Task 3: Experiential Learning Cycle and Looped Input

In your reading this week from Richards (2017), the author suggests several tips for professional development that allow the teacher to have a learning "experience". Discuss the following questions.

• What comes to mind when you read the phrases "experiential learning" or "learning through experience"?
• What kinds of experiences provide meaningful learning opportunities for teachers?
• What are the benefits of thanking and "experiential" approach to teacher training?

Click to view full sized image.

One way to give teachers a powerful learning experience is to do a "demo" teaching activity or lesson in which trainee teachers play the role of language learners and the trainer acts as the teacher. After the demo lesson, the trainees take off their "student hats" and consider the activity from a teacher perspective before creating their own activity or lesson based on the previous model.

• What experience have you had using demo lessons and activities as a trainer or as a trainee?
• Was the experience successful?
• What was challenging about it? 
• Does this technique have any limitations?

Click to view full sized image.

Let's try a variation on the demo activity using a technique called "loop input". Click the link below and follow the teacher's instructions.

• Dictation Worksheet: CLICK HERE

Click to view full sized image.

Training involves "content" (what is to be learned) and "process" (how it is to be learned). According to Tessa Woodward, the creator of loop input, this technique is "a specific type of experiential teacher training process that involves an alignment of the process and content of learning" (Woodward, 2003, p. 301). This means that the content of the demonstration activity is related to the specific teaching technique to be learned. In this example, a demonstration of a dictation activity included a text about how to give dictations. This concept can be applied to many other teaching techniques that you may want to train your teachers on. 

As Woodward (2003) says, "the advantages of loop input are that it is multi-sensory, in just the same ways as experiential learning, but with the added advantage of involving self-descriptivity and recursion...[and]...some participants thus learn more deeply as a result of this reverberation between process and content" (p. 303). 

What are some ways that you might teach the following techniques to a group of trainee teachers using a loop input technique?

• PPP - Presentation, Practice, Production
• Pre-While-Post activities for listening or reading
• Flipped Learning
• Jigsaw Reading/Listening
• Use of some particular educational technology
• Other training topics

Does loop input have its limitations? What might they be?

Task 4: Project Check-in

You will submit your training course proposal between now and the next class. Let's take a moment to go over the guidelines and rubric for the assignment and discuss where you are in the process and what you still need to do. 

• Training Program Proposal Guidelines: CLICK HERE
• Training Workshop Guidelines: CLICK HERE
• Ongoing PD Program Proposal Guidelines: CLICK HERE

References:

Huges, J. (2010, May 28). Do you still use loop input? John Hughes ELT. 

https://johnhugheselt.com/2010/05/28/do-we-still-use-loop-input-these-days/#:~:text=Loop%20input%20appears%20to%20have,of%20the%20process%20and%20content.

Richards, J. (2017). Jack C Richard's 50 Tips for Teacher Development. Cambridge University Press.

Woodward, T. (2003). Loop Input. ELT Journal 57(3), 301-304.