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Impact Eco Workshop – Environmental pollution
Our Cool Kids for Eco Beats project intending to develop environmental awareness in high school students in Novi Sad, Serbia started with a workshop about Environmental pollution. The workshop plan was developed following the official ImpactEco presentations, accredited by the Ministry of Education in Serbia. We visited the Smart Gymnasium in teams of two and conducted the workshop in the co-teaching format. Read more about the project here: Our environmental workshop started with a simple brainstorming – we created a mind map on the board around environmental pollution. The students were sharing their associations with the term, and we as facilitators guided them through the process. Before starting the brainstorming…
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Online Professional Development – Experiences and Quality
The idea of online professional development has been lingering in the world of education for quite some time, and yet a lot of teachers seem to avoid it in my country. What is the reason behind that? Read on for some advice and links to current online PD opportunities. I need to start this post by being honest – I am not pleased with the overall quality of professional development in my country and the educational system in general. This is probably the most important reason why I decided to search for online professional development opportunities. I started with my professional development when I enrolled in master studies. I completed…
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Developing 21st Century Skills Through Theme-Based Instruction and by Applying Multiple Intelligence Theory
Conducting academic research and writing articles or papers is another way for educators to have quality professional development and close their own learning gaps. My colleague Nevena Marković and I conducted our first big research at the beginning of 2019. Our research was presented at the Faculty of Education in Jagodina, Serbia, at an international conference that discussed teacher competencies in the 21st century. This was our first major conference, and we realized that educators develop best by networking and using Connections-based Learning. Life in the 21st century is constantly being challenged by advances and changes in living and working that mainly result from fast technological growth and demands of information-rich work environments.…
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Cool Kids for Eco Beats Project – ImpactEco (NGO)
How can environmental awareness be developed in a small country such as Serbia? Read on to see how we managed to squeeze ecology into the regular high school curriculum. Project Cool Kids for Eco Beats educates students in elementary schools and high schools and helps them develop environmental literacy and awareness through a series of interactive and enticing workshops. The goal is to create proactive citizens of the planet and empower them to make a difference in their closest environment. The project lasts for 4 weeks, and the workshops are organized once a week. The topics range from pollution, endangered species, climate change to current green news and projects. We are…
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Low-Waste Zombieland Lapbook – Halloween Writing and Storytelling
Big holidays always leave enormous piles of garbage behind them, and teachers need to try to reduce the ELT footprint in any way possible. I love creating lap books, and I make them from a lot of recyclables – I desperately try to promote low waste in my classroom. Every material in my shop begs buyers not to print the first decorative page and to use dry erase pockets for materials so that they can reuse them. I will guide you step by step to create your own Zombieland lap book, and I will share tips on how to use it, as well as how to store it to reuse…
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Free Online Professional Development Opportunities for Educators
Living in 2019 has many benefits, and the one that helps us educators is online learning. We can learn or teach online for the comforts of our homes for free – and every teacher deserves something free. Professional development is a major aspect of my teaching practice. Learning about new research or interesting innovative teaching methods empowers me to keep improving. I am very keen on planing my professional development. I am interested in inclusion, ICT in education, environmental education, and innovative teaching methodology. When it comes to free webinars and courses, I always choose them based on certain criteria. All of them offer free certification – a certificate or…
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Environmental Education at its Best – A Visit to a Swedish Preschool in Stockholm
If you are a nature lover like me, the need to develop environmental awareness in your children will eventually creep in your teaching style and curriculum. This is why I became a National Geographic Certified Educator and must say that it was a life-changing experience for me. After that, I completed two more programs at National Geographic: Geo-Inquiry Process and Teaching Global Climate Change in your classroom. I will write about all of these programs in separate posts. Finally, I decided that the topic of my master thesis will be developing environmental awareness by learning English in bilingual preschools. This is a pretty serious topic in my country since there…
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Contextual Grammar Teaching – Activities for Making Grammar Meaningful to Your Students
How do we develop a learning environment where the grammar is learned through exploration without burnout? Keep reading for example activities of thematic contextual grammar activities that develop the four language skills simultaneously. What is contextualized grammar instruction? The eternal debate of teaching grammar implicitly or explicitly will probably never cease. This debate created the need for further research, and now almost all researchers agree that grammar should not be taught explicitly. (Goode, 2000; Sams, 2003;). The rationale for teaching grammar in such a way is the early language acquisition – children learn their native language through an authentic context, and they can speak it perfectly without anyone explaining what is present…
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Turn Off The TV – Podcasts for Children
We all know that our children have too much screen time. Luckily, there are many things that we can to avoid that nowadays. One of them are fun, full of content and jolly podcasts made by kids for kids, or even by adults for kids! You can use them with your children and with the kids at school as well – the kids will be entertained and they will learn seamlessly, since peer learning is a very effective learning method. They will practice their listening skills and comprehension, while they acquire new content seamlessly. The post is separated into science podcasts, story podcasts, arts and culture and current events. Let’s…
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Presenting at EdmodoCon in Miami 2019: From Blended to Distance Learning: Engaging Large Student Groups Online
EdmodoCon is a global professional development conference—one you can attend for free through your laptop or mobile device. Educators from around the world share inspiring stories and practical strategies from the best in the education community. For a small fee, attendees can earn one graduate credit from Dominican University. This year, EdmodoCon is centered on helping you discover valuable new resources for social and emotional learning, digital citizenship, and student engagement through three unique learning tracks. When is EdmodoCon? EdmodoCon 2019 is on Saturday, November 2nd in Miami, Florida from 9am to 5pm Eastern Daylight Time. Attend each session or just your favorite subjects.See the full agenda → Who will…
