Twitter Chat Reflection: #ellchat

       About a week ago I engaged in my second twitter chat. The chat I engaged in was #ellchat and it was primarily different teachers chatting with regards to English language learning students.  The topic for this particular chat was how to get ELL students to think critically. My goal for the chat was to be involved and try to share my experiences, as well as learn new ways to teach students how to think critically.

Going into this chat, I thought this would be a great topic to discuss because it is something that we have gone over in class a lot. Some of the other teachers and I brought up using Bloom’s Taxanomy to provide questions that would prompt students to think critically. I thought this was great because it reinforced something that I had already learned. I do not prompt my students to think critically much since a lot of what we do regards the psychomotor domain, but now I know that this is a great resource used by many to generate higher order thinking. 

      While in the first chat, I was chatting with people that I did not know, during this chat, Karina and Lauren happened to be present. It was a little less intimidating knowing that there were others there that I knew. I was able to chat briefly with Karina and she mentioned that she used Bloom’s Taxanomy in her class to get her students thinking. Lauren also provided an insightful comment saying that probably one of the best ways to get students to think critically was to just allow them to question and probe them with different types of questions. I think this is where Bloom’s Taxanomy plays a great role.

      Like in my previous chat, the teachers in this chat also provided us with a lot of different resources. I added these to my diigo so I can keep them for future reference. I thought one of the best ones was a website called Colorin Colorado it provided a description on what critical thinking is and provided different activities that one can use with students. 

      Another great resource provided by one of the teachers was a site called ESL Techies on how to use ipdas to teach ELL students.  The site provides other resources such as sites and ideas that are helpful. I thought this was great because even though we have learned about integrating technology, it never crossed my mind to incorporate technology to teach ELL students. Now I realize that it is possible and there are a lot of sites that provide ideas on how this can be accomplished. 

       Engaging in a second chat was very insightful. I really like how everyone collaborates and comes together to talk about topics that they are very passionate about. I am able to learn and get ideas and resources from professionals with a lot of experience.