Action for Education, Part 2

Yesterday the elementary school principal, a Fulbright teaching grantee and I did our part to share what we learned from last weekend’s education conference by giving a day-long workshop for 19 teachers. I think we could have been a little better organized, but I should appreciate what a miracle it was to have that many teachers attend and enjoy a workshop on a Sunday. I tried my best to make it enjoyable for them, starting by writing a small grant for the training so that we could do it in a relaxing, beautiful place and have lunch, snacks and transportation provided free of charge. Thanks to the very helpful Italian manager of a hotel near the El Limon beach, we were able to use their restaurant space as the location of the workshop. The hotel is known around town as the “hotel of the gays” because it used to be a gay resort, but its actual name is Casa de To.

We mainly focused on two of the topics from last week’s conference, classroom management using procedures, positive reinforcement and consequences, and teaching with the brain in mind, about how to challenge students with innovative activities instead of the traditional copying and memorization. The classroom management techniques went over really well and highlighted how many incentives and disincentives teachers can use to improve behavior that they’re not using now, despite having tons of behavior problems. The teachers loved the fun, challenging activities in the “Teaching with the Brain in Mind” session. We also tried to use participative techniques for feedback and positive reinforcement (like everyone snapping when they like someone’s comment or participation) to model what the teachers can do in their classrooms.

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We started off with a video made by some Dominican proponents of spending 4% of GDP on education, more than twice what the DR now spends.

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In talking about classroom management strategies like “procedures,” we divided the teachers up by grade level to brainstorm and write their classroom management plans.

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Happy to be doing my last project in site!

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I had to share this awesome example of Dominicans’ aesthetic in self-portraits.

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In the session on “Teaching with the brain in mind,” the teachers did an activity where each person gets a card with a word or a definition on it and they have to find the match.

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From Teacher taller

Leslie explains how this activity is a challenge for the students where they can move and analyze the meanings of the words and definitions, something they don’t get out of copying them down from the board.

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In the second activity, they each received a card with clues about countries. They had to put themselves in order using clues about which country was before and after them in line.

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My project partners, the two school principals. Certificates are an important part of any Dominican learning activity. They staple them to their resumes.

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Group picture! Some teachers had already taken off at this point.