CALLA provides a 5 stage cycle which is not always followed in strict sequence.
Stage 1. Preparation
Stage 2. Presentation
Stage 3. Practice
Stage 4. Evaluation
Stage 5. Expansion
Question 1.
As a teacher how much preparation time of the CALLA cycle do you provide to your students and do you think this is an important step?
As a teacher preparation is vital and teachers do put a lot of time and effort to prepare because preparation helps “ elicits knowledge grounded in students” Chamot, A. U., & O'Malley, J.M. (1996)
Question 2.
Is there a cycle you use more than others?
We all agreed that we often use stage 1. Preparation, stage 2. Presentation and Stage 5. Expansion more than stage 3 and 4. We often focus most of our time preparing and trying to find different ways to present the information and also give time to the students to relate or connect but never give enough time for the number 3 ( evaluation) and 4 (Practice).
Most of the time we are so caught up with trying to relate their learning to their cultural backgrounds and to apply what they have learnt from the world outside of school without realising what giving the students enough time to consolidate what they have learnt. At the same time forgot about the ‘student agency’. It is really important to allow them to evaluate their learning and reflect on what they have achieved and their next learning step.
Question 3.
Do you use the a similar model in your classroom now or will you move towards this model in the future? Discuss your answer.
We all agree that we use the same model and admit that we often used stage 1, 2 and five more than 3 and 4. The group agreed that time is the most precious part of our teaching. We do not have the time on our side to complete the 5 stages. We have now realised what we have been missing stages 3 and 4 which are the Practice and Evaluation time. We do these stages but not to the degree that is required. Usually a lot of time is given to preparation and scaffolding and modelling of tasks. This is followed by presenting a task to the students who are expected to complete it. However, Teachers should take clinics for students who did not grasp the idea and still need support for in depth understanding of the task. Having the fixed timeframe to complete the curriculum specially before the assessment week leaves pressure on the teacher and hence stage 3 and 4 are not given justice.
Through discussions within the group we have come to a common consensus that we need to balance our teaching expertly so that we provide opportunities for students to go through the 5 stages for deeper understanding of tasks.
For example when we introduce a topic you have taken a lot of time to prepare it, and present it a way which it will appeal to the students, showing and modelling the different strategies that you would like them to use then you let them go and do the follow up activities. You can work with a small group or the whole class drilling in what you want them to learn within that short time that is given to you. Even though you that there are quite a lot of students who haven’t grasp the idea yet and only a few who has got it you still have to move on to the next step because you need to move on. Everything is being rushed because you need to cover the whole topic in the time frame given before the assessment week. Stage 3 is always get squashed in and most of the time we forget about stage 4.
The group agreed that we don’t have the time but we need to make time for number 3 & 4.
Our preparation and plan must be students centred
More scaffolding for the students.
Time is vital, time is the factor that we need.
We found our discussion to be very beneficial and the reading does help reminding us teachers about our planning and what we are focussing on. We were also identify our next step.
