The keywords of the analysis are social interactional and social cultural views. From the video, teacher-centered classroom is being enhanced to students centered classroom. The teacher mentioned about the students-teaching-students method used in the classroom. Social interactionally, after the student learned how to use an app and they will interact between students to teach and also the teacher. Contrast with the traditional classroom whereby teacher master everything for the students, the teacher chose a more flexible description which is let her students explore what they intend to learn in the application named “Genius Hour”. The students are given chances to explore their knowledge and gain ownership on it.    

The students nowadays are 21-st century, native technology user. This is the social cultural norm in the modern classroom. The teacher makes good use by embrace purposeful technology. She used technology for a purpose especially using an app for her students to record audio of her storybook and for the other student to scan and listen. The purpose of reading achieved exponentially because it had instilled interest and a sense of pride.  

Ethnographic study is to understand the classroom aims and events (Van Lier 1998). The teacher mentioned technology is the language of her students speak and as an educator we should be the champion of digital citizenship. The classroom aims to let the students to be able to connect globally by using technology. The events are by using visual, take the students to explore Sistine Chapel in a virtual field trip. Instill real life speaking and listening skills as the aim and the event is setting up a classroom twitter account enable the students to tweet with experts.  

CDA puts emphasis on the language and social context where teaching and learning occur. The teacher wants to emphasis on the language and social context by access her students by creativity, collaboration, communication skills and critical thinking skills. Teaching and learning include digital skill so that they would able to adapt the society well with the skills equipped.  

A perspective that Miss Kayla can use to shape the discourses with her and her learners is the classroom discourse perspective as it emphasizes the importance of social interaction in the teaching and learning process. Referring to her teaching methods in the video, there are many ways this can be done such as via the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which is the range of abilities that an individual can perform with assistance but cannot yet perform independently. In her class, Miss Kayla uses the students teaching students model whereby she does not believe that the teacher should solely hold all the power of teaching in their hands. Instead, she presents this opportunity to her students by giving them an app or a tool to figure out how to use then teach their fellow classmates on it as well. Thus, the ZPD concept comes into play here as the student or the peer acts as the more knowledgeable other that guides their fellow classmates on the use of the app who may only possess a limited knowledge of it. This technique will also help students to not only reinforce what has been learnt but also gives them a sense of responsibility in their learning when they participate actively in its process. 

Besides that, the classroom discourse perspective is also suitable for Miss Kayla because she uses project-based activities in her classroom such as Genius Hour by Google which to an extent helps students build on previously acquired knowledge. In this activity, students are given an hour to learn about a topic that they are passionate about instead of being told what they should be reading on. As a result, of her not spoon feeding them , students will feel more in control of the learning process and embrace it which will ultimately motivate them to work harder.   They will begin to see learning not as a bore but a means to develop their interest.

However, I believe that she can also use the teacher-student mode of interaction by discussing interesting topics or even asking the students to present what they have learnt during the Genius Hour session. She can then use this opportunity to elicit feedback and questions from the other students which will in turn help shape their understanding better and initiate collaborative learning among them

 

Additionally, the critical classroom discourse perspective is also suitable to be used by Miss Kayla to shape the discourses between her and her learners in the classroom. This perspective sees the classroom as a microcosm of the broader social order in which political relations in the world outside the classroom are produced inside the classroom. In this, Miss Kayla mentioned during her speech that teachers should prepare their students for the future outside the classroom and that students should be given the tools that will them help develop the skills needed to succeed in the real world. She definitely shares the view that classrooms are more than instructional sites and realizes that any sort of classroom interaction does have real world implications. Hence why she argues that by keeping technology away from students we are actually hurting them not protecting as we think we are as it actually forms a sense of fear and indifference towards the use of technology and places students at a disadvantage. In order to overcome this, she uses technology purposefully to breathe life into her lessons and help students look at things differently such as during the reading class where students will read along to an audio recording of a given story that can be accessed via a QR code taped behind the book. As she puts it, this helps instil a sense of pride among her students, fosters a sense of creativity and instils a love for reading in them. In fact, she mentions this method has very much increased their reading fluency scores of her students for the use of the audio has made them approach something perhaps previously difficult with more imagination and creativity, among the key skills needed in the 21^st century,

Also, this perspective is suitable for Miss Kayla as she always exposes her students to different cultures, learning experiences and the listening and speaking skills needed to succeed in the 21^st century. It also opens them up to new ideas and ultimately helps build good citizens. Miss Kayla does this by giving her students the opportunity to go beyond the classroom by taking them on virtual fieldtrips to the Smithsonian Institute and by helping them connect with other students from around the world such as those in Hong Kong via Google Hangouts.  She serves as the bridge between her students and the real world as a good educator should. No wonder Christian loved her class so much I would have cried too!

In short, a successful learning process occurs in a non- teacher dominated environment that encourages students to explore beyond the four walls of their classroom and can be further enhanced by the use of technology in a purposeful way the way Miss Kayla has done in her constructivist based classroom. 

1.       Don’t misuse the power – less teacher centered and more student centered

2.       Make the students learn first, and make them teacher other students and herself too

3.       Genius Hour – Students will get an hour a week thing what they are passionate about instead of telling them what they have to learn. (constructivism)

4.       Embrace purposeful technology- if any projects can be done through paper, there is no need to use tech. if something is boring on paper, it is going to still be boring on apps. 

5.       Different app with different purposes (skill-based and project based)

6.       Get technology at time, when they needed and wherever they need them. 

7.       Don’t feed the fears (e.g.: banning of telephones in school)

8.       Enabling real world authentic learning environment to protect them in the future.

9.       Social media: 93 percent of employers for recruitment.

10.   Don't be the four walls that hold your kids back or limit their learning. Break down those walls and go global.

1.       CLASSROOM DISCOURSE ANALYSIS PERSPECTIVE

KEYWORDS:

•          Related to ZPD in seeing discourses as means to encourage learners to use language based on the knowledge that they have and move to the next level

The concept, zone of proximal development was developed by Soviet psychologist and social constructivist Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934). The zone of proximal development (ZPD) has been defined as: "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).

•          Teaching is viewed as assisting performance (Anton, 1999) – (SCAFFOLDING)

•          Scaffolding consists of the activities provided by the educator, or more competent peer, to support the student as he or she is led through the zone of proximal development (Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976). 

 Based on the video, presented by Miss Kayla I had a debatable notion on deciding the most appropriate perspectives seeing that she had rather a mixed stance of teaching and presenting her daily classroom activities, projects and two ways learning outline. Hence, my first opinion across would be the Classroom Discourse Analysis Perspective.

Miss Kayla, in my humble opinion is an exceptional constructivist teacher. This is because, as an educator, her focus lies in helping students to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a series of facts. She provides tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with which her students formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment. This can be seen through her, giving an app or any tool for the matter to the students to let them figure out how it works, then to teach their fellow classmate on it too, which is conceptually known as scaffolding and ZPD (defined above) Furthermore, the constructivist framework is also further strengthened by her project and skilled based activities in her classes, such as the Genius Hour application that she mentioned in the video.  I personally found this app absolutely interesting. In this activity, students will be given an hour to learn about anything they are especially passionate about instead of telling them what they should read on. When I was a student back then, I didn’t get the opportunity to go about the day reading something I loved, but I was given textually almost everything, which of course I deemed it as a burden. This will put the students as the primer controller in their learning bubble hence will make the to participate and work harder.  Constructivism transforms the student from a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process. Always guided by the teacher, students construct their knowledge actively rather than just mechanically ingesting knowledge from the teacher or the textbook.

 

2.       CRITICAL CLASSROOM DISCOURSE ANALYSIS PERSPECTIVE 

KEYWORDS:

•          Development in post structuralism, Foucault’s sociological theorist and Freire’s educational philosophy – academic institutions are not simply instructional sites

•          Seek to give critical interpretation of classroom occurrences and events to wider political and social historical aspects

•          Classroom as a microcosm of the broader social order in which political relations in the world outside the classroom are produced inside the classroom.   

In addition, the Critical Classroom Discourse Perspective can also be implemented by Miss Kayla in her daily discourses with her students. As mentioned above, this perspective focuses on critical interpretation of classroom occasions to more extensive political and social authentic angles in which learning is not and should not be limited into the four walls of text book based learning, but should be beyond that. Miss Kayla claimed during her speech that educators hold the role in preparing the students to face the future, and real-life circumstances, which can be fulfilled by providing tools that would aid them in discovering and connecting globally. This is why she emphasized on the importance of digital literary skills. She predicted situations in 15 years ahead, aligning with the 21^st century learning system, yet here we are now, already in the stint of 21^st century learning, prohibiting the excellence of digital capabilities in teaching and learning.

Moreover, I find it quite crucial to mention the efforts of Miss Kayla in introducing world-wide cultures to the students through her teaching. Honestly, I feel that, more teachers and future teachers should try to actualize this in their classes because its essential for the future generations to procure adequate comprehension in this because, this will help them in the outlook to cope with their selective and collective social identities.  Miss Kayla has given a lot of inputs in terms of connecting globally with experts and virtual based authentic learning platforms in her speech that I will list down below.

1)      Virtual field trip to the Smithsonian Institute or to the Sistine Chapel

2)      Google hangout to expose the kids to new and different cultures.

3)      Classroom twitter account to make the kids tweet with experts from the world like Braid Waid and Jen Jones.

4)      Have the kids tweet with other classes around the world to share and compare their learning.

5)      Assess the students on their creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication skills, their grit, their digital literary skills and other skills they will need when they graduate.

6)      Assess the teachers on how will they prepare their kids for the future when they leave the class

All in all, it moved me seeing how she has made her classroom friendly and a two way learning seeing how her students have taught her too in terms of being real, and to have a sense of humour and so many more things that she never knew she needed in the first place. Just as she said, among all these efforts and expedient, the one thing that shall remain constant through time will be the relationships between the students and passionate teachers, that will always be the foundation of successful classrooms.
: Don't be the four walls that hold your kids back or limit their learning.
(Miss Kayla)

 

 

 

This classroom discourse perspective highlights the social interactional and the social culture view of classroom discourse. When Miss Kayla said that educators are to release their power by making classes more student-centred compared to teacher-centred, it relates to this classroom discourse as this perspective states that teaching is viewed as assisting performance (Anton, 1999). Teachers do not necessarily need to spoon-feed students with information but instead play a role as a facilitator and guide students while they learn and teach each other. Miss Kayla did say that she uses the student teaching student model in her classroom where she gets the students to learn an app and teach their classmates how to use the app while she as a teacher who has not fully mastered the app also learns from her students.  Here, we can see how the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which is the range of abilities that an individual can perform with assistance but cannot yet perform independently is applied as the students learn in collaboration with more capable peers. Miss Kayla gets students to embrace their learning by getting them to involve in projects like the Genius Hour. Genius Hour is where kids get an hour a week to study what they are passionate about and according to her it somehow gives them ownership in their learning and makes it relevant to them. This definitely encourages students to learn as they get to use their prior knowledge and increase their understanding on something that they love. When I was in school, I was not given this opportunity to discover things that I love as schools had their syllabus assigned and we were fed with what was laid out for us which made me hate the idea of going to school to learn something that I did not relate to.  

Critical Classroom Discourse Perspective
Foucault’s sociological theorist and Freire’s educational philosophy states that academic institutions are not simply instructional sites. Miss Kayla mentioned that we are to put kids in real world learning authentic environment during the school days and give them the tools that they need to be successful. Here, it is clearly seen how she sees academic not just based on syllabuss but the social norm. In the 21st century technology is the main language among humans. Hence Miss Kayla emphasised that instead of blocking students from technology, educators are to be a digital citizenship. Do not fear technology instead use it to improve teaching and learning environment. Educators are to embrace purposeful technology. Be wise enough not to transform everything to technology instead use a variety of methods to capture students attention. As Miss Kayla mentioned that "if something can be done using paper and pen is boring, it will still be boring on an iPad" so it ain't really transforming education. Educators should strive to transform their teaching methods according to the era. There are different purposes of apps where some are skill-based and repetitive, and some are project-based. Miss Kayla highlighted how she lets her kids create something instead of just playing games where she used audio books created by her students in her class which instilled the love of reading among her students. She also mentioned that educators are to be aware of the technology availability like when and where they need it. According to the classroom discourse perspective, classroom is perceived as socially constructed, politically and historically determined. Miss Kayla has talked about how it is important for educators to connect students globally. As she mentioned that learning is no longer limited to just the classroom, school, state or planet so teachers should put in the effort to help students make global connections. Teachers could have virtual field trips to any part of the world including out of the planet such as the stratosphere. She mentioned how she used Google Hangout to expose her kids to the new and different cultures around the world as this helps them practice real live speaking and listening skills. She also mentioned having a classroom Twitter account where students are able to tweet with experts and other classes around the world. Why limit their learning, when everything is easier with technology now? Everything is made possible with technology at our fingertips. Just a click and we are connected globally. Everything that takes place in the classroom, from how we teach and how we assess students, needs to be seen as political, social and cultural practices that have broader implications than just pieces of classroom interaction (Pennycook, 2001). This is portrayed by Miss Kayla when she mentioned that standardised test maybe a valid place in schools but skills are to be reinvented by assessing teachers and students in different methods. Assessing students based on their creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication skills, their grit, how they are to find success through failure and many other skills that students need when they graduate while teachers can be assessed on how well they prepare their kids for their future when they leave the classroom. She also emphasised that schools and classrooms are to be made engaging, responsive and dynamic as the world around us. 
 

Hence, I believe that Classroom Discourse Analysis Perspective and Critical Classroom Discourse Perspective are suitable for Miss Kayla to shape the discourses between her and her learners in the classroom based on what she has presented.

This perspective emphasizes the social interaction and also the social cultural. In Miss Kayla speech, she mentioned about putting learners in a real world learning authentic environment. One of the examples of real world learning mentioned in the video is connecting students globally through medium such as Google hangout and classroom Twitter account. By doing so, teachers/ educators are actually embracing the social interaction among his/her students with the world and at the same time, exposing new and different culture to the learners. 

Another important keyword in this perspective is, the ZPD concept or zone of proximal development in seeing discourses as means to encourage learners to use language based on the knowledge that they have and move to the next level. In the Zone of proximal development, the learner is in the process of developing new skills or knowledge, but they need assistance. One of the teaching methods that Miss Kayla uses as a teacher is the students teaching students method/ model. Here, she let her students to teach their friends and herself on how to use an app and by doing so; the student is actually developing a skill or knowledge but at the same time, still assisted by teachers while doing so. 

Based on the speech too, Miss Kayla mentioned that teacher should give students the chance to learn things that they are passionate about instead of keep on telling them of what to learn. In this perspective, teaching is viewed as assisting performance where teacher make the classroom less teacher-centered and more students-centered. During this period of learning, where students are exploring the things that they are passionate about, teacher should acts as a facilitator, guiding and giving consolidation to students on what they are learning. 

With everything said in this video, I can conclude that this perspective is the suitable classroom discourse perspective for Miss Kayla to use in her classroom.  However, let’s not forget that “relationship between students and passionate teachers will always be the foundation of successful classroom”.

After that, by using the students-students method, it help the learner to negotiate on meaning. This is because, they are more active and comfortable with their peers. Some students maybe shy and quite with their teacher, but when they are with their friends, they will be more opened up and more comfortable to ask their friends. By having questions, the more active learner will ask the teacher for confirmation. Thus, the teacher will share the answer to the whole class and the learning process will be effective. In my opinion, the students-students method will helps to create a more active and interactive class by having discussion and negotiating on meaning. 

In my opinion based on Miss Kayla’s speech, as a teacher we have to make students love school and study. In the past, traditional teaching methods were like teacher-centered classrooms. They could not let students enjoy school life and learning process. So Miss Kayla  proposed a teaching method of Teachers as Learners and Students as Leaders. As a student, you can also teach other classmates and even teachers. This will make students feel that learning is useful. By teaching others, he will have a sense of accomplishment. A sense of achievement will bring him happiness, and people will always pursue things that make them happy, so students will be motivated to learn more new knowledge. In this way, the teacher is not only imparting knowledge, but also leading. It was mentioned in the lecture that the student was given one hour( Genius hours) every day. During this hour, the student can learn any knowledge he is interested in. This will give students the opportunity to recognize their interests and strengths, and they can dig out more creativity and inspiration. . This hour is a completely relaxing time for students without any specified goals. In this relaxed state, students can learn more new knowledge and the memory at this time is the best. 
There is another point that emphasizes social interaction and social culture. In the face of students in the current era of information technology development, it is necessary to properly guide students to use technology rather than stop them blindly, nor to transfer the knowledge in books to tablets. It is necessary for students to learn what they have learned and how to learn to connect with life outside the classroom. We cannot live without technology in our lives. Why do we require students to stay away from technology? Conversely, we can also use technology to make students learn more effectively and have access to the culture and knowledge of different countries. Let students use this knowledge in their lives.

The important thing in classroom discourse analysis perspective is when a teacher sets up the learning in such a way that students communicate and or having dialogue with each other and possibly with the teacher about their content. Dialogue allows students to process their thinking with each other, to exchange and build on one another’s ideas, and to grapple with content. The example of learning that involves dialogue being mentioned in the video is the classroom Twitter account. It can be a highly engaging way to learn if the teacher knows the content, the students, and the pedagogy well enough to pull it off. By using this type of learning, the teachers are engaging the social interaction among the students with the world. During interaction teachers have the scope to identify the talent, intelligence and excellence of the students.

Besides, the classroom discourse analysis perspective also involve the zone of proximal development learning. In this learning, the learner can master the learning by their own, but they need the guidance and encouragement by their teacher. Miss Kayla let her students teaching their friends as well as herself on how to use an app. The students are actually master the skills and knowledge but still being assisted by the teacher. 

To set up the discourse begins with the content. Teachers need to identify what in the content is worth talking about. To have a discussion where you just list off facts or read aloud from a text is boring. Honestly, discourse is best when there are multiple answers, an opportunity for opinion and imagination. Also, a teacher must decide what type of topic suitable with the students’ age and knowledge. The younger students need more supports and topics where they have enough background to participate successfully while the older students need more topics that they can have the opportunity for opinion and imagination to exchange ideas and challenge each other. Finally, the teacher must select a topic that moves the student content knowledge forward. Good quality content and excellent teacher prompting makes good quality discourse. 

            Next, Miss Kayla emphasizes the use of technology in the classroom. The use of technology is important nowadays since we are living in an era where everything can be done by using mobile devices and any other technologies. Miss Kayla uses technology in her classroom to fit with the social culture where people nowadays use technology widely in their daily life. However, she mentioned in her speech that we need to know how to embrace purposeful technology. The use of technology should be able to transform the way of teaching and learning. If the use of technology still gives the boring vibe to the students, it is wasteful. For example, if the task that uses technology can also be done by using pencils and papers, it is not transforming the classroom. In order to attract the students by using this technology, teachers should be able to make things interesting like how one of her students read a book while listening to the audio version of the book she is reading.