Through repetition, students work to move the targeted vocabulary from working memory to long term memory. Moreover, we can say that Quizlet uses multi-modal learning as some ready-made flashcard activities already have images and audio playbacks.

Does technology provide relative advantage over paper flashcards? =

Yes. Firstly, while most paper flashcards are premade, using an application like Quizlet gives teachers room for adjustment. The teacher can choose the specific vocabulary items to be used in the flashcards according to students’ needs. In the scenario that the paper flashcards are also prepared by the teacher, using applications such as Quizlet saves time and energy. On top of these, using an application also overcomes the possible problem of students losing their flashcards, making online flashcards more reliable. Moreover, the application allows for audios and visuals to be used along with the vocabulary items, and it adds interactivity, which adds multimodality to flashcards. Students can get instant feedback, which prevents fossilized mistakes. Lastly, the application allows the teacher to track students’ progress. The teacher can see which specific vocabulary items challenge students relatively earlier and work on it faster.

How could the teacher improve the activity? =

To turn this individual activity into pair or group work, the teacher can use Quizlet Live to make it a collaborative learning experience. Plus, students should write their own sentences with the targeted vocabulary to contextualize the words after the quizzes. On the teacher’s side, the teacher should review the class progress dashboard to identify the vocabulary with which the class is struggling, then address those in upcoming lessons.

By recording themselves, students can work at their own pace, realize their errors and re-record if necessary. Also, they would be free of peer pressure and speaking anxiety which makes practicing more difficult. When they are alone, they can be relaxed and comfortable which creates the optimal environment for language acquisition.

2. Could the same activity be done without technology?

Students can’t record themselves but they can read aloud in the classroom. However, this can be time-consuming since there can be a lot of students and they would have to wait for their turn. There are also affective factors, speaking up in front of their peers may cause excitement errors.

3. How could the teacher evaluate speaking performance?

Since the recordings are on the mobile app, it makes it easier for teachers to access and evaluate students’ performances. They can listen to the recording more than once to ensure accurate feedback, especially on students’ pronunciation and intonation. On the other hand, in real life teachers may miss some of the pronunciation errors. Also, teachers can benefit from some AI tools for giving feedback and assessing performance as long as they keep in mind the ethical considerations. There are some AI tools that determine the students’ intonation, speaking pace and other factors. Although teachers should not completely rely on these tools, they make their job a lot easier.

                The simulation helps students understand complex systems because the simulation makes the complex system of nature more understandable and manageable. By going step by step in simulation, such as, by changing the number of pray or predators, students can make an observation what happens to the overall environment and how it affects other living organisms surrounded. After observation the results, students can analyze them and create a hypothesis that is testable and can be shown by the simulation and they can explain their own hypothesis to their peers. In conclusion, the overall lesson becomes more organized and scientific.

                It is inquiry-based learning because instead of giving direct instructions, students can design their own experiment or environment. Teacher is just a guide, and students try to find their own answers and explain them to their peers by engaging with the technology.  In addition, by the testing their hypothesis they become the learners who do their decisions.   

Vocabulary knowledge need is addressed. In order to be able to speak fluently, students need to have a range of vocabulary knowledge according to their level of proficiency. Usually, learning vocabulary takes time because it requires learners to be exposed to the language through different modes such as reading and listening extensively. For this reason, when it comes to vocabulary knowledge, memorization is regarded as an easy and fast way to reach a certain level. In accordance with that, Quizlet works as a tool to help learners memorize vocabulary that they need. Another learning need addressed is the students’ need to learn correct pronunciation of the words. In Quizlet, there are correct pronunciations of the words. This way, students can hear the correct pronunciation of the word immediately and connect the speech sounds with the letters correctly.

Does technology provide relative advantage over paper flashcards?

Use of technology in this case provides relative advantage in many ways. One of the advantages it provides is immediate feedback. When using paper flashcards or paper quizzes, the student may get feedback very late due to teacher’s time to grade each paper individually and possibly after the lesson. However, in Quizlet students get immediate feedback when they answer questions wrong and they can see which words or categories they need to focus on or having problems with. In addition, at the end of the activities Quizlet may ask questions the student answered wrong previously, creating a personalized revision. This would be much harder without technology. Another advantage of the use of technology in this case is the fact that students engage more with various types of activities, from multiple choice questions to games. The use of games, having competition and reinforcements create a sense of accomplishments for students and thus engage them more with the content. Last but not least, students get audiovisual reinforcements with Quizlet in a way that would be much harder to get without technology. These audiovisual reinforcements help students connect the freshly learned vocabulary with their real-life meanings as well as learning the correct pronunciation of the words, thus creating a relevant connection for students. This way, the time needed for mastery of the vocabulary reduces and the meaning-word connection increases.

How could the teacher improve the activity?

Learners can use Quizlet as an easy and fast tool to practice vocabulary; however, in order to improve its benefits, the teachers should devise ways where the students can interact with each other while using Quizlet. Language learning is highly dependent on meaning negotiation and interaction; hence, if the students only use the app individually, it may become disengaging for the students after a while, and most likely it would not go further than a mere repetition of the existent vocabulary. The fact that the app is interactive itself is an advantage of the app, but this interaction should be turned into something that can be used in the classroom between students as well. One easy way to make this happen can be through encouraging students to join the “competitions” on the app. But this again makes the practice individual and personal, making it a competitive experience. Rather, two more creative and engaging tasks can be developed.

1.  Teachers can create games to which the entire class can join. For example, the class can be divided into two groups. Later, each group can be responsible for forming entire sentences for each word that appears within a given time. This would help students construct meaningful sentences while also learning how to use the new vocabulary in the context. The group that has created more sentences can be the winner. 

2. All the students can be asked to work as a pair and create a dialogue with the next three words that appear on the flashcards. This would encourage interaction and meaning negotiation between the students. This way, they can use their entire vocabulary knowledge to create meaningful sentences as well, rather than focusing on one simple word.

1- In Desmos, students change variables and observe the function graph for example ax^2 +bx+c. Desmos's greatest advantage is its ability to instantly and dynamically show changes in the graph as a result of changes in the functions. Students can immediately see how the graph transforms when they change a coefficient, this makes the relationship between the equation and the graph more concrete. In the traditional method, students have to redraw the graph for each case, and this process is both time-consuming and can shift attention from the conceptual relationship to the calculations. Desmos reduces this workload, allowing students to focus on fundamental mathematical questions such as "which coefficient changes what?". Furthermore, students can try many examples in a short time.

2- Yes, the same learning objective can be achieved to some extent without technology. Students can learn how functions behave by creating tables on paper, calculating points, and drawing graphs by hand. However, this process is quite time-consuming, and students have to redraw the graph with every change in coefficients. This can often focus their attention on the operations rather than understanding the conceptual relationship. When technology is used, students can examine numerous examples in a short time and more easily identify patterns between changes. Furthermore, Desmos provides a cleaner and more accurate visualization, making it easier for students to spot errors. Nevertheless, technology alone does not guarantee learning; learning largely depends on teacher guidance and student explanations.

3- This is the most suitable assessment method for this activity. I think a short exit ticket at the end of the lesson could also ask students to explain the changes in the graph or interpret the relationship between the equation and the graph. Additionally, since students work in pairs, a short written explanation or pair reflection might be appropriate,students could explain which patterns they noticed or how the graph is affected when a part of the function changes.

1- What learning need is addressed?

The main focus is on vocabulary acquisition and retention. By using the application, students will be able to move words from short-term to long-term memory. Flashcards in the application help students to learn at their own pace, and this process does not require teachers’ help. Vocabulary games might also motivate students to learn more vocabulary.

2- Does technology provide a relative advantage over paper flashcards?

With the help of the technology, students will be able to receive instant feedback from digital flashcards. These flashcards often include audio pronunciation and images, which help them to acquire the words faster and better.

3. How could the teacher improve the activity?

Instead of giving students pre-made sets, we can encourage students to create their personal word sets by using individualized images. For example, they can use the photos that they took. We can also turn this activity into a communicative task through digital drills. Once the game is over, we can give instructions to students to use three of the new words in a short role-play or a written paragraph.

Without the use of recording devices, it would not be possible for the students to listen to their own pronunciations and receive feedback from the teacher accordingly.

Could the same activity be done without technology?

The same activity would not be possible without the use of technology. In the case that this sort of technology is not readily available, the students would not be able to listen to their own pronunciations, and it would require either direct feedback from the teacher or their peers. Since the students would be not be able to provide self-reflective feedback, it would hinder their learning process in terms of correct pronunciations.

How could the teacher evaluate speaking performance?

The most convenient way to evaluate such exercise would be to listen to recording of the student, rewinding the recording if necessary, and provide feedback based on the pronunciation of the students in real time. The feedback loop provided by the recording of student’s voices would allow the teacher to pinpoint the exact mistakes or correct examples used in the recordings.

The use of certain tools could also provide feedback by using text-to-speech technologies, which would allow the students to also self-evaluate the recordings to a certain degree, since the tool would allow them to observe if the pronunciation coincide with the word provided. However, the teacher would still have the role of a second controller in this case, since this sort of technology has features that might auto-correct smaller mistakes and still provide the intended result.

What learning need is addressed?

1.      Development and practice of vocabulary

2.      Pre-lesson practice

3.      Individual repetition and memorization

Does technology provide relative advantage over paper flashcards?

Mostly the same with paper flashcards, but Quizlet can allow for many flashcards in a very short amount of time, thus, it is more convenient and accessible

How could the teacher improve the activity?

More interactive and communicative tasks could be developed such as completing paragraphs with peers so that there is more communication involved and the interaction and production can allow for an enhancement for the use of the new vocabulary. This way students can see the vocabulary actually used in real conversations, natural environments.

The teacher can instead make use of generative AI such as Chatgpt, or Gemini and propose a prompt that would allow for the AI to create a natural conversation between people, or a simply a story. After, the teacher can check the output, make sure the intended meaning is provided in the text, then, the material can be presented to the students. This material can be used in the upcoming classes in an appropriate way.

Example

The words “gossip, desperate, flat-hunting, urgently, spare, opportunity” could all be practiced in a story where a group of friends are looking for a spare flat. Through this story, students can remember this story and the real usages of these words in a meaningful context. This use of technology would be more grounded.

The same concept may have the same outcome since teachers always does not draw functions properly, but they can draw immediately and properly via Desmos. Without technology, the understanding of changes in functions take much more time, while with Desmos, students can take feedback instantly.

Teachers give students to 2 functions in order to asses, one is the transformed form (different coefficients etc.) of another, and they expect to determine what changes in functions and interpret these functions.

Another example, teacher can ask students for real-life examples such as velocity function graphs of car. What is the graph shape when the car has constant velocity? What is the graph shape when the car has acceleration, the velocity of car is not constant? With the real-life example students can learn effectively.

Objective: Students identify the effect of the coefficients of a and c (fx=ax2+bx+c) of a 2nd order polynomial function to it’s graph.

Assessment: Students are asked to explain in their own words the generalizations they reached in this small experiment using the coefficients a and c. The teacher goes to the groups during this time to listen to their ideas and conducts a formative assessment.

Integration strategy: Students are prompted to use Desmos to draw three parabolic graphs with different c coefficients while keeping the a and b coefficients constant, and to observe the effects of these different c values on the graph. The same is requested for the a coefficient.

Relative advantage: It will help students see how changing these coefficients affects the graph instantly. Instead of drawing a bunch of graphs again and again by hand, which is not the aim objective, students can quickly experiment with these coefficients and see the pattern.

Instructional environment: students are asked to work in groups of two and use a computer to work on desmos.

Evaluation & revision: Since technology is a tool rather than a purpose, activities should begin by ensuring some familiarity with applications such as Desmos. Once started this way, if time is allocated for exploration, students will understand the concepts very clearly thanks to technology.