Being an Activist

 

 

 “… we enter into the dizzy world of real students, real colleagues and real bosses. Just preparing lessons and turning up on time, in the right room, in the correct building, all neat and tidy, are usually enough to keep us very busy. Once we have found our balance at work, we need to learn more and fast!”

Woodward, 2012

As teachers, we need to learn more and faster because 21st century learners no longer resemble the learners of previous generations. Today’s students are digitally literate, multitasking, more visual and kineasthetic, more interactive, and more experiential. Various changes need to be introduced by schools, focusing on the emerging needs of these students and the starting point of these changes is of course the professional development of the teacher, who will realize these changes in the classroom.

The idea for writing the book, The Activist, and then creating this blog emerged from my own attempts to deal with these educational challenges, which I have been striving to address from the moment I started teaching. To better appeal to my students, who had needs and interests quite different from mine, I devoted myself to learning and designing a variety of activities. When these activities proved to be effective in different classes, I decided to record them in a notebook and called it My Activity Book, which has grown rapidly thanks to my students, colleagues, trainers as well as all the training programs I have attended. Becoming a teacher trainer has also given me the opportunity to try out this repertoire with different instructors in different contexts. I also noticed that instructors find professional development sessions that focus on practical issues related to teaching more fruitful. The Activist shares these activities with more teachers. And this blog is an extension of this book... If you have comments on the activities in the book or want to share the activities you use in your classes, feel free to share them here in this blog... This blog is for us all to share and learn from each other.

Burçin Hasanbaşoğlu