The ESP Learning Hub

Dear students, we have finally reached the last week of online classes for this semester, and I suppose you are looking forward to a long summer holiday. But before that, we'll have to go through a period of evaluation, assessment, exams, grading, etc. It's time to get some feedback and reflect on what we've done so far. Therefore, this week's topic is Feedback and Reflection in Education. Feedback  is information given to the learner or teacher about the learner's performance relative to learning goals or outcomes. It should aim towards improvement in students' learning. Thus, the purpose of giving feedback is to improve the situation or the person's performance. Remember that you won't accomplish that by being harsh, critical or offensive, but only by being positive and focused on improvement. Through feedback, teachers can provide the students with suggestions for development, learning strategies, and corrections for errors. The ...

Dear students, I hope you are doing fine and looking forward to the end of this semester which is coming very soon.  J So, in this pre-final week we'll talk about Digital Storytelling and how it can be used in education. First of all, let us answer the question: 'What is Digital Storytelling?' Generally, Digital Storytelling (DST) is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories, i.e. combining the art of telling stories with a variety of multimedia, including graphics, audio, video, and Web publishing. Thus, digital storytelling refers to a variety of emergent new forms of digital narratives, such as web-based stories, interactive stories, hypertexts, audio and video podcasts, etc. Digital storytelling  is a short form of  digital media  production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their story. The media used may include the digital equivalent of  film techniques  (full-motion video with sound), stills, audi...

Dear students, this week we'll discuss the three concepts in education: assessment, evaluation and grading. These terms may be related but are not the same thing, e.g. grading is a form of assessment but assessing questions related to student learning cannot be answered only with student grades. On the other hand, assessment and evaluation are often used interchangeable but they can differ in how and when the review is implemented, the focus of the review, and what is done with the findings of the review. In education, the term  assessment  refers to the wide variety of methods or tools that educators use to evaluate, measure, and document the academic readiness, learning progress, skill acquisition, or educational needs of students. Thus, assessment is the process of gathering and discussing information from multiple and diverse sources in order to develop a deep understanding of what students know, understand, and can do with their knowledge as a resu...