Kristina Elyse Butke
Assistant language teacher for the Kumamoto Prefectural Board of Education. Former lecturer at North Central State College.
Location Japan
Achievements
Activity
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
This course really opened my eyes to reflect on my own teaching practices and compare them to what we've moved toward in the 21st century. It seems I'm more summative (and behaviorist) than I care to admit, so learning about the other theories of learning, learning styles, and methods, has helped me imagine different possibilities for teaching that will put...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I learned so much about the different ways feedback can be delivered. I will take note of the New Paradigm for teaching and try to push towards more formative learning.
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"What makes a good submission?: Using video as a means of assessment guidance" by Chris Smith - I have flirted with the idea of using videos to communicate key concepts to students, and this study seals the deal since Smith found that it (although likely along with other elements) improved students' understanding of writing papers.
"An assessment health...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I know that when I taught college, my feedback didn't work well because while students seemed to appreciate the detail of the feedback, they were annoyed it took me longer to get it back to them. In terms of my feedback style now, I offer quick verbal feedback, simple comments on papers, and key questions. But I'm also not teaching college students right...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
What stood out to me was that students judged the handwritten note as not being equivalent to the effort they put into their assignment...it is clear they felt disrespected when they imagined getting feedback like this. At the same time, I wonder if the professor or tutor did it that way because that was all they could manage with their workload. I would spend...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I could not read the handwriting on the written feedback at all to even assess what was being said. I like the second example better, but I feel like even with the suggestions on how to improve the paper, there needed to be more of an explanation on what things like "enhanced academic underpinning" means. Also, I wonder how quickly the professor was able to...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Because I taught composition at college, that's where I'm going to pull my experience from. My most successful forms of assessment tend to go towards the new paradigm. The largest example is feedback as dialogue. When I graded essays, I would often ask questions in the handout to prompt students to think more about their writing. I also incorporated...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Feedback was effective to me when it gave concrete suggestions and pointed me in the next direction.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I don't think I use formative assessment enough by any means. The only example that came to mind was when I was a lecturer, and we did peer feedback/peer discussion of a paper.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I agree with the comment that precision and consistency in grading would be beneficial for students. Although my department came up with a rubric, each professor had wildly different interpretations of it, and there were discrepancies in grading. For example, a student who took my course got an A- and at the next level up, she was getting a C in that teacher's...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
= If you already help develop your students’ assessment literacy, tell us how.
As a lecturer, I was required to follow what the department created for classes, and I taught English composition. We had a rubric for students to see how their writing would be graded (although it did not contain a numeric element...it was "good" "fair" or "needs improvement,"...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I feel like assessment is important as a way to spot-check or gauge our students' learning. It acts as an indicator as to what's working and what isn't, what's challenging (in a positive way) or perhaps what is too much...assessment helps me adjust my teaching to see how I can better serve the students' learning.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
As an ALT in Japan, I'm not really in charge of traditional assessments like the administering of tests or formal exams. But I do have to assess student learning in order to plan lessons appropriately and measure students' abilities in English. I use quizzes as fun activities to test general knowledge, help with grading papers the other teachers assign, and...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Some goals and aspirations I have for my future practice is to move more towards constructivism and cognitivism in my teaching, by incorporating more student-led or peer-directed activities in class. I haven't taught a fully online course yet, but I wish to familiarize myself with the wide variety of activities and sources (like YouTube and Socrative)...
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"The use of online media in classroom for enhancing students’ learning experiences: YouTube, Socrative and Kahoot" by Xiaojue (Jessica) An (Faculty of Business and Law) - I picked this because I was already familiar with Kahoot and wanted to see how it was utilized here, but also, I had never heard of Socrative and was interested in it. But I think the most...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
-Tell us what has helped you to stay engaged with learning online and why.
The best online learning courses for me have kept me engaged by varying the activities during the course, breaking up videos with polls, word sentence reordering activities, small quizzes, etc. That really breaks up the monotony that we sometimes encounter with an online course. The...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
When I think of online courses I've taken, they've included a clear narrative with a logical sequence or thread of topics. The social interaction element always consisted of commenting and students replying to or liking each other's comments, so a conversation was the primary social element. I would be interested in seeing if there are other ways to promote...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
-Do you feel learning theories are still relevant in the contemporary higher education environment described in the video to help inform your teaching practice? Provide a rationale for your views.
I feel like (and this is sort of repeating my previous response) that behaviorism reflects the old ways of schooling that the video refers to, and that...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I find behaviorism to be something that works better with my younger students--they like to perform activities or participate knowing there will be a reward at the end. I think there's an emphasis on constructivism when teaching in college. When I taught there, it was recommended I incorporate a lot of group work and peer feedback in my lesson plans....
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
-What surprised you, if anything, and why?
I thought it was interesting that the shyness seemed to appear in waves, where it would disappear and reappear
- Do Nikki’s views mirror or differ from those of your own students? How?
Hmm...I'm currently not in higher ed right now, so I have to think of my own high schoolers in Japan...when we had online classes... -
Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
In college I tried to do icebreaker activities which weren't very successful (such as Two Truths and a Lie), but when I instituted them in my Japanese high school, they were. To be honest, I hope to learn more about suitable ways for students to become comfortable when they first come to class.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
It was fun seeing where everyone is located!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I'm excited to partake in this course!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I currently am an assistant language teacher at a high school in Japan, but before I moved here I was a lecturer at community college in the USA. I assume I will return to teaching college once I return to the states, so I'm here to refresh my brain and get thinking about higher education again.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
My favorite is Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no Renkinjutsushi. He's kind of arrogant but always has such a deep love for his brother and for the desire to "keep moving forward."
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Thank you for offering this as a download!
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Wow. I was taught totally the wrong thing about these terms from the fan convention circuit. I was told "yaoi" was sexually explicit BL and that BL didn't have any sex in it. I had no idea "yaoi" simply meant dojinshi and BL meant original works. I'm so grateful this class is changing my misconceptions and the incorrect information I've learned.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I didn't learn about yaoi or fujoshi until I went to conventions in the US...I admit I felt a little shame reading BL because I was afraid other people would judge me for it, but since coming to Japan I've embraced my love of the genre. I even went to Ikebukuro to Otome Road and collected a lot of yaoi doujinshi there.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I always found cats to be "kawaii" so I enjoyed the discussion on cats in the previous section. But overall, I never got into the "kawaii" culture until I moved to Japan. It's everywhere, and it's rubbed off on me. My prefecture mascot, Kumamon, is so famous, and I think he's an example of a kawaii character I like.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I have a lot of "kawaii" knick knacks on my school desk that I got from gacha machines here in Japan. Lots of cute Pokemon characters, for example. I think the eyes have a lot to do with how cute something looks.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
"Kawaii" was a word I learned from the fan convention circuit, and to me it describes a sort of "hyper-cuteness."
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
On the one hand, I can see myself in the girls of otometic manga because I too wanted affirmation growing up, and I often wanted it from boys...but I can see the harm in this as an adult reflecting on my past.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
This was really interesting! I wish, in a way, that I had read shojo manga as a younger girl, because it mirrors a lot of my own desire for affirmation and to be loved "just the way you are." I think I would have found a lot of comfort in these works.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Infantility has such a negative connotation to me, so I'm really interested in learning more about this. MacArthur's comment about Japanese people seems really harsh to me.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Apologies for commenting so late. I forgot I was enrolled in the course, but I had upgraded it so I could come back after all these years(!) to finish it. My favorite subculture is anime. I grew up with it as a very small child and then came back to it during college with the Ghibli films, then attending fan conventions really got me connected to current...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
This was very helpful. I hope in the future you will have something like this available for people who teach at the university level.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
- What are your experiences of coaching and mentoring?
I was mentored very, very briefly when I started teaching at college. I really liked my mentor and she was helpful, but we didn't meet up very much and I feel like I didn't have an opportunity to work with her as much as I wanted to. I feel our relationship should've gone further/been more consistent.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I've bookmarked a bunch of these!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I teach in Japan and have never heard of this method! I am curious to see if my coworkers implement it...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Nothing much has changed since I started the program...students hover between High Impact and Some Impact
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
- How has your practice changed?
It hasn't changed too much because with my teaching schedule I haven't been able to meet with classes very often to implement these changes, but with lesson planning, I have more of an idea of what I want students to learn, what they should walk away with, and how to convey the usefulness of English as a foreign language.... -
Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Although I've not seen much change with implementation--I think I need more time for things to settle in--I think what's an improvement is the fact that I reflect more on the work that I've done and that I've been introduced to more methods to help with teaching. This course has changed my thought process. I think that's a sign of progress.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
The class has been very enjoyable thus far and I'm looking forward to the wrap-up!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I thought the MUSIC model and the 17 procedures/practices master teachers employ were very helpful to me.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Usefulness is something I struggle with conveying to students, so I will work harder on this aspect of MUSIC.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I think in my EFL/ESL courses in Japan, students lack motivation because they do not see the usefulness of English. English class is compulsory, so they see it as another thing for which they'll be graded. They might do enough work to make sure they pass, but students don't see the value to conversing in English when they live in a country where English...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Motivation is the number one thing I have trouble with in terms of consistency among students. It's always a mix of motivations, too...I particularly look forward to learning about M.U.S.I.C more.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
My goal with my current English classes in Japan is to get students to elaborate. I really want to see them connecting ideas and comparing similarities and differences!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I thought this was very helpful to break down the steps and procedures successful teachers employ in their class. Since I'm someone who likes checklists/to-do lists, it was a very helpful to present it like this.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I thought this particular article was very interesting and I appreciate the links to further reading.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I use grouping and resources in my classes...a lot of it has to do with the fact that English is a foreign/second language to my students.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I rotate between schools as the ALT so I often don't see students except once a month, so it's hard for me to gauge student abilities unless I look at things like behavior, body language, facial expressions, etc., to determine who is struggling in my class and who isn't. I try to do group and partner work usually to try and mix student abilities up.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
-What does challenge look like in your classroom?
We do challenges most often in the form of games where students compete with each other. This is very extrinsic to me.
-What opportunities do your students have to challenge themselves?
Making conversations in English with each other, trying to speak organically and make themselves understood.
-How do you... -
Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I think it's interesting how this ties into extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and intrinsic is the goal.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I thought the list of formative approaches was very helpful because there were assessment styles I hadn't even considered before in my own teaching.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I'll hold onto this download for later, but in my current teaching circumstance I feel my students do not have the language capability to answer the survey as written.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
1 - Are there strategies you use all the time or do not use at all?
I use verbal questioning, checklists, observation of learning, and verbal feedback frequently. I rarely use peer teaching, peer assessment, and cold tasks.
2. Do you favor using certain strategies in certain lessons? Why?
I think I use observation of learning the most because I have to... -
Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
One of the trends I noticed here in Japan is using a timer and designating 1-2 minutes as "thinking time" whenever students are asked a more open-ended or complicated question. It helps with time management but I think it prompts students to think about things more "on command."
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I feel so silly because I always thought because Bloom's Taxonomy was presented as a pyramid, it meant you had to do each step in order (progressive)! I'm glad there's more flexibility here.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
1 - I'm basically looking to assess student comprehension of English
2 - I assess my students on the spot regularly in class every class
3 - I think the checklist will help as well as success criteria, plus observation of learning -
Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
When it asks who I'm assessing for, it's partially for myself and partially for the students. In my position as ALT, I'm not considered responsible for the students meeting their goals (as outlined by the school's Can-Do List), but the JTE is. I'm used more for exposing students to English and other cultures. When I assess in class, it's a quick spot-check to...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
- What does formative and summative assessment mean to you?
I've never been exposed to these terms before so I had to Google them. (My experience is as a college lecturer and an ALT in Japan). To simplify, formative assessment determines learning in process and summative assessment uses formal benchmarks to determine learning.- What does formative and...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I really liked the Gibbs Reflective Model, the Restorative technique, and the Root and Fruit!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I thought the Root and Fruit model to be helpful in that it makes myself try to see my students' POV...there are things that they have within them (experiences, feelings) that can be traced as a root for certain behaviors. It's very interesting.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Probably the number one issue I have in my current EFL classes is students who talk while I'm giving the lesson. If I try to understand where students are coming from, it is likely that they do not understand everything I'm saying, and maybe this is a form of acting out for them--they don't think what I have to say is important enough. I should try to use...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I thought the Restorative approach to be particularly interesting!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I had a particularly disruptive adult student at the community college I taught at who attacked me personally during class and yelled at me. It turned out she had a lot of problems in her personal life that led her to lose her temper--she was taking it out on me and her behavior was colored by those traumas. I think it's good for teachers to question the...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I teach ten English classes a week with different students as an ALT in Japan. The students whose level of English is higher tends to be a 9-10 class on the scale, and students with lower levels tend to be a 6-7 scale (The lowest I've experienced before is a 5). It seems the conduciveness of the environment to learning correlates with student ability.
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I thought it was interesting the paper used the term "authority" to describe a teacher's individual skill at classroom management. As an ALT, I am expected to be an authority of content (English) but not an authority in terms of classroom management. I wonder if this conflicting idea helps create an environment where students don't take the ALT seriously.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I'm interested in this topic. Currently I teach EFL in Japan but in the capacity of an ALT (assistant language teacher) and we are not expected or allowed to manage classroom behavior--we must defer to the JTE (Japanese teacher of English). But sometimes the JTE ignores disruptive behavior and there is no discipline. If I'm ever in charge of the classroom...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
1 - What have you found most useful from this part of the course?
I like being able to download all of the resources and supplemental materials. I am definitely someone who enjoys writing things out. In terms of topics, I think the reflective models section was the most helpful, as well as the discussion of managing workload.
2 - How confident do you feel... -
Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I never considered taking a diary of what I do at work. I'm sure this will help with planning and time management.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Teaching EFL in Japan, I'm surprised that most of my time is spent on preparing the lesson--making the supplies needed for activities, creating handouts, making presentations or creating online games through apps like Kahoot...it's a lot of prep for just 50 minutes of class time.
Grading seems to have the least impact on my students' learning even though...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
As someone who teaches composition and EFL, grading has been the biggest task that I struggle with, primarily marking essays. I downloaded parts of the Workload Toolkit that appealed to me (I'm glad they had a wellbeing component) and look forward to diving into those helpful resources.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
My workload consists of planning lessons, preparing the materials for lessons, and then marking. When I was a lecturer at university, a large amount of my workload was spent on grading essays. It took up all of my free time and was not sustainable. Students also complained that I took too long. Now that I teach EFL in Japan, I've tried to make assignments that...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I like the Gibbs reflective method the best due to its inclusion of emotions and responses. I never really considered using a formal, established thinking practice before when it comes to self-reflection and assessment. I think using the Gibbs method will help organize my thoughts and make my assessment more consistent.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
The Gibbs method really appeals to me due to its focus on emotions. I'm a very emotional person and can't help but reflect on them during my practice, and I like the questions being asked here.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
My strength is my ability to make quick decisions and changes in class (trying to be adaptable to the situation). I am looking forward to learning more about student motivation and engagement.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I ask myself questions such as "how was the experience of teaching today?" "were students engaged?" "did the content seem appropriate to their learning levels?" Then I try to think about what I could do to improve these things.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I'm an assistant language teach in Japan at Kamoto High School...but before I came to Japan I was a college lecturer at a community college. I only lectured for two years and when I return to the US I will probably be a lecturer again, so I am hoping to use this professional development course towards understanding my role and skills in teaching in higher...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
The word "otaku" has been commandeered by American fans of Japanese subcultures and we usually use it to refer to ourselves as "geeks;" it does not necessarily carry the negative connotation it does in Japan (our word for that is "weeaboo," which is an insulting term for otaku in America). I identify as otaku and when I came to Japan to teach English, I was...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Japanese subculture has been a part of my life without me always being consciously aware of it. My first experiences with early American literature (like Little Women) were delivered through anime television specials (and I had no idea at the time as a child that what I watched came from Japan). I grew up watching anime as a child in the 1990s and it...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I always personally interpreted subculture as a self-sufficient population of people who share similar tastes and ideas that simply deviate from the mainstream.
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My turn to apologize for being late. I haven't logged in for a month due to being busy with work and now I'm commenting a day before the course closes. Anyway, I agree that that one of the aspects of American culture is how our society is intertwined with our constitution and legal rights, and that a lot of what we do flows back into that historical document....
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Jan-Peter: Thanks, such good advice, and I'm glad you understand where I'm coming from! I realized that I will not be able to further relationships here without learning the language, so I signed up for lessons. This will probably help me get over my enkai awkwardness to some degree, although you're right about shyness. I will try harder with overcoming it....
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Wow, I love this comment! Thank you for your suggestions! You are right, it does get tiring trying to police my interactions with others. And I appreciate the reminder to look on the flip side and focus on being positiveI love your quote, "[...] Putting more emphasis on the strong suits of your cultural identity/ies, you can not only refrain from reinforcing...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I particularly enjoyed this quote: "Culture is everything that unites us and divides us." I think this perfectly encapsulates the importance of understanding different cultures, and in a way the human experience. Our culture influences the behaviors, decisions, and experiences we have daily.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I'm looking forward to expanding my awareness and sensitivity. Thank you for a thoughtful introduction this week!
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Whoops! I answered these questions in the previous post. To summarize, both parties had to give a little and compromise. Chen should've notified Markus that he would be early and that he would bring friends. Markus should've recognized Chen's (and his friends') attempts to directly engage him in conversation instead of going silent. it is unfortunate both...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Chen should've tried to let Markus know he'd be early and mention friends coming. Spitting watermelon pits is messy and if they wanted to spit, maybe ask for a bowl to use. As for the CDs, books, and photo album, looking but not touching might be the way to go, and if they want to look in more detail, ask first.
While I understand Markus slipping into a...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
if I were to think of "etic" I'd look for more generalized categories that are present in all cultures. I would think of things like manners and gestures, politeness, the work environment, family and friends, etc. When I think of "emic" I'm looking for something that is unique to that culture, something that defines it in a way. Something that I think is...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Some of the baggage I carry with me includes the negative stereotypes I hear about Americans, particularly the "ugly American" stereotype (from Wikipedia: "[...] perceptions of loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, and ethnocentric behavior of American citizens mainly abroad, but also at home.") I am so paranoid about emulating these behaviors or...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I've had quite a few "fish out of water" moments in Japan, especially when it comes to the work party culture. The enkai, nomikai, bonenkai, joshikai....I always struggle at these events because you don't get to choose where you sit (you draw a number randomly). if you are shy, it's harder because you will talk to coworkers who are essentially strangers to...
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"There is no magic line which isolates 'intercultural' from other types of communication." I really enjoy this quote and the article. I feel like I've oversimplified what intercultural communication is by limiting it only to people from different countries. This article was a good reminder that gender, sexuality, ethnicity/race...all of these have their own...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I like Lustig & Koester's explanation of intercultural communication, particularly because there's the acknowledgment of context in the definition. Context doesn't just speak to the situation in which things are happening, or the history of the culture or events that might shape our behaviors, but it's also what we carry with us--our impressions and...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I think the most important distinguishing feature of my cultural makeup comes from the German side of the family. While my mother's side came from other countries, this was from a long time ago. However, my German family came to America in the 1930s and 40s and my father is a first-generation immigrant, so this is a recent, tangible element of my cultural...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I'm from America and my family background is primarily German, English, Irish, and Scottish. My father and his family come from Germany with family members coming to America before and after World War II. My mother's side is English, Irish, and Scottish and they came to America in the 1700 and 1800s.
I am continuing the family tradition of changing...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
Looking forward to this class! I hope to develop more cultural awareness and sensitivity in my daily activities as a foreigner living in Japan.
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
The goals that appeal to me the most are to:
* develop an awareness of your own cultural identities and an appreciation for others’
*be able to recognize cultural variations in communication styles
*understand how categories of cultural values might underlie different behaviorsWhile I think this will help me with anywhere I might travel to in the world,...
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Kristina Elyse Butke made a comment
I'm looking forward to developing cultural awareness to help with my daily interactions here in Japan. I've lived here for eight months but could always stand to learn more about ways to ensure smooth interactions with people of cultures different than my own.
