Friday 22 October 2010

20/10/2010

Today I did my individual micro-teaching task. It went quite well. I had good feedbacks from the teacher and the students. They didn't tell me any areas of improvement, probably the teacher is going to write something in the evaluation sheet.

The micro-teaching went well because the students were engaged in the activity, the instructions I gave were clear, I did directed and open questions and all worked quite well. However, at the end of the session, when I tried the students to pick up the right definition for the Method of Induction, I found the learners quite confused. A student told me that It was good because it made him think but I think the task was too complicated. The definitions were confusing, quite similar. That made the task a bit abstract.

Next time I am going to put more different definitions, so the students can clearly see the difference between them and pick up the correct choice. I am going to insert some examples as well, so the task is not so abstract.

19/10/2010

Today I had a maths AS level class of 2 hours and a half. In theory the class was divided in two, one hour first, an hour to have lunch and then another hour and a half. Apparently the students decided with the teacher to do the 2.5 hours in a row.
I taught the Method of Induction. I wanted them to work in groups to get the rules by themselves by helping each other. It didn't really work. I told them to work together. They worked with the partner but not in groups. In the end I gave them the rules because I saw them waiting for it and I was running out of time.
I think next time I should do the following:
- 2.5 hours in a row is too much. So even if they ask, I am going to do the lesson as it is on the timetable, that is, split in an hour and an hour and a half.
- I will tell them to sit in groups of 3 or 4 to work together. I will decide the groups myself so I can mix up the students.
- I will tell them that they should try together to get the rules instead of me giving them straight away.
- I will tell them that when they go to Uni and to work they will have to work in groups and that sometimes they will have to discover things by themselves, so this practice is going to help them.

18/10/2010

Today I have done my first hour teaching at the College. The subject was Physics and the level GCSE.
I am happy with the lesson. I had a teacher observing me and told me positive things and also things that I can improve. Among the areas of improvement, the one that I want to reflect is that when I ask questions I should wait more for the answers, instead of picking up the first one and then explain it myself.