Friday 3 December 2010

Knowledge and understanding of Minimum Core


Module 2 Task 1: Knowledge and understanding of Minimum Core

For professional formation, all teachers will need to demonstrate personal skills in language/literacy, numeracy and ICT at Level 2 or above (such as GCSE). They are called functional skills and they are considered necessary for everyday life.

Teacher trainers must develop their own knowledge and understanding of language/literacy, numeracy and ICT and use this knowledge and understanding within their subject specific teaching to develop the key skills of their students. Teachers will have to embed these skills into subject specific classroom teaching and show awareness of those skills in their specific subjects.

In my case, as a Maths and Science teacher, level 2 numeracy is embedded in the subjects, so numeracy is checked within the subjects.

Regarding language/literacy and ICT, I am planning to do the following in order to develop and improve my teaching and assessment of learner’s functional skills:

Language/literacy (refers to reading and writing in English language)

-      Check spelling, punctuation and grammar in written work (e.g. small projects or homework). Get students correct themselves or make peer correction.
-      Have an English dictionary in the classroom and encourage them to use it when they have doubts about spelling or meaning.
-      Have quizzes of the meaning of key terms.
-      Get students to make posters of key terms and their definitions and post these around the classroom.
-      Encourage students to read as much as possible and to report back to the group about what they have read.
-      Teach the terms skimming, scanning and close reading and practice these using subject specific materials, such as science news, reports or articles.
-      Widen my own use of vocabulary in my teaching and resources.
-      Teach the term ‘Standard English’ and the potential differences between Standard English and other dialects of English. Be explicit about the political nature of this distinction.

ICT

-      Use the computer (e.g. PowerPoint) when doing presentations in the classroom.
-      Encourage (or require) students to use the computer when doing presentations in the classroom.
-      Let the students use the classroom computer whenever it is necessary and useful in the given situation.
-      Get them present homework and written work in a word-processed program, whenever it is possible.
-      Prepare tasks that involve the use of the internet or computer programs in general.
-      Encourage students to look for information on the internet about a topic that is going to be taught in the following lessons or about a topic that has been taught in class.
-      Play computer games that are related to a specific topic that is interesting for the subject.

30/11/2010 First mentor observation

On Tuesday my mentor observed me for the first time. It was a Physics GCSE lesson about gravity. I should have done it the previous day but the students didn't turn up so I had to do a lesson with a new group.

Overall I'm quite happy with the lesson. My mentor gave me a good feedback. The students were engaged with the lesson most of the time. I did a couple of activities (comment Earth without gravity and why all objects don't fall the same way) that really involved the students. Some positive feedback that the mentor gave me are the following:

- I treat the students with respect and they respect me.
- Good tone of voice and situation in the classroom.
- Enjoyable and appropriate activities for the lesson.
- Very good use of the resources.

My mentor gave me some tips to take into account for the next lessons:

- The font in the presentations should be bigger (about 40).
- I could have included some peer assessment, when talking about the difference between mass and weight.
- Health and Safety: there were two students at the front blocking the exit. Be sure at the beginning of the lesson about health and safety.
- Take time in the slides.
- The video of the feather and ball was quick. Underline it so that students are more focused.
- Use numbers to make W=mg-drag more clear.
- Differentiation. For example I could put in my lesson plan that some questions are for the more able students.