In the Stage 2 of my Individual Learning Plan I have undertaken a self-diagnosis of my strengths and development needs, which have been discussed with my personal tutor. For this stage I have drawn on feedback from my teaching and my second assignment. The feedback was given from my mentor at the College and from my personal tutor at the Institute.
Practical teaching
One of my development needs set at the ILP was to check learners’ understanding and learning outcomes throughout the lesson. I used to check understanding at the beginning or at the end of the lesson but not constantly throughout the lesson. In order to address this development need, I am doing the following:
I normally start the session by doing an activity to check learners’ knowledge about the topic of the lesson. I do different types of activities such as making a poster about what they know of the topic, a True of False activity or filling the gaps activity.
During the lesson I use different methods to check learners’ understanding: I use open or directed questioning, I make students explain what they understood from my explanation or we do an exercise and then the learners have to explain and demonstrate it on the blackboard.
At the end of the lesson I check the learning outcomes. There are different activities I have been using for this objective, such as quizzes, exercises that summarise the lesson, open or directed questioning, etc.
I am addressing other development needs set in the ILP in the following way: when planning the lesson, I try to anticipate to the possible questions about meaning or content of the lesson. For example, I promote a discussion about what a term means before explaining it (insulator, electrostatic, etc.). During the lesson, I check if students are on task, particularly the ones who tend to be more passive. I try to encourage them and praise their effort. Before starting to explain something I elicit from the students what they know about it. They get more involved and participate more throughout the lesson.
Literacy/Written Communication skills
In order to address the need of including theory that relates to the assignment topic, in my last assignment, I included some theories that relate to critical incidents. First, I explained what critical incident means in relation to some ideas of different authors. I then applied it to my own reflection and my own teaching practice.
In the assignment I tried to make all my points as clear as possible to avoid the reader asking themselves “why?”. The analysis of the incidents was based on my own thoughts and also on conversations with some of the students involved in the incidents.
