My Reflections for Week 3 of Practicum

Formal Observation 2 (3N2 - Solving Geometric Problems Using Pythagoras' Theorem) 13/03/13

1. What happened? What did I do? What did others do?

·         For this lesson, I used a guided worksheet together with some self-created manipulative to help students apply the Pythagoras' Theorem to solve geometric problems.

·         Students were generally able to catch the concepts quickly and they were able to see the right-angled triangle within a different geometric shape (e.g. square / rectangle / trapezium) and thereafter use the Pythagoras' Theorem.

·         The manipulative helps the students to visualize how the right-angled triangle can be separated from the geometric shape better.

·         However, students were generally able to understand the concepts and several of them were engrossed in solving all the other questions ahead of my pace.

·         As a result, some were not paying attention to their friend's presentation of solutions. Rather, they were trying to complete their worksheet.

·         While the faster students were able to solve the questions, some of them are weak in their presentation. I reminded the students to pay attention to these details.

·         Some were so fast that they felt bored after a while.

2. Why did I think things happened this way? Why did I choose to act the way I did?

·         I underestimated the students' speed and ability to solve these type of problems.

·         I thought that the students would require more scaffolding in order to see how the Pythagoras' Theorem can be used to solve such problems.

·         As this class consists of students who have varying learning abilities (mixture of NA and NT transfer students), i.e. there are pockets of students who are able to learn much faster, it's still important for me to scaffold the mathematical concepts to the class as there are students who are slower and require more guidance.

 

3. How might this change my thinking, behaviour or interactions with others?

·         I should be more familiar with the students' learning abilities and be aware that the higher ability students would need something more challenging in order to not lose their attention during class.

 

4. What do I want to remember to think about in a similar situation? How do I want to act?

·         I should perhaps give clear instructions that when someone is presenting their solutions and when I am explaining to the class, everyone should stop their work and listen in order to not miss out on any important details. I should remain quiet until I have caught everyone's attention.

·         Knowing that some students have already completed their worksheet, I can set aside additional textbook questions for these higher ability students to solve. This would prevent them from feeling listless or bored during class as that might trigger them to talk to their classmates.

 

Formal Observations 3 & 4 (3E2 - Similar Triangles) 15/03/13

1. What happened? What did I do? What did others do?

·         For the lesson trigger, I used real geometrical solids to stimulate students to think of the difference between congruent and similar objects. However, I mistook congruent pyramids and told the students that they are prisms.

·         As I wanted students to ponder about the main property of similar triangles, I asked students two questions verbally and repeated them several times. Students took a while before they could see the difference between these two questions.

o    For similar triangles, are the corresponding lengths between the two triangles the same or are the ratios between the corresponding lengths the same?

·         I had a slight difficulty with the projector. Due to the limitations of the projector layout and the lack of a visualizer, I had to project a softcopy of my worksheet on the whiteboard using the projector. However, it was still a bit too small and I should have increased the font size of my worksheet even more to make sure that all students are able to see it.

·         Some of the students were not so responsive and started to lose focus during the lesson. I went to them to wake them up and asked them to pay attention.

·         There were several students who were asking questions regarding the concepts of similar triangles. One of them was about putting the unknown in the denominator. I mentioned to the class the convenience of putting the unknown in the numerator as this would less likely to result in careless mistakes. However, I should have demonstrated the steps involved when the unknown is in the denominator rather than just saying it verbally.

·         When I am explaining / checking the students' solutions on the board, some students would not be listening and would be trying to solve the questions on their worksheet. This is especially common for the highly motivated students. Most of the time, I would just ask them to look up but their attention would not be for long.

·         There was insufficient time to complete all the questions which I planned to go through in class. This led to a rush closure.

 

2. Why did I think things happened this way? Why did I choose to act the way I did?

·         Regarding the font size of my projected worksheet, I merely asked one or two students at the back of the class if they could see. However, I should have been more conscious and made sure that they could see clearer by maximizing my screen size.

·         I wanted to cover more questions in my worksheet with the class as the students needed to be exposed to more questions before they could work on the rest of the questions independently. This led to me giving the class a rush summary / closure when the bell rang.

 

3. How might this change my thinking, behaviour or interactions with others?

·         I need to ensure that all students are paying attention in my class. I must not close an eye or assume that all students are listening or are able to see what's on the board. This would put them at a learning disadvantage.

·         It is important to pay close attention to the students' questions and address them in detail so that they are clear of the mathematical concepts. Explanations should be expressed clearly on the board in black and white so that students are able to see the workings themselves rather than doing it verbally. This would allow the visual learners to learn better.

 

4. What do I want to remember to think about in a similar situation? How do I want to act?

·         I must avoid having any blind spots whenever I write on the whiteboard.

·         As most students are both visual and auditory, I need to write down the mathematical concepts and explanations clearly on the whiteboard and explain to the students verbally, especially when it is to answer / clarify their doubts.

·         Ensure that when I am checking the selected students' workings presented on the whiteboard, all students are looking up and paying attention. This is important as students are often trying to solve the problems on their own and may miss out important details (e.g. common mistakes) that the teacher would like to point out. This could be done by remaining silent until all eyes are focused on the whiteboard.

·         Be more mindful of the time and ensure that I have at least 3-4 minutes before the bell rings to do a proper closure.

Formal Ob 1 - English Language (Informal Writing), Sec 1 Express

Context:

Double period lesson. In the previous lesson, students have learnt PACC (Purpose, Audience, Context, Culture) and went through idea generation through the use of mind-maps. For this lesson observation, I would provide feedback to some of the students' mind-maps and deconstruct the format and text features of an informal letter with them. Following which, the students would have to write an informal letter which will be counted as part of their CA.

 

1.      What happened?

What went wrong?

• Some students did not complete their weekend homework task (about 6-7 of them). As a result, I had to spend the initial 5-10 minutes scolding them and asking them to tell me what they have learnt in my previous lesson. The students required prompting before they could tell me what PACC was.
• Instead of having two groups to present their mind-maps, there was only time for 1 group to present.
• I experienced some difficulties with the visualizer. Basically, I wasn't able to zoom properly and some students behind were not able to see the words written on the mind-map.
• While deconstructing the informal letter, some students were giving nonsensical and irrelevant comments. For example, Yu Ting was asking whether he could use a North Pole address. Also, when I mentioned "body" in the context of writing, some students were not serious and started referring to it in the physical body sense.
• When referring to "date of letter", I forgot to emphasize the need of writing it in the right format. Thankfully, Mdm Nadiah (my CT) pointed it out and I managed to highlight it to the students.
• There was a slight confusion in the word count as I did not specify if the address and salutation counts towards the total number of words.

What went well?

• Eusuf's group managed to come up with several reasons explaining his suggestions for the places of interest. However, their group did not categorize it correctly under "what" and "why". Some of the reasons were categorized under "what" instead of "why".
• Generally, most students were able to point out several phrases in the model informal letter that suggest the use of an informal tone.
• Students, in particular Nazrul, were able to explain what "contractions" mean and almost all students are able to highlight and identify the use of contractions in the model informal letter.
• Students were able to tell me that contractions are normally used in informal letters and not formal letters.
• When asked to describe informal tone, students are able to throw out words such as "personal", "friendly" etc.

2.      Why?

• Instructions were not given and a firm tone should have been set to stop students from giving irrelevant remarks.
• I did not test the zoom-in function of the visualizer beforehand.
• There were certain details in the deconstruction phase where I should have paid more attention, such as the format of writing the date of letter and the spacing in between the address, date and salutation.
• I should have clarified / checked with my main CT on the word count.

3.      So What?

• I need to ensure that all students are able to see what is being projected on the screen / written on the whiteboard so that no students would be at a learning disadvantage.
• Information / Instructions need to be clear and specific to avoid confusion amongst the students.

4.      Now What?

• For future lessons, I would need to test the visualizer beforehand to avoid losing valuable teaching time.
• The class rules and expectations need to be stated clearly. Tell students that their responses / remarks should be relevant to the lesson.
• I will pay more attention to the small details (e.g. format for writing date of letter etc) for future lessons on informal letter writing.

Practicum Week 2 - 3N Maths (Pythagoras Theorem)

It seemed just like yesterday when I had to bid goodbye to my NIE peers as werted ways and enter a new phase of our teaching career.

1.5 weeks into Junyuan Secondary School, I must say I am starting to get used to the lifestyle of a teacher and the workings of the school. Week 1 was mainly observations and I have gotten a pretty good idea of my students' learning abilities from all the three different classes that I will be undertaking.

Today marked my first teaching lesson and it was a 3N double period class. The topic was on Pythagoras' Theorem. Generally, this bunch of 3N2 students are well-behaved and require a lot of scaffolding. Most of them have the intrinsic nature to want to learn, which is something that I really admire from their Maths CT as she continually affirmed and encouraged them.

What happened?
The lesson went pretty well at the start. Students were engaged in the derivation of Pythagoras' Theorem which required them to cut a composite figure and arrange them to form a square. However, there was a slight problem as there were quite a number of pairs who did not bring their scissors despite given instructions a few days back. As such, my intended plan of doing pair work could not be carried out. Instead, some had to drag their chairs to form groups of 4. I wasn't prepared to do group work as my Maths CT has not tried out group work with this class before. But when I was thrown into that situation which I should have pre-empted, I had to break them into groups on the spot. Thankfully, I think the purpose of the activity went through and most groups, or if not all groups, manged to see the relation between a2 + b2 and c2 through areas of the squares.

Unfortunately, the last part of the lesson was a bit rush as I was running out of time and I was trying to complete my lesson plan. I should have realised that I was going too fast and students were not able to catch the method of solving the problems as it was a new topic for them. Hence, there were some students who have not managed to grasp the concepts and the presentation required for the solution.

Why did it happen?
The reasons for these could be because the instructions given to the students to bring scissors were done through facebook. I should have done it verbally as some students may not have accessed facebook. Reminders on the day before should also have been carried out.

The consolidation part of the lesson could be too rush because I have over-planned my lesson. I should have considered the learning ability of the students and dwell deeper into coaching and guiding them for a few questions first before allowing them to do other questions independently. I should have been more flexible and work around my lesson plan rather than trying to follow it.

So what?
I realised the importance of slowing and pacing my lesson better for these lower ability students. More time is needed for these students to do these questions and more examples should be modelled before assigning questions to the students. The topic needs to be scaffolded even more, especially when it comes to solving questions.

Instructions delineated should be clear and taken seriously by the students. I should have reminded the Maths rep to announce it to the class the day before the maths lesson and write it down on the whiteboard.

Now what?
To ensure that the students are able to grasp the topic, instead of following my next lesson plan that has been pre-prepared, I would need to spend the next two periods going back to the basics by modelling more examples and guiding the students in solving more questions. I would need to show the solutions in a clear and consistent step-by-step manner so that students are able to follow.