This week was a busy one for me - not only did I have my final observations by both my NIE supervisor and my CT, I also had to juggle several consultations with my students, prepare for a lecture, and finish up a lesson plan that would be used across the H2 classes for their first Unit 2 tutorial. Here are some of the main takeaways from these activities:
1) Final lesson observations by NIE supervisor and CT
My final lesson observations took place on Wednesday and Thursday this week, and perhaps because of their proximity to each other, my feedback for them turned out to be very similar. My main area for improvement was pinpointed as my questioning technique, as both my NIE supervisor and CT commented that I still failed to give sufficient wait-time for students to digest and respond to my questions, and that I frequently asked questions with a "model answer" in mind that I wanted students to hit. These actions often resulted in me either pushing or trying to rephrase students' answers to fit my expectations, and sometimes even directly giving them the answer when they took too long (in my opinion) to respond. I am quite aware of both this weakness and my reason for perpetuating it - I tend to be very concerned about keeping to the time and covering the requisite content for the lesson such that it will not have to spillover into the next tutorial, and I know that I am also inconfident about my ability to just work with students' ideas and push for greater understandings from there. These concerns essentially cause me to "spoon-feed" my students, and on reflection, I realise that my actions have really gone against my ideals about promoting independent student learning and critical thinking skills. Time and again I tell myself that I need to worry less about my coverage objectives and focus on working with what I have (i.e. my students' responses, regardless of the level of ability and understanding that these responses come from), and while I know that changing these teaching habits is going to be an uphill battle that may well take months and years, I believe that at least making an effort to do so would be beneficial for both teaching and learning in the long term.
2) Consultations with students
For some reason, this week was really packed with student consultations - I had at least one on each day! Oddly enough, I found consultations more tiring than classroom instruction, but I realised that teaching one-to-one or in a small group setting did have its benefits. Firstly, they presented excellent opportunities to check for my students' understanding and get to know more about their unique strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. In addition, I was able to solicit feedback from them on my lessons, and was pleasantly surprised when a few of my students were able to clearly articulate which teaching strategies they found effective for their learning and which they did not really benefit from. (Unfortunately, students from the same class gave completely different opinions on teaching strategies, with some wanting more interactive methods such as debates in class, and others preferring direct instruction - I have yet to decide how I am going to approach their feedback and incorporate it into my lessons!) My takeaways from the consultation were, however, dependent on their willingness to speak up during the consultation - I realised that if it was a small group setting, one or two students tended to monopolize the discussion and essentially turn it into a conversation between myself and him or her, and much as I tried to engage the other student(s) who came for the consultation, they generally remained silent and seemed content to just listen in on the discussion and take notes. I feel that I already tried my best to involve them by repeatedly asking for their opinions or if they had any questions, and even asked them at the end of the consultation if they were satisfied with my explanations and had any further doubts to clear, but they insisted that they were "alright" and had "nothing else to ask". I suppose the only ways to encourage greater participation in future would be either to see them one-to-one or to get them to submit questions prior to the consultation and inform them that the session would be focused on answering them, which would mean that if they asked no questions, then the consultation would not be able to proceed.
Another aspect about consultations which I enjoyed was my ability to get to know my students better. My personal teaching philosophy has a lot to do with caring for my students and nurturing them both intellectually and emotionally, and I firmly believe that good teachers need to be concerned for the students as individual human beings, not just grades-producing machines. I felt like I had been able to build closer bonds with my students through my numerous consultations this week, and I was very touched by how one girl, who happens to be going through a difficult period now, was willing to open up to me and share about her personal struggles. This helped me to understand why she had been falling behind so badly in her work of late, and reminded me of the importance of seeking to understand my students first before writing them off as being merely "lazy", "uncommitted" or "disinterested", labels which I had heard several teachers (over my various teaching experiences, as well as my time as a student) use on their under-performing students. Empathy is really such an important quality in this line of work, and I really hope that my passion for my students will not diminish over time.
3) SAC lesson plan preparation
This lesson was intended to incorporate elements of the Structured Academic Controversy, although my discussion with the other teachers in the department during AJ Learning Day (Week 5) yielded feedback that this plan was too ambitious to carry out within a 60-minute tutorial, especially since it was the first one on a new unit. I thus had to spend some time this week discussing this lesson plan with Marcus and planning how best to modify our approach. In the end, we decided to remove the role-reversal component of the SAC and simply focus on having the students construct their own argument and critique the argument of the other pair, before working together on a synthesized and balanced stand. To help smoothen out the process, we created graphic organisers that would help to organise students' thinking and scaffold the learning process, as well as powerpoint slides that could be used at each phase of the modified SAC as a way of reinforcing instructions and expectations of the students during the activity. I really am looking forward to implementing the lesson next week, and hope that my students will be receptive!
Sunday 21 April 2013
Sunday 14 April 2013
Practicum Week 6
This week went by rather uneventfully, with the exception of the lesson observation by my CT, HOD, and one of the vice-principals. This took place on Wednesday with my H1 class, and at the beginning, I was rather nervous about how things would go as this class tends to be weak in both content knowledge and skills mastery. I thus tried to ensure that the lesson would be pitched at a comfortable level and pace for them to follow, and used two "real-world" examples in an effort to deepen their understanding of certain concepts and writing skills - the first being a series of optical illusions, which I used as an illustration of the concept of misunderstandings and inaccurate perceptions, and the second being a mock essay question on Taylor Swift. This mock question, and more importantly, its accompanying argument, was intended to function as a sort of teacher-modelling for the class. I wanted them to be able to understand the elements and structure of an argument, and decided to use an example from popular culture as it would not only generate interest, but also prevent the problem of them simply copying down the argument word-for-word and not focusing on understanding how it was constructed, which I foresaw would be the case if I had used an example from the syllabus. At the end of the lesson, I felt quite positive about how things had gone, and was very grateful to my students for their cooperation and responsiveness. There were no classroom management issues (as is typical of students in AJC) and they were much more familiar with their content material than they had been in previous weeks, perhaps because this was their last tutorial on the origins of the Cold War. Their improved content mastery was a great help in enabling me to achieve what I had planned in the lesson, as this was a largely thinking skills-based tutorial, and I was fairly confident that my students had left with at least a better understanding of how to construct an argument, albeit in a group. The following critique with my observers was useful as always, and I was touched by their willingness to take time out of their schedules and talk me through every phase of my lesson, pointing out both the good and bad points of my lesson execution and asking for my personal assessment of how things went. One significant issue was the time I had allocated for the group work - as the H1 class has a 90-minute tutorial, I tend to take liberties with the amount of time given for student discussion, but my observers reminded me that this may not be a good thing as students will not be trained to think and speak up more quickly, particularly if they always feel that they will be given time extensions. This is something that I will definitely bear in mind for future classes, and I will be sure to state my expectations for group work (including the time allocated) clearly before the activity, and insist that students stick to it as far as possible.
As for the other aspects of my practicum life, such as CCA observations, staff meetings and the like, I felt that this week was rather routine. After 6 weeks of being posted to AJC, I can finally say that I have somewhat settled into "real" teaching life, in the sense that I have now fully internalised and keep to a schedule of lectures, tutorials, meetings, and CCA duties. I am actually grateful for this routine as it helps me maintain a sense of order in my week, and I no longer feel that sense of struggle to stay on top of my responsibilities, as I sometimes did in the weeks before.
As for the other aspects of my practicum life, such as CCA observations, staff meetings and the like, I felt that this week was rather routine. After 6 weeks of being posted to AJC, I can finally say that I have somewhat settled into "real" teaching life, in the sense that I have now fully internalised and keep to a schedule of lectures, tutorials, meetings, and CCA duties. I am actually grateful for this routine as it helps me maintain a sense of order in my week, and I no longer feel that sense of struggle to stay on top of my responsibilities, as I sometimes did in the weeks before.
Sunday 7 April 2013
Practicum Week 5
This week was one of many learning experiences. I participated in two external seminars to improve both my content and pedagogical knowledge, and had my first observation by my NIE supervisor. In addition, I also participated in my first fieldtrip as a teacher-facilitator, as part of the College's "Learning Day" programme.
1) ACJC "Dialogic" Seminar
On Tuesday afternoon, my fellow History teachers and I went with a group of JC2s to ACJC to attend an International History seminar as part of their "Dialogic" series of talks. The talk was given by A/P Malcolm Murfett of the NUS History Department (a familiar face from my undergraduate days) and it was on the "special relationship" between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. A/P Murfett gave a thorough and entertaining talk on how this relationship impacted global affairs, especially the unfolding of the Cold War, and it was well-received by the many teachers and students from the various JCs who were present. I managed to glean a lot from this session, particularly since international history isn't really my forte, and now see the importance of keeping these talks open to teachers - very often, it is us, not the students, who need to continually deepen our understanding of historical issues, and large-scale sessions like this are a convenient way of sharing ideas and upgrading our content knowledge. There will be another "Dialogic" seminar, this time on Southeast Asia, sometime in early May, and I know I will definitely be going for that as well.
2) AJ Learning Day
This day began with a workshop on the "Skillful Teacher" for the staff. Prior to this session, my CT had informed Marcus and I to read up on Chapters 16 and 17 of the book and create a lesson plan that would be usable in the teaching of the upcoming Southeast Asian unit. We were supposed to present this lesson plan to our fellow History colleagues during this session, and modify it according to their feedback. During the workshop, we heard presentations on these chapters by senior teachers, and I thought this was very useful as one of them used her own teaching strategies as exemplars of what and what not to do in the classroom. Her honest yet light-hearted appraisal of her strategies over the years provided a really good basis for reflection, as some of her methods - sadly, the less successful ones - actually looked similar to what I had tried before. This helped me gain a greater insight into not just what I had done or been doing ineffectively, but also helped me understand why it was ineffective. Through my preparation for this workshop, my greatest takeaway was the understanding of the various levels of lesson objectives, beginning with coverage objectives (teacher-centric focus on just getting the content for the day covered); activity objectives (focus on what the students will do during the lesson); involvement thinking (focus on differentiated learning and designing specific activities to suit the different needs of students); and finally the "ideal" objectives - mastery and skills. I realised that much of my lesson planning had been revolving around only the first two levels of lesson objectives, and that I had often lost sight of the bigger picture in doing so. Attending this workshop thus motivated me to try and alter my frame of thinking, and to work from the broader mastery and skills objectives instead of just being focused on covering the tutorial material for the day in preparing for my lessons. I hope that, with practice, it will be easier for me to work from this frame of mind, and trust that doing so will make a genuine difference in the way I teach and my students learn.
Following this workshop, I then chaperoned a small group of students on "Artscapade", a fieldtrip to the Marina Bay area organised specially for the JC1s taking Arts subject combinations. Since I was not involved in the planning phase of this fieldtrip, I was paired with my CT and thus took on more of the role of observer rather than facilitator. In fact, the real facilitators were the JC2s - each group of JC1s had a JC2 student attached to them, and the latter was meant to facilitate the entire learning journey, with only minimal assistance from the teachers as and when it was required. While the hot weather did put a slight damper on our spirits (it also did not help that I was totally unfamiliar with the students in my group, having never taught them before), my group eventually warmed up, and I was happy to see them actively engaging in fieldwork methodology such as approaching people for interviews. I also felt that the JC2 student was extremely responsible and motivated as a leader, and this made me reflect on how, at the JC level, we are really preparing the students for more than just the 'A' Levels. Cliched as it sounds, we are preparing them for "real life", and I feel that going out on this enrichment fieldtrip helped them to break out of their shells and push themselves to work in teams, try new things, and even develop their leadership abilities. While the planning phase must have been very difficult for those teachers involved, I think that their hard work definitely paid off, and am quite looking forward to an opportunity to plan a fieldtrip myself, although I would prefer to do one that is specifically focused on History.
3) Formal Lesson Observation #1 with NIE supervisor
On Friday, my NIE supervisor came to observe my lesson for the first time. I must admit that I was very nervous about this, not least because it also happened to be the first time that I was trying out the strategy of source-based inquiry with my students, and really could not predict how things would turn out despite my good rapport with the class. In addition, the lesson was held in a different venue as I wanted the classroom layout to be more conducive for group work, but then during the lesson I felt a little disoriented by the size of the space and was unable to follow my usual routine of walking around to check their work in the comfortable manner I had gotten accustomed to. During the lesson, I think my nerves got the better of me and I wound up compromising on my questioning techniques in a bid to ensure that I would be able to finish all that I had planned within the 60-minute tutorial. I barely asked the students to give their responses or feedback, and when I did, I offered such little wait-time that I often wound up being the one to answer my own questions. My NIE supervisor summarised this teaching style as "doing all the thinking for my students", and I (sadly) agree. While the temptation to simply provide the answers for them is particularly high in a situation whereby the students are unfamiliar with the task requirements, I've come to realise that I am actually doing them a disservice in the long-run as they would become dependent on me for the "right answers" all the time and never push themselves towards independent inquiry, which ironically was supposed to be the rationale behind the source-work activity.
In addition, I felt that I might have pitched the lesson at a level that was lower than would have been appropriate - my NIE supervisor advised me that I should have asked the students to do a direct comparison across the three sources in their groups instead of assigning each group a different source to analyse. This would have better helped students to develop the key skill at the heart of the tutorial question, namely the ability to make comparisons across sources. Also, I could have cut out my short activity of getting them to identify the source provenance altogether, as that did not add any value to the lesson and was a basic requirement that I could have checked by simply going around to read the graphic organisers that they were supposed to have filled in before the lesson. This feedback made me realise that I should take more risks in my teaching and expect a high quality of work from my students, instead of giving them easy tasks that would not really stretch them or help them to develop higher-order thinking skills. This lesson was therefore a major learning experience for me, and has helped to shed light on some of my ineffective teaching practices. I hope to be able to learn from my mistakes and correct myself with more in-class practice, and to build on my existing strengths (e.g. good rapport and classroom management) to become an increasingly effective teacher over time.
4) Singapore History Association seminar
My CT, Marcus, and I were invited to a seminar for teachers organised by the Singapore History Association (it so happens that Marcus' and my CT is the president!) on Saturday morning. The speaker was Dr Chua Ai Lin, a professor from the NUS History department, and another familiar face for me as I had taken a couple of her modules during my time as an undergraduate. She spoke on possible approaches to the teaching and learning of secondary school History that teachers could adopt in the classroom, and these included strategies such as:
- Visits to museums, particularly the galleries at the National Museum
- Getting students to conduct oral history interviews
- Exposing them to relevant films
- Encouraging their participation in blogs and/or Facebook groups to do with Singapore history and heritage
- Drawing on materials from newspapers.nl.sg and the oral history archives
While this talk was catered more for the lower secondary level, as that is the time when Singapore history is a part of the syllabus, I felt that many of Dr Chua's suggested methods would be applicable at the JC level as well, especially since many of us as teachers struggle to make the content relevant and engaging for the students. By emphasizing the personal element of History and the need to exercise empathy when trying to understand the actions of various individuals and/or groups in the past, as well as an awareness of the multiple interpretations of historical developments that exist, I believe that we can make this often dry subject come alive for our students. As of now, Marcus and I haven't really found ways to make these methods a mainstay of our lessons but I believe that as our familiarity with the content and basic requirements of teaching grows, we will be increasingly able to find ways to value-add to our lessons and stretch the students further in their appreciation of the discipline.
1) ACJC "Dialogic" Seminar
On Tuesday afternoon, my fellow History teachers and I went with a group of JC2s to ACJC to attend an International History seminar as part of their "Dialogic" series of talks. The talk was given by A/P Malcolm Murfett of the NUS History Department (a familiar face from my undergraduate days) and it was on the "special relationship" between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. A/P Murfett gave a thorough and entertaining talk on how this relationship impacted global affairs, especially the unfolding of the Cold War, and it was well-received by the many teachers and students from the various JCs who were present. I managed to glean a lot from this session, particularly since international history isn't really my forte, and now see the importance of keeping these talks open to teachers - very often, it is us, not the students, who need to continually deepen our understanding of historical issues, and large-scale sessions like this are a convenient way of sharing ideas and upgrading our content knowledge. There will be another "Dialogic" seminar, this time on Southeast Asia, sometime in early May, and I know I will definitely be going for that as well.
2) AJ Learning Day
This day began with a workshop on the "Skillful Teacher" for the staff. Prior to this session, my CT had informed Marcus and I to read up on Chapters 16 and 17 of the book and create a lesson plan that would be usable in the teaching of the upcoming Southeast Asian unit. We were supposed to present this lesson plan to our fellow History colleagues during this session, and modify it according to their feedback. During the workshop, we heard presentations on these chapters by senior teachers, and I thought this was very useful as one of them used her own teaching strategies as exemplars of what and what not to do in the classroom. Her honest yet light-hearted appraisal of her strategies over the years provided a really good basis for reflection, as some of her methods - sadly, the less successful ones - actually looked similar to what I had tried before. This helped me gain a greater insight into not just what I had done or been doing ineffectively, but also helped me understand why it was ineffective. Through my preparation for this workshop, my greatest takeaway was the understanding of the various levels of lesson objectives, beginning with coverage objectives (teacher-centric focus on just getting the content for the day covered); activity objectives (focus on what the students will do during the lesson); involvement thinking (focus on differentiated learning and designing specific activities to suit the different needs of students); and finally the "ideal" objectives - mastery and skills. I realised that much of my lesson planning had been revolving around only the first two levels of lesson objectives, and that I had often lost sight of the bigger picture in doing so. Attending this workshop thus motivated me to try and alter my frame of thinking, and to work from the broader mastery and skills objectives instead of just being focused on covering the tutorial material for the day in preparing for my lessons. I hope that, with practice, it will be easier for me to work from this frame of mind, and trust that doing so will make a genuine difference in the way I teach and my students learn.
Following this workshop, I then chaperoned a small group of students on "Artscapade", a fieldtrip to the Marina Bay area organised specially for the JC1s taking Arts subject combinations. Since I was not involved in the planning phase of this fieldtrip, I was paired with my CT and thus took on more of the role of observer rather than facilitator. In fact, the real facilitators were the JC2s - each group of JC1s had a JC2 student attached to them, and the latter was meant to facilitate the entire learning journey, with only minimal assistance from the teachers as and when it was required. While the hot weather did put a slight damper on our spirits (it also did not help that I was totally unfamiliar with the students in my group, having never taught them before), my group eventually warmed up, and I was happy to see them actively engaging in fieldwork methodology such as approaching people for interviews. I also felt that the JC2 student was extremely responsible and motivated as a leader, and this made me reflect on how, at the JC level, we are really preparing the students for more than just the 'A' Levels. Cliched as it sounds, we are preparing them for "real life", and I feel that going out on this enrichment fieldtrip helped them to break out of their shells and push themselves to work in teams, try new things, and even develop their leadership abilities. While the planning phase must have been very difficult for those teachers involved, I think that their hard work definitely paid off, and am quite looking forward to an opportunity to plan a fieldtrip myself, although I would prefer to do one that is specifically focused on History.
3) Formal Lesson Observation #1 with NIE supervisor
On Friday, my NIE supervisor came to observe my lesson for the first time. I must admit that I was very nervous about this, not least because it also happened to be the first time that I was trying out the strategy of source-based inquiry with my students, and really could not predict how things would turn out despite my good rapport with the class. In addition, the lesson was held in a different venue as I wanted the classroom layout to be more conducive for group work, but then during the lesson I felt a little disoriented by the size of the space and was unable to follow my usual routine of walking around to check their work in the comfortable manner I had gotten accustomed to. During the lesson, I think my nerves got the better of me and I wound up compromising on my questioning techniques in a bid to ensure that I would be able to finish all that I had planned within the 60-minute tutorial. I barely asked the students to give their responses or feedback, and when I did, I offered such little wait-time that I often wound up being the one to answer my own questions. My NIE supervisor summarised this teaching style as "doing all the thinking for my students", and I (sadly) agree. While the temptation to simply provide the answers for them is particularly high in a situation whereby the students are unfamiliar with the task requirements, I've come to realise that I am actually doing them a disservice in the long-run as they would become dependent on me for the "right answers" all the time and never push themselves towards independent inquiry, which ironically was supposed to be the rationale behind the source-work activity.
In addition, I felt that I might have pitched the lesson at a level that was lower than would have been appropriate - my NIE supervisor advised me that I should have asked the students to do a direct comparison across the three sources in their groups instead of assigning each group a different source to analyse. This would have better helped students to develop the key skill at the heart of the tutorial question, namely the ability to make comparisons across sources. Also, I could have cut out my short activity of getting them to identify the source provenance altogether, as that did not add any value to the lesson and was a basic requirement that I could have checked by simply going around to read the graphic organisers that they were supposed to have filled in before the lesson. This feedback made me realise that I should take more risks in my teaching and expect a high quality of work from my students, instead of giving them easy tasks that would not really stretch them or help them to develop higher-order thinking skills. This lesson was therefore a major learning experience for me, and has helped to shed light on some of my ineffective teaching practices. I hope to be able to learn from my mistakes and correct myself with more in-class practice, and to build on my existing strengths (e.g. good rapport and classroom management) to become an increasingly effective teacher over time.
4) Singapore History Association seminar
My CT, Marcus, and I were invited to a seminar for teachers organised by the Singapore History Association (it so happens that Marcus' and my CT is the president!) on Saturday morning. The speaker was Dr Chua Ai Lin, a professor from the NUS History department, and another familiar face for me as I had taken a couple of her modules during my time as an undergraduate. She spoke on possible approaches to the teaching and learning of secondary school History that teachers could adopt in the classroom, and these included strategies such as:
- Visits to museums, particularly the galleries at the National Museum
- Getting students to conduct oral history interviews
- Exposing them to relevant films
- Encouraging their participation in blogs and/or Facebook groups to do with Singapore history and heritage
- Drawing on materials from newspapers.nl.sg and the oral history archives
While this talk was catered more for the lower secondary level, as that is the time when Singapore history is a part of the syllabus, I felt that many of Dr Chua's suggested methods would be applicable at the JC level as well, especially since many of us as teachers struggle to make the content relevant and engaging for the students. By emphasizing the personal element of History and the need to exercise empathy when trying to understand the actions of various individuals and/or groups in the past, as well as an awareness of the multiple interpretations of historical developments that exist, I believe that we can make this often dry subject come alive for our students. As of now, Marcus and I haven't really found ways to make these methods a mainstay of our lessons but I believe that as our familiarity with the content and basic requirements of teaching grows, we will be increasingly able to find ways to value-add to our lessons and stretch the students further in their appreciation of the discipline.
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