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!
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