Practicum Reflection 27 February 2012

Today was the first time that I have a chance to teach but I was quite disappointed with my performance knowing that I should have done better since I was a contract teacher for such a long time. I have higher expectations of myself.

The lesson was a 1 period Social Studies lesson for a Primary 2 class. I was teaching about festivals today. Perhaps I was too ambitious, my lesson over-ran. I felt myself rushing through the lesson. One disadvantage was also the fact that they just had their recess so a lot of time were needed to settle the class down. By the time I told them about my rules, ten minutes have passed. I only had a good twenty minutes of teaching time and I had to rush the class during group work. I found that due to all the rushing, the pupils were not able to fully grasp the objectives of the lesson. In fact, I did not state the objective of my lesson too.

I think that in future, I should just plan for a twenty minutes lesson so that I can really ensure that the pupils benefit. Rushing through the lesson is really not beneficial for them. I need to think of short group activities instead to engage them. However, one thing I noticed is that they were enjoying the visual impacts of the various pictures pasted. They were really excited about it.

Comments from my CT stated that I should ask more open-ended questions to trigger the thoughts of the pupils with high ability. I should not only call out to those who put up their hands but those who did not too. I will take note of these in my English lesson tomorrow.