Tuesday saw me in one of the Yr8 classes in my school.
No planning had been left for me - or so I thought - so I made plans to produce
ideas and find suitable resources online to offer the students. As it turned out,
the class teacher appeared at 8.45 with a brief outline of the day.
Between plans from the teacher and my own resources, the day went really well.
The students also move around a great deal - going to specific classes at
different times so at any one time I was left with as few a 8 students in the class.
How could I have improved this day?
If I had been informed of the subject matter being covered - in particular
rotational symmetry in maths, I could have prepared physical resources to
help with the visualisation of learning this area of geometry.
I also found that the website I wanted to use as a quick - fire writing
exercise was blocked by the school firewall whereas it has worked in other
schools. I could be more prepared for this in future..
Thursday was a Yr5/6 class- part of a larger shared teaching space of 4 classes.
The day consisted of completing ‘can do/must do’ sheets which students are
given each day for recording completed work which a member of staff signs off
when they have seen it. I am always surprised how many students don’t actually
complete tasks or ignore them completely. This notion of a one size fits all doesn’t
work for some and is unnecessary for others.
I might suggest for next term that the forms are reduced to a weekly checklist
which should be easier to manage and pinpoint those individuals avoiding tasks.
Workshop sessions are held to cover activities. I was teaching a method of recording
non-fiction facts as a pyramid. The time allocated was too short for the students to
grasp a new concept to any depth so I will be revisiting this activity on the first
day back after the Easter weekend.
Workshop two was a topic relating to migration. The language and observations
made by the students was incredibly detailed and again the session ran over
(I was working with another colleague and two classes) We looked at photos
and scenarios relating to migration. Students were instructed to write a padlet
for at least one of the pictures.
employing in the school.
There was a great deal of reluctance with the students who could answer
the questions, having to take a back step and explain the how, why and
strategies used to solve these problems.
On reflection, I would use less material - maybe one opened ended/ multiple
staged question which could be focused on by the whole class.
With regard to research around reflective practice, I tend to look at
‘what didn’t go so well and seldom look at why a lesson went well and
created a goodly amount of learning. That doesn't mean to say I wouldn’t
do something again as I think we instinctively know when something worked
well we would use that format in other lessons.
I would like to think that my reflection is a little more than ‘navel gazing’ as
described by Laravee in 2000.
Although it might look that I have only considered retrospective reflection
in the past, as stemming from doubt about my practice (as proposed by Dewey
way back in 1933), as I explore the realms of blogging and read around past
and current research, I should find reflection to be a useful tool for informing
my practice and how I can evaluate my teaching.
So here’s my proposed plan:-
1) Do more than just immediate reflection - although it can be argued
this is a good process to use whilst teaching is actually going on.
Ref: Schon’s (1983) notion of reflection-on-action (after-the-event thinking)
and reflection-in-action (thinking while doing).
2) Talk to others - both in school and via other people’s blogs and Google+ posts
3) Look at research - I’m thinking papers here rather than hefty tomes from
professors in dusty halls - but work of people who are experiencing
teaching head on.
As final words I quite like this thought - In the field of teaching, Brookfield (1995)
characterises critical reflection as ‘stance and dance’.The critically reflective
teacher’s stance toward teaching is one of inquiry and being open to further
investigation.The dance involves experimentation and risk towards modifying
practice while moving to fluctuating, and possibly, contradictory rhythms (Laravee 2000)
I’m looking forward to a lot more dancing from now on….
References :-
Dewey J (1933) How We Think: A restatement of the relation of reflective
thinking to the educative process: Houghton Mifflin.
Finlay L (2008) Reflecting on Reflective Practice PBPL Paper 52 OUP
Larrivee B, (2000) Transforming Teaching Practice: Becoming the critically
reflective teacher: Reflective Practice 1(3) pp 293-307
Schon’s (1983) ‘The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action ’Basic Books
Well done! It is hard to be in the shoes of a reliever, coping with an ever changing dynamic even harder and I take my hat off to you.
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts are concise and make sense. I love your quote on the dance of teaching. I had never thought of teaching in that light before, and this strikes a note with me as I am a dancer as well.
Thank you Dianna. Being a reliever and new to NZ does make things tricky at times. Thank you for your encouraging comments.
DeleteHi Toni. I think your experience as a cover teacher is really interesting as you are possibly reflecting on different things than what i would be with my own set classes. You are very right I think that we naturally dwell on the 'not so good' aspects. Especially immediately after the event/ incident r lesson which has gone pear-shaped. However i think perhaps this reflective focus will give all of us an opportunity to reflect more holistically, and with the blogging element it forces use to take the time and give the issue due 'head-space' to hopefully learn from the experience. Cheers for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks Claire for your comments. I think when I have my own class things might me different. Also being in a shared space it is sometimes difficult getting one's ideas accepted and trialed.
DeleteHi Toni, I like the idea you have to convert can do/must do’s into a weekly checklist. We have something similar in our school and students mark off what they have done each day. It makes it very easy to spot who is getting tasks completed (or not!).
ReplyDeleteI also understand your frustrations being handed planning, with 10 minutes to digest. As an action from your reflection, perhaps when faced with the same scenario, you’d make sure planning was ready the day before and clearly left for the cover teacher on release days.
I really like your signing off sentence too! Plenty of “dancing” going on here.
Thank you Nancy. I get used to having to make things up on the fly but could also be better prepared with a larger portfolio of lessons for such occasions as this. Mostly, people are very good. It's when they say 'Do your own thing'that it can get a bit stressful!
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