Reflection 1

This reflective blog is going to look at one of those little ‘teaching life lessons’ that should come as an obvious, but it’s not until you are thrown into an unknown situation that you come to realise you really should have thought of it before hand! So in order to share this experience with you I will attempt to critically reflect on my experience and consider ways in which I could improve my teaching practice – which in this case shouldn’t be too hard!

It was the first day of my prac, it was period 1 and it was my first time with Year10.3, the lower ability Geography class. I had spent the Sunday planning my lessons, making sure that all aspects were covered in order to produce a successful lesson. As a result I was relatively confident i n my preparedness and was sure that I could pull this first lesson off without any major hurdles – I was wrong.

Problem 1: I was not 100% confident with the content I had to teach that lesson (Element 1). I knew what I had to know for the success of the lesson but was still a bit scratchy on the broader information of the topic.

Problem 2: A tightly structured lesson is helpful but only if what you have planned can actually be implemented in the classroom. I had organised a large bulk of the lesson referring to the class GeoActive Textbook. The students were to use the maps, images and graphs to complete worksheets and other various activities. Here lies my biggest problem – ONE student out of the TWENTY in the class actually had his textbook…

With only one textbook in the classroom this wasn’t just a matter of sharing one between two and simply cutting out one activity –  this was a matter of not being able to use the textbook AT ALL and not being able to use the bulk of my tightly structured lesson plan… AT ALL! Improvisation came into play here but when you are not 100% confident with the content you are teaching and your standing up in front of 20 Year 10 boys for the first time, it is a pretty daunting situation.  I managed to get through 40 minutes of the lesson but then had nothing else I could think of to do with the boys for the remaining 10 mintues. Feeling a bit like a failure, I actually ended up asking my college teacher to finish the last 10 minutes of the lesson for me (which he was more than happy to do). Looking back on this situation I know I was too harsh on myself and if the situation arose again I could most likely deal with it, but it was all so new and I was so nervous, so that is how it happened.

As a result of this experience I have learnt the undeniable importance of having a BACKUP PLAN for every lesson I enter into! Through the outcome of this lesson I have also come to realise the importance of constant development in rapport building, organisation and especially successfully dealing with the change processes (Lieberman, Saxl and Miles, 1998). (Element 6)

Although at the time this lesson was extremely painful for me, I am glad that it turned out the way it did. I am now a great deal more aware of the realities and unpredicibility of teaching and , once again, of having a back-up plan… something I will surely not forget in a hurry!

LESSON : ALWAYS HAVE A BACK UP PLAN !!

OH, and this is also probably a good thing to remember:

Thanks for reading,

See you next time!

Sarah.

This blog holds reference to the following elements: 3,6.

Reference:

Gehrke, Nathalie. ‘Developing Teachers’ Leadership Skills. 1991. http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9219/skills.htm(accessed 19/8/10)