Class #9
This class was our last time being observed by our practicum supervisor, and I was nervous but excited for her to see what Chloe and I had introduced into our lessons. I again added a question to the beginning of the class since it went so well the first time, and I noticed that the relationship with the students was starting to form. I asked about their favourite food because who doesn’t like to talk about that. There were some great answers, and I found myself excited to share, as well. We then introduced a little matching game, which I think the students enjoyed it was a great warm-up to the subject and a great reminder of the mistakes they might find in their writing. I feel like with this lesson Chloe and I made it our own, adding a few more fun and different things like matching and the quotes. The quote was fun and something a little different then what I had done before. I think it was a great way to break up the class and remind them of one of the past editing tips we had given them. The one thing that this class made me recognize was that everything always takes longer than you think. We didn’t follow our exact plan, but I think that Chloe and I made some good decisions in making sure that students had a break despite not finishing the practice. One thing that I have realized and learned is the flexibility of a teacher is important. A teacher needs to be able to make sudden changes or rearrange things to do what is best for her class and not just the lesson. I think students appreciate teachers who acknowledge the class’s mood and the ability for the day, then tries to arrange it, so it suits them a bit better.
Class #10
After having a pretty good run in the first class, I felt a lot more confident in the second class. Chloe and I started to notice that the students seemed to be getting the hang of editing, which was very exciting. Every time they succeeded, it just made me grin and encourage them even more. One of the nice things about having been teaching editing three times is that I feel like we really could help them this time. One of the things in the future that I would like to change or try is that instead of going through all the answers at the end, I would like to divide it up and have students get the answers after each section. I think this gives just a bit more focus on each of the sections and might create less confusion. Another thing that we finally figured out this class was what to do about those who could not watch the videos because of where they lived. We changed to screen sharing the video, and everyone was able to enjoy it, which was nice. I hated that people might feel left out of any part of the lesson. We didn’t have a lot of technical issues, but this was one of the few. In many ways, it was sad to be done teaching these classes. I enjoyed getting to know the students and watching them learn. There is no better feeling than seeing a student succeed, especially if they were struggling. Although we still couldn’t get everyone to participate, I think we did a good job overall. I learned a lot of stuff, especially from this second class, which gave me a lot of challenges, but I am thankful because that will make me a better teacher.
