Hello and welcome to my inner monologue! It has been a term teaching at AES, and I am thankful to be given the space and time to grow into my role as a full-fledged teacher.
I have learnt a lot through my interactions with colleagues and students, and I am excited to use this space to document my learning. 🌞
An attempt at organising my messy thoughts ahead:
What I learnt about learning
Screen captures from the video: How Youth Learn: Ned's GR8 8
From this video shared by Cryst, I learnt about how youth learn.
I did some reflecting after watching this video, and realised I tend to neglect the first pointer - making sure that students feel okay and are in the right frame of mind for learning. This is especially salient given all the disruptions and stress they face, be it due to the recent incidents or the ongoing pandemic. (Making a mental note to check in on students' well-being and their mental/emotional readiness, instead of ploughing through the content I need to cover for the lesson.)
The fifth pointer stood out to me as well - the role of a teacher. Students need structure to learn, and one of my roles as a teacher would be to provide structure in the form of thinking routines, frameworks, having clear success criteria, using consistent vocabulary, etc.
The infographic on strategies of support also serves as a good reminder for me on how to provide support for student success. (more on this next time haha)
Pointer 7 is something I want to work on - getting students to be more reflective in their learning, and to recognise their growth.
What I learnt about teaching
- Be intentional
- Be trusting
- Be myself
It is important to have a clear purpose for everything I do/plan to do in the classroom. I am also learning to place more faith in students, that they take pride in their work and can succeed when given the support needed. (Reminder to self: it is ok to be vulnerable and to not know everything; being a teacher is not about solving every problem that arises - I can tap on students' strengths and suggestions, and affirm them in the process)
Other takeaways and AFIs:
e-Pedagogy!
First exposure to the pokeball/design maps/creating entire lessons on SLS!
SLS Pedagogical Scaffold + First attempts at creating design maps:
Some notes:
Reflections from SS Chapter 6 SLS lesson (+design map created during TTT):
Considerations when planning future lessons:
Which type of learning experience (LE) is this? Is this the most suitable LE?
Are the success criteria clear? Have they been met?
Is this a complete learning experience?
*Try to include all ALPs within each activity!
Tools/Experiment(s)
Tool 1: Pear Deck
Pear Deck is a Google Slides Add-on & App that is fully integrated with Google Drive. It allows for the creation of interactive slides that enables students to participate from their own devices.
The following deck of slides was created with Pear Deck. This lesson was on Floods GQ2: Which cities are prone to floods? (Sec 2 Geography).
The interactive elements (short response questions, MCQ, drawing, dragging icons) were helpful in keeping students engaged. I could also read their responses while they typed, which allowed me to check for their understanding and identify learning gaps rather quickly. I also provided personalised feedback for students who have completed the task slightly ahead of their peers, allowing them to further improve their responses.
Screen captures from the lesson
Tool 2: Google Cardboard
For Floods GQ3: Consequences of Flooding, students used the Google Cardboard to "experience" the impacts of flooding. They were able to identify and describe the social and economic consequences of flooding after watching the VR video. The vivid VR experience was also helpful in enabling students to commit the 'content' to memory.
Students using the Google Classroom; screen captures from the VR video & students' responses
Tool 3: Google Spreadsheets
SS Chapter 6: Experiences and Effects of Living in a Diverse Society
In this segment of the lesson, students got into groups of 4 and analysed local case studies of conflicts that arose as a result of diversity. The first column of the spreadsheet (pink) provided students with guiding questions/thinking frames (5W1H) to facilitate their thinking process.
The "traffic light" system is then used for monitoring and providing feedback.
Green = Good to go
Yellow = Room for improvement
Red = STOP - YOU ARE OFF-TRACK
* Blue words = good explanation
* Purple words = teacher's comments
Started a Google Classroom with my 2-5 Geography SBB class - just want to show off my classroom banner hahaha, learnt how to do it from a Tiktok video LOL
Experiment 1: Weekly News Quiz
I got my 2-5 SBB Geography students to react to news articles posted on the AES Humans Read site, leveraging on the rich content base to get students to be more in touch with current affairs. For a start, I chose articles on flood events, both locally and globally, to help students to see the relevance of what they are learning to the real world.
After reading the articles, students will answer MCQ/short response questions. Besides broadening their general knowledge, the questions posed allow them to apply the geographical knowledge they have acquired in class (e.g. type of floods, calculating rainfall intensity, etc.), which they found helpful in preparing for their assignments/weighted assessments.
Presenting the leaderboard to students at the start of every week also proved to be effective in motivating students to attempt the short quizzes (since I did not make this a compulsory activity).
In other news...
In other news, I may or may not have missed my (virtual) Teacher Investiture Ceremony LOL; thankfully it was recorded, so I could replay the Second Minister for Education's shoutout about my FYP hahaha, putting this here for the memories 🤓
Concluding thoughts
Really grateful for the safe and nurturing environment to learn and grow as a teacher. Will continue to stay curious, treat every mistake made as a learning experience (hehe), and strive to become a better teacher every day! 😙
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