On some days the lessons that I needed to teach didn't go exactly as planned. Aside from more whole-school interruptions, I had to deal with time constraints and technical difficulties. However, I did manage to deliver the lessons to the best of my ability. During the past three weeks, by teaching the topic Human Resources, I was reminded that I must continue to develop key skills in decision making, creative thinking, classroom management, time management and so on, in order to be a productive and beneficial Human Resource.
In some of the lessons I taught this week, I ensured that there were group activities and it worked out well. Therefore, I will continue to involve the students because they were really engaged in the lesson and excited about the activities they were given. Based on the observations I made, I was able to tell which groups were stronger and which ones were weaker. In the next practicum field teaching when I have more time with the students I will be able to assign them to groups where they could build on each others strengths and weaknesses. That is, I will not have all the stronger students in one group and all the weaker ones in another but rather have mixed groups.
Conversely, I instructed the students to do an individual research project and some of them really worked hard on it. I allowed the students to present their projects to their classmates and instructed them to indicate what they have learnt from their research about the topic. The students showed great interest when their peers presented their projects because this was something new to them and I think it was very effective. The pictures below are a few of the students work.
As the principal of the school indicated, in order to keep up with the time lost, we as future educators must be proactive. I think I am slowly becoming more proactive because on one of the days during this week, the teachers had a staff meeting which meant that the students did not have a teacher in their class. Like I did last week, knowing that the students did not have a teacher, I decided to take the opportunity to teach the lesson that I was supposed to but didn't get the chance due to a whole-school interruption.
I tried really hard to keep up with preparing and adjusting lesson plans, preparing resources, and keeping up with assignments for my other courses. Consequently, by Wednesday I felt both mentally and physically drained. The two key things that I need to work on to avoid these feelings are ensuring that I am fully prepared to teach a lesson and living a more healthy lifestyle in order to keep up with the daily pressures. I realized that like any other job, the teaching profession requires a lot of time, energy and effort. Things were so bad that I started to seek inspiration online. Viewing countless YouTube videos about inspiring the students of the 21st century has helped me. I needed some sort of external motivation to continue. This is when I began to question myself. Do I really think I am capable of keeping up with the demands of the teaching profession? YES! The answer is yes.
Teaching is a profession I have always wanted to venture into but I never expected it to be so tiring. However, if I keep the right attitude and right mindset I will be an efficient and effective teacher. In addition to that, I will take the advice from all of my practicum advisers and make the necessary adjustments to accomplish my duties as a prospective teacher which will in turn help me when I actually become a teacher.
Moreover, although the students gave positive feedback about the lessons that I taught during this three week period, I still feel as though I could have done so much more to assist the students in understanding the content better. Additionally, I could have been more prepared during this practicum and used different teaching strategies and techniques in each lesson. As one of my practicum advisers said, "its all about balance". I still haven't mastered the art of multi-tasking but with time I will gradually get better at it.
Therefore, I will not give up and I'd like to think of myself as being very persistent. I did learn that preparation is definitely a key component and having appropriate teaching strategies and techniques as well as effective resources, will make the teaching/learning experience worthwhile. At the end of it all, I don't simply want to settle and be a mediocre teacher. I want to be that teacher who inspire my students during the teaching/learning process. So, with that being said, as long as I continue to work on my shortcomings, I think I will be ready and fully prepared for the next practicum field teaching experience and for my lifelong career as a teacher.
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| Proud and confident prospective teachers. |
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