Attitude

Week 8

I had my final two observations this week, at least for the teaching practicum stint. Valuable feedback was given once again from Jamie and Mrs Koh, with regards to my teaching style and strategies as well as my stern look.

One thing I learned to do over the course of these 8 weeks is embrace my stern look.  For many years, friends and family have commented that I looked undoubtedly unapproachable and fierce when I do not have my usual smile plastered on my face.  As I went to different schools for teaching stints and attachments, I received similar feedback from colleagues and students.  I still remember one incident. One fine day at Northbrooks, one of the rugby boys, the CCA that I was attached to, came up to me and asked,

Boy: Sir, how come you never smile one ah?

Me: (looked at him sternly) did you give me any reason to?

Boy: No lah, but sir, must smile lar. Always so fierce, quite tiring one know.

That was what he said. I gave him an unwilling smile before he scruffled off for training. Truth to be told, it isn’t tiring to not smile or be fierce. Sometimes, I believe it is just my look.  However, over these 8 weeks, the same feedback has been given especially from my form class. They have cosntantly told me how I rarely smile and when I deliver lecture, they always encourage me to smile. It remains especially poignant when they tell me that I am bipolar.  On one end of the spectrum, I am very friendly. On the other end, I am extremely fierce.  Truth be told again, I enjoy utilizing this trait now.  First, it helps a lot with classroom management.  My students know that I am a no-nonsense teacher and will definitely be in trouble if they cross me.  Second, I believe that I am not here to be their friend but be their teacher.  I draw that line very clearly and I never hesitate to demonstrate to them that I am their teacher, not a friend. Third, going around smiling all the time is the more tiring task for me. Fourth, I will look insane going around with a wide and flippant grin pasted on my face.

I do not deny that this stern look and approach of mine has worked well with classroom management. I appreciate the respect that the students give me.  The demeanor also allows me to build a certain rapport with the students. This is especially so when I know the students do not need such a stern approach and I can afford to lighten up a bit more with them.  On the issue of lightening up, I do ligthen up the level of sternness with the students who are more familiar with my style or whom I know are capable of self-directed learning.  Once the rapport is established, I generally let loose a bit more with the classes that I teach.  Of course, when discipline is an issue, the leash will be tightened once more.

Indeed, this practicum journey has been a firm reminder of my own character traits.  It has also allowed me to learn how to utilize it to full effect pertaining to teaching.  This has been something I appreciate and also something I will need to constantly learn to balance.  This is especially so when the student profiles that I will come to handle and interact with changes over time.

This week also saw the humanities department carrying out the amazing race for Humanities Week, HumanIsync.  Qiuhua approached us to help out and we gladly obliged since I myself was keen to find out what it was about and how it was conducted. More importantly,  I wanted to find out more ways to help students learn and appreciate humanities more outside the classroom. It was a very good experience as the amazing race took place in a very lively and spirited atmosphere. This was largely thanks to the teachers’ own enthusiasm and more importantly, the students’ eagerness and approach towards the event.  Had they been lacklustre and lackadaisical in their participation, the event might have flopped.  Yet they brought their enthusiasm to the event and the amazing race took place very smoothly.  The questions that were given by the teachers did indeed stretch the students as they were force to discuss on the spot and come up with their own judgment calls.  They were also able to use what they have learnt to formulate their answers in the process.  That was pretty heartening to see as their subject tutor as well.

All in all, it has been another good week in the school.  Within a blink of an eye, it has been eight weeks.  I can honestly say that I have enjoyed them all and am still enjoying them. I am very thankful for the little gifts that are my students who never fail to teach me that passion is something that is infectious and motivating.  While some of them may lack the academic capability that our own society constantly measure their worth by, these students have demonstrated excellently that they can make it up with their heart.  This bunch of J1s, as some experienced teachers have commented, is very unique in their work ethic and approach to school work.  It is therefore pertinent that we as teachers build on this platform and ensure that the students learn effectively and also, do not burn out so quickly given how they have started off the academic year with an extra gasburner in their tail. 

Week 7

The week saw our final tutorial on the Cold War being carried out.  After seven weeks of teaching, I decided that it was time to implement a distinct differentiated approach to my different classes. After marking 3 essays, I could now differentiate which class was the faster one and which required a slower pace of teaching. 

With regards to the assessment of their understanding, students, who are more vocal, are not necessarily the ones who grasp the concepts.  Instead, the ones who sit quietly tend to be the ones who actually understand what was being taught to them.  This reflects very clearly in their written work.  As such, a teacher needs to strike a balance between ensuring the more vocal ones understand the lesson and the more quiet ones to speak up and share with the class more.  That will be my goal for the next few tutorials that I will conduct because confidence building is essential for any student and the goal, when achieved, will go a long way in shaping their character later on.

I also had another opportunity to lecture.  The feedback that I received was the fact that I could afford to lower my volume.  I definitely took that into consideration and will take note for future lectures. I was also made aware that some students found me very stern as compared to other lecturers around.  Unfortunately, that is how I am and I do not intend to change much.  Perhaps, the only little change I do intend to make is to smile more and insert more humour than I already am.  However, personally, I strongly believe that this is also a period of adaptation, considering that I taught the students in tutorial but not in lecture. Once they have adapted to my style of lecturing, it should not be an issue.  Furthermore, my stern and firm approach has eradicated much discipline issues that may occur if I were too soft with the students.  As such, I have also learned to embrace this stern trait of mine as a teacher.

It was also a week where I managed to achieve a breakthrough with the JC2s.  The lesson’s rigor, pace and atmosphere was a vast improvement from the previous one that I taught.  The lesson comprised of the students being required to write a journal or diary entry about the Arab-Israeli conflict. They were to write as either a Palestinian or Israeli teenager who was living in that period.  The content requirement was to include in their entry, a significant event that they have learnt in lecture.  During the tutorial, I told them to pair up and to critique their partner’s work based on a checklist,which I flash on the projector screen. After that, I decided to let them roleplay their entries to spice things up.  However, I was a little worried that they did not know how to do so.  As such, I took the liberty to demonstrate to them how it is done.  They enjoyed the humour and jokes that I made along the way and after the demonstration, I picked the more vocal student to follow up.  It worked wonders. The student, who was usually more nonchalant in class, was a lot more enthusiastic in playing to the role of an Israeli student.  The class laughed at the humorous display and the next few ones were done in a similar manner.

During the entire period of roleplay, I endeavored to point out the key events of the conflict, so as to allow the students to learn more content and to understand the topic better. Class management was not a problem since I know their names and could pinpoint any possible discipline issue.  I also made it a point to sum the lesson up, explaining that after all the fun, they need to recognize the important facts that they incorporated into their journals and I also relayed their writing to the skill of writing essays.  I highlighted to them that you use facts to write a narrative in journals, diaries or historical fiction but in essays, yo use the same facts to write an argumentative piece instead.  The students understood this better, especially when I checked for understanding with a few students to share their takeaways with the class.  It was a lesson that I enjoyed delivering and I could feel that the students enjoyed themselves as well. The only thing that I wished I could do better was to pick more scripts of the more quiet students.  It was a big breakthrough for me with this J2 class because they are usually very passive, restless and nonchalant about history.  However, after that lesson, something somehow clicked and the students lightened up.  Though it required quite a high energy level to sustain their interest, I felt that it was worth the effort.

Last but not least, I still need to endeavor to wrap up my lesson before the bell rings.  I myself do not like other lessons eating into the time of my own lesson and as such, I should try to do the same for other teachers. Thus far, it is not a chronic recurrence in terms of ending lesson a few minutes beyond the bell.  However, occasionally, I still find myself wrapping up quickly, forsaking quality evaluation of whether students have experienced effective learning or understood the lesson that was delivered.  I am cognizant of this issue and will continue to strive to pace the lesson properly. 

Week 6

The week saw two observations being carried out simultaneously by my NIE supervisor and by Jamie. It was also the week when we tried out the roleplay strategy for the classes. It was interesting how the first class that I taught put in the effort to dress up and play to the roles that they were assigned. It spiced up the class’s energy and atmosphere, bringing some humor and laughter to the lesson at the same time. I was quite thankful that the students did put in the effort and in the end, it was thanks to them that the roleplay worked out well.  However, I could not say the same for the other J1 class. The other class was a lot more passive in playing to their roles and they treated it like any other presentations.  To them, it was more of a hassle to fulfill their roles to the detail as compared to just preparing for a presentation as they have been used to.  As such, the strategy did not work as well as I hoped for.  That taught me that not all strategies can be applied on different classes and neither can similar outcomes or effective learning be expected. Hence, that reemphasized the importance of how a different approach has to be used for different classes, depending on their profiles.

It was also a week when we tried to incorporate some questions into the tutorial, questions that demanded more higher order thinking. On the whole, the students did welcome the tougher questions that we discussed.  While we discussed the questions, I made it a point to not emphasize too much on the questions or spent too much time on it. I also made it optional for the better students to write outlines or to tackle the questions in their own time.  I promised that I would take a look at their work and go through with them if they wished.  Thus far, that has yielded one student writing an outline and another three, who were from a different class, have seen me for consultations. That was a far better start than I had expected. My goal was to cultivate a culture where students take responsibility for their learning and would want to stretch themselves in their own time in the subject. It is certainly encouraging to see the better students coming forth to do so thus far. Of course, this may be an anomaly or an elevated interest in the topic that we are discussing at that point in time. However, if this persists and becomes a sustained habit, it might become a healthy culture among the history students, which I will be determined to build upon.

The week also saw Jasper and I giving our first lecture to the J1 cohort. We managed to give them the lowdown of what was to be expected for Southeast Asia history.  We also managed to finish what we set out to deliver on the dot so that was good in terms of time management.  Lecturing did not seemed as daunting as I had first expected before I even came to Innova Junior College.  One key reason was perhaps the fact that I had interacted with some, if not most, of the J1s and was comfortable with them.  As such, it was just another lesson that focused more on content delivery.  Of course, upon closer reflection, I could have inserted more enthusiasm and hype into my tone of voice in order to instil some form of energy into the students for Southeast Asian History.

To conclude the week, Jasper and I managed to show the students the historical movie, Thirteen Days, a film that we had always wanted to show since the start of the term. The film mainly depicts the Cuban Missiles Crisis from the American point of view.  While the start was a little boring, judging from the way some of the students were dozing off, the latter stages and the climax of the film did not disappoint.  Considering that this was an American perspective and a somewhat traditionalist perspective that the movie was adopting, some of the students were swayed towards sympathizing with the Americans in the issue of escalation of the Cold War. 

I was awed by the persuasive power that visual representation and films can have on people’s minds.  Nevertheless, I had to leave early, leaving Jasper and Jian Lin, who joined us halfway to watch the movie, to round things up.  It was unfortunate that they had to rush off since the lecture theatre needed to be closed.  As such, we will have to follow up on the movie during this week’s tutorials and touch on how the students feel and think about the movie.  On the whole, we were glad that we could show the movie because a video lecture works well, especially if it is a great film on history and especially if it is one that can engage the students’ interests as well.

Week 5

This week has been quiet as lessons went on as usual. We carried out another source inquiry on the Cuban Missiles Crisis for the 75-minute tutorial and it seemed like that class digested the feedback I gave them well. They did not only focus on just listing the evidence from the sources but also did up their own evaluation in answer to the question.   That was heartening.  However, many issues remain.  One, they need to translate their thinking skills into writing as many of them are still not able to write a proper essay or even answer the question.  Two, they are able to do it in groups but they do not seemed to be able to do it on an individual basis.  While peer learning helps them to learn, we still need to inculcate individual exam skills to them so that they can do well in their exams.

Strategies wise, we have been using source inquiry or source based methods for three weeks.  The students are more or less used to the style and method of using sources.  After much discussion with Jasper, we concluded that providing them with sources is also an avenue through which we can actually provide them with more content. This allows students to understand the topic better and make linkages to the lecture material that is sometimes rushed through due to the time constrain in the curriculum.  I was encouraged when I had two students from 1241B asking me for more sources to be provided in subsequent lessons.  While they represented a small proportion of the class, I was glad that the strategy was at least reaching out to a few of them.

For next week, after much brainstorming, we have decided to use a role play for the next tutorial in order to spice things up for the tutorial.  The conventional view of history as a subject is always how boring it is.  However, I decided to come up with the idea of a roleplay.  The suggestion originally came from Jian Lin.  I took the liberty to expand on the idea and see how it goes in the next week.  If it works out well with the classes, it will be a strategy that we can incorporate for future topics that can allow roleplay to be effective.  I did realize that as I gave out the instructions of the roleplay, the students stirred in excitement.  Their reactions made me deduce that the students, despite being 17 or 18-year-olds, still crave for a break out of the monotony of classroom lessons.  In our efforts to be creative in lesson planning, the students exhibit their appreciation by the way they react.  Granted that the more studious ones may find the roleplaying exercise a little redundant and even puerile at some levels, most of them need a fresh change from the conventional didactic approach.  With the occasional changes in tone of the lesson, making it more lighthearted and fun such as roleplaying, it may serve to reach out to students who have lost their interest or lost some steam in the subject.  However, whether it delivers effective learning is yet to be seen.  Very much depends on the research the students do and how they make use of the time allocated for their presentation in their roles.

Week 4

The week has been rather satisfying with two more observation lessons done. There has been plenty to learn, plenty to improve on and plenty to maintain standards in. Through the observation by Jamie, I have been reminded once more about how students here at IJC need visual aids to learn.  It is pertinent to record answers, discussions and recaps of previous lessons on the whiteboard, via the visualizer or through a powerppoint slide.  This would cater to diverse learners, especially for those who rely on visual aids.  While talking may be useful for some, oftentimes words may just fly over the students’ head.  I did carry visual aids out in the next lesson with another class and realized that they digested the information and recaps a lot better with the discussion being written on the board. This was heartening and I will definitely take note of this in future.

The next issue I learnt about is the alignment and tightness of my lessons. As I moved from recap to focusing on the lesson and the essential lessons, the link is more implicit than explicit.  After reflecting much on the flow of the lesson, I can definitely improve on making the flow of the lesson much more deliberate and expliciit so that students can draw connections to the lesson and see where they are supposed to head towards.

Another lesson I learnt is to take more advantage of teachable moments.  One such example was how students mentioned new terms such as ‘NSC-68’ or ‘McCarthyism’.  I could have utilized that moment to expand more on the concepts and ideas behind these terms so that students have a better understanding of the topic as a whole.  However, I did assign 4 girls in my own civics class to research on the term ‘McCarthyism’ and follow up on the next tutorial.  While the girls merely looked it up on the internet, it continued to aroused the interest of the rest and afforded me the avenue to explain the term further.  It certainly showed the students how the term fit into the Korean War context and into the broader theme of the Cold War.

One lesson that I will apply in future is the comparison of answers between each group that comes up to present their answers during group discussions.  This was brought to my attention that it could actually highlight the level of progression and which answers are better.  This allows students to distinguish between the qualities of answers and what is to be expected in an exam like the promotional exams or the A levels.  While it is a good practice to have to illustrate to students what is expected,  my reservation to doing that so early in JC1 is that it could either dampen or heighten a student’s confidence level.  On a personal level, I am trying to build the students’ confidence in terms of forming, voicing and presenting their own opinion.  If a comparative analysis was to be done against their friends’ work, and they are of the lower standard, it might hurt their confidence and the process of rebuilding it may be tougher than before.  Undoubtedly, teachers can do this with more tactful phrasing in terms of comparing.  Yet I still have my reservations about it.  I do, however, note the usefulness of this and will apply it later on when I am sure that the students are able to handle such critical and comparative analysis of their work.

One thing I noted about the classes I am teaching is that they have very high energy and good stamina in terms of lasting a lesson.  Their attention span somehow stretches longer than I have expected. Nevertheless, I definitely will not take this for granted.  Yet I am heartened that these students actually take a genuine interest in learning history as illustrated by their participation in lesson and their enthusiastic spirit in their discussions.  This spurs me on to create more interesting lessons for the students, hoping to inspire further interest in the discipline of history.

After interacting further with the students after these four weeks, I have come to realize that while the students here may not be the best in the country academically, they have a lot of other talents, sometimes hidden ones.  My own civics class is very musically talented.  I spotted one of them playing the guitar very spontaneously that day in the canteen and he did a fantastic job.  Another student can do an imitation of Michael Jackson very well, showing a flair for dancing.  Another student of mine has demonstrated his debating prowess during the source inquiry debate, definitely displaying potential that can be exploited.  Many others have other talents that are not displayed within the classroom.   It would be fantastic if the students can pursue their interests and talents further.  However, as teachers, our job then is to guide them to balance these interests together with academic commitments, especially when they have the A levels to grapple with in time to come.

I had the second focused conversation with our SCM, Mr Fuad, today. The FC itself reminded me of how I am almost halfway through my practicum and it has been a great experience thus far. The student teachers shared about various classroom management issues and situations that we all have had to handle thus far. On a personal note, I had a few takeaways.  Firstly, different classes require different approaches due to their profiles. For example, a teacher can drive the H2s harder in terms of academic rigour and expectations but for the H1s, a softer approach that involves cajoling and coercing at times can be utilized to get students to work for the subject. Secondly, I also learnt that the cooperation between the civics tutors and subject tutors is vital for the well being of a student.  The collective monitoring and motivation of students can push them to greater heights or bring them back to the right direction when they have veered off course in terms of attitude and behaviour.  I personally have experienced that with one of my students. However, after speaking with the subject tutor of hers, one that she prioritizes more than the others, the subject tutor spoke to her and now she is putting in effort for all her subjects.  While that involved only one subject tutor, it is an example of how subject tutors can cooperate together with the civics tutor in a common goal for the student’s well being.

Thirdly, when we as teachers set expectations and groundrules, it is easy to forget about enforcement when the workload increases or the schedules get too hectic. However, we must also be aware that students do note these little things and hold them in high regard as to whether we are fair in enforcing the rules we set.  If we do not enforce them, we may lose the trust, motivation and even respect of students.  Granted that we must still be flexible depending on case-to-case basis, it is pertinent that we maintain the fairness in enforcing the ground rules that were set at the beginning with the class. Lastly, the way we speak about our students must not cross beyond the lines of our professionalism.  Never should we openly ridicule or criticize our students as though they are beyond redemption, pinning unnecessary labels or worse still, stigma on them in the eyes of other teachers. This may set unwarranted attention or even criticism on them, denting their self confidence and motivation further.  We must always be conscious of how we speak about our students to our colleagues and other students.  A wrong phrase or word may incur unneccessary consequences.  We must also bear in mind that no matter how bad a student is, there must always be a reason for their behaviour and we as teachers should always seek to look for that reason and see how we can remedy it.

All in all, week 4 has been fruitful, with two observations down and many takeaways for me.  I feel more at home in the school, especially when I can feel strongly that I have built a certain level of rapport with the students.  That has been helpful and there is no doubt that the J1 adventure camp has helped tremendously in that regard. 

Week 3

I had my first observation today. I was thankful for the feedback as it allowed me to be more aware of areas where I can and should improve on.  The first constraint that I faced was the decrease in amount of lesson time. Assembly took about ten minutes away and with movement time accounted for, I had fifteen minutes taken away.  As such, the lesson plan needed to be altered on the spot.

I initially wanted to show a video but I decided to cut that out since it was not a pertinent feature of the lesson.  As the lesson went along, I did realize that it felt rather pressed for time and it was indeed so. I chose Sheela to come up and be the scribe for the class when it came to doing a mind map as she was one of the faster students who could grasp new concepts and ideas easily.  My own mistake was not to utilize the mindmap to its full potential to illustrate my points across. Also, Sheela’s mind map was a little untidy and messy and some students might not have been able to follow the interweaving lines that resulted. My other mistake was not to be able to help organize the mind map into a neater demonstration of the points discussed.

I was glad, however, to have raised the issue of wikipedia.  As budding historians, one of the grave sins to commit is to cite wikipedia.  Unfortunately, this is one mistake that is commonly made by many students.  As such, I took the opportunity to share with them the idea of reliaiblity of a source and how Wikipedia is not a reliable source to refer to.  It is essential that I follow up on this because the students tend to forget about the unreliability of Wikipedia.

These were my own reflections before the review with Jamie. After the review, I am much more aware of my weaknesses and have to work on them.  First, I am still lacking in the ability to fully utilize the resources around me. The mind map that Sheela drew was not referred to or utilized to its full potential in order to deliver learning points across. Also, the approach that I adopt with the class is far too laissez faire. As such, I need to be more in control of the flow of the lesson.  Also, I need to be aware of who my audience is and what my student profiles are.  Asking too many questions may incite some rigour but it may also turn students off after some time especially if they cannot catch up. 

In terms of lesson strategies, I should also utilize more tools on top of a mindmap. While a mind map was good, there are bound to be students that belong to multiple zones of intelligences and I need to cater to them by incorporating pictorial representations or even videos. Due to time constraints, I was not able to show the video that I had planned initially.  Another strategy that I need to sharpen is to keep time. It is certainly useful to let students see the amount of time they have left.  This will also help in my overall time mangement for the lesson as I myself will be made more aware of the time.

In a class where the enthusiasm is running high, it is pertinent that a teacher must be in control of the class.  This includes asking particular students questions and not allowing others to hijack the question.  This might deflate the student’s confidence and motivation.  A teacher must also be aware of who is more interested in the lesson and who is not there with the lesson mentally or emotionally. This comes with time and practise as the student-teacher interaction grows along the way. 

Most importantly, the lesson must benefit the students academically and that they learn something from it.  The lesson can be very fun and enjoyable but if the students are not learning anything, the objective is thus unachieved by the teacher.  It is quite a fine balance to juggle for teachers and I have much to learn.  However, I believe that if I continue to work at it, I will be able to get there in due time.  One thing is for sure. Teaching itself is never a boring job. 

The debate that was planned for the week turned out better than expected. The process of deciding on the number and type of sources was a meticulous one. The number of words, the type of words and phrases, the provenances as well as the number of sources were all selected, discussed and decided within the History department. It was also good for all to be aware of the process and also to reach an understanding since the entire J1 history cohort was going to do the debate. It seemed like our worries about the students finding the sources tough were unfounded.  The students could use the sources to full effect and the debate turned out to be better than we expected. That being said, our assessment rubrics also came in handy as we evaluated not just on content for our students but also their organization and oral presentation skills. Most had much room for improvement and I made an effort to let the students know, making time for consultations after class.  I thought that it was pertinent for them to know where they stand in terms of content and presentation skills so that they at least know where their strengths and weaknesses lie. 

The areas of improvement that I can make are time management and the ability to tap on every student’s thoughts and contributions in the classroom.  A great portion of time management is within my grasp of control.  However , there will always be a certain portion that is not especially when the class is at the start of the day or caught between a long bloc of classes for the students. As such, I will be forced to adjust accordingly, sometimes interrupting or even disrupting my lesson plan.  Flexibility is vital here and it is a skill that I have yet to master fully. Also, while I am heartened to see that my students contribute a lot in class discussions, I still need to work on how to tap on each student’s contribution and to create the first dimension of learning, which is essentially a comfortable environment for the students to learn and share their thoughts.

I also had the opportunity to attend the J1 adventure camp from Thursday to Saturday.  I was really glad for this chance for it gave me an avenue to bond with my future civics class and also get to know more students in the process through the house system.  I also managed to get to know more colleagues better, mingling and working with them throughout these three days.  It was a a major learning experience, not just as a facilitator in a group of students but also in terms of observing how an overseas camp is run.  The PE department did an excellent job in coordinating an event that involved about six hundered over people.  It was very humbling to find out what the tedious details, time and effort that went into the planning of this major event.  Nevertheless, I was glad that no one was hurt, short of some sick students, and everyone returned safe and sound with good memories of the camp. Personally, I felt that the camp was not intense enough for the students but then again, their expressions said it all when they returned home. Plain relief.

On the whole, week 3 has been really fruitful in terms of learning the teaching strategies as well as lessons for me as a teacher outside of the classroom. It makes me yearn for more of such lessons as the weeks come along.  With the J1 camp, I feel more at ease and comfortable with the students that I am and will be teaching as well. All in all, it has been a great week.