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.