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.