Thought I could finally rest....

But alas, I was dead wrong. Finished with my microteaching today and thought to myself, finally I can rest over the weekend. But lo and behold, we were just assigned another presentation cum lesson plan submission during English class today.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that work is never ending anyway.

Ok, will talk about my own micro-teaching today. I guess I need to pre-empt peoples' blog entries by highlighting that I DO NOT usually speak this fast, especially when teaching a class. It was solely because I had 30 minutes to go through what would have been a 70 minutes topic that I spoke rather fast, seems like x2 the normal speed I usually will teach.

Heh, also, I need to address the MSN Messenger thingy. I didn't realise that when I started my computer, it automatically connected to the wireless LAN at NIE and made my MSN Messenger sign on to the Internet, hence the pop-ups. I would like to apologise with regards to the pop-ups and I am sure that they were distracting to everyone. Thanks SJ for adding me into the contact list at that specific moment...so strategic heh. Anyway, what's done was done so I just had to minimise the powerpoint and sign out of the messenger. No biggie heh.

I'm now going to touch upon how I would have carried out my lesson proper if I was given the full 70 minutes. Firstly, I would have requested that all students clear their desks before I commence with my lesson. This is to try to keep students on task by removing any distracting items on the table. But since I noticed that the tables were rather 'clean', I didn't want to spend unnecessary time on it. Secondly, when going through the various factors influencing industrial location, I would actually have checked for understanding after every two factors. This will usually be done by asking a couple of students to answer some pertinent questions relating to the topic. Due to the shortage of time, I only managed to do that for a few of the factors.

Thirdly, with regards to the first worksheet which I disseminated, the graphic organiser was there as a means to inculcate students' ability to categorise/classify factors, which for Geography, is highly important. I didn't choose to provide students with an organiser where the two main categories of physical and human factors are already stated as I want them to learn how to categorise for themselves. In addition, the next page of the worksheet where I allowed space for them to put their thoughts in were meant to be open-ended. Because as Sec 3 Express students with rather respectable academic ability, I would prefer that they think about the question more, rather than wholesale copy the powerpoint slides which I showed in class. Personally, I link this with Social Studies as when I was observing SS at the school I was posted to, I realise that the teachers will trying to develop the students' analytical skills and to make them think of the question in their own way. As long as it forces the students to think, I feel that learning has been accomplished.

Fourthly, like how I explained in class, the least-cost location modelling activity would have been a very relevant exercise for students to complete as it tests the students' knowledge and application of the model to other examples of industries. All the instructions were found in both the powerpoint slide and the worksheet. Additionally, guiding questions were also indicated in the worksheet so that students can discuss this with their partners in addition to any other questions they might think of. I only provide the basic but pertinent guiding questions so that they can be addressed in class for the benefit of others, the rest of the questions, I would expect the students to brainstorm and discuss.

Lastly, the lesson would have ended with my own interpretation of the activity and a summing up of the lesson's objectives so that students are made aware of what we have done and accomplish today. The last slide, with a sneak preview of next week's class, was to prepare them as well as to link today's class with next week's. In my opinion. this sense of linkage must be highlighted to students as it allows for them to visualise the topic of industries as a whole and not in distinct parts.

Class management

With regards to class management, I felt that I really didn't have to do much today. Small transgressions such as talking amongst themselves are not things that I specifically focus on unless I feel that they are really distracting to myself and/or to the other students in the vicinity. How I would prefer to handle this would either be to look at them, or to ask them whether they have any questions or to assign questions for them to answer.

Actually personally, I don't really find eating in class to be an issue unless the school rules deem it to be so. Focusing on the trio's desire to eat their paus and puffs, I only took action after one of them neglected to follow my instructions after the third time. That was when I demanded that the pau be given to me. Urm, I think we all saw how YZ was such a good actress and I realised that she really didn't want to give me the pau when I noticed that I had already torn a small bit of the bag the pau was in while trying to get it off her. Never knew she would have cried over the pau thingy but alas, I'm a big softie to students who 'deh' in class. I think Jenny tried to 'deh' as well but well, I knew that they know that it was my greatest weakness hence I was especially harsh, I believe my heart would have melted into jelly if it was real, especially if the gals cry....over the pau.

LY and Georocks' attempt at accusing each other of stealing each other's handphone caught me a little off guard. While walking towards them, I was wondering what the heck was happening. It was only when LY explained to me that I realised what was going on. I swear the 4 seconds of silence after LY and Georocks complained to me was the longest 4 seconds I ever had in Geog class. It felt like ages. I was trying to think of what I should do to handle these students. Since they both didn't want to settle it as adults and demanded that each of them checked the other's bag, I thought that the only way to continue with my lesson would be to be fair to both of them and get both of them to clear their own bag of their belongings. That way, neither of them will be seen as the greater victim and both can explain the resultant consequence if the handphone was found.

When LY stormed out of the class, I realised that I had to balance between ensuring that she returns to class or to make sure that the class is not 'teacherless' as worse things might happen during my absence. Hence I chose to get Georocks to return to his seat and to deal with both of them later.

I liked the exchange about the space/time compression thingy because I swear I had the answer to the space compression thingy but somehow it didn't appear heh. I think what I was trying to stress that due to less time being needed to transport goods, it meant that we could overcome space in the sense of distance. Well heh, a teacher is not infallible!


Shall touch upon R's microteaching now:

I thought that her opening of getting us to identify where the pictures were taken from was an excellent idea as people's geographical imagination of Bangalore probably wasn't similar to those shown during her lesson. I feel that this also served as a form of 'build-up' to the actual lesson on the case study which in the process, made the students feel engaged as well.

She did justify the choice of pictures shown so as to highlight other places besides the electronics industry.

Nothing much happened in class today in terms of class management although R failed to see that Kn was reading her English Grammar book for the longest time as well as using her hp heh.

Basically, I felt that she answered students' questions well, even those that were un-related to the topic such as questions on her pay....

BTW, many thanks to LY for providing me with transparencies! Guys and gals, since I didn't manage to use the transparency pens today, if any of you need it during your teaching session, let me know. I also have whiteboard markers in a whole range of colours!