Practice: Self evaluation

 Practice: Self evaluation

My practice from GPTE year 1st is coming to an end. It's a good opportunity to sum up what I have learnt, what potential do I have as a teacher. Also, what do I plan to change in the future and what are my new aims.

What I have learnt

Most experience I gained throughout the practice is documented on this blog. This is the first value I see, I can go back to this year whenever I want, rethink some issues and reflect on them. There was a lot of learning, like what materials should I use, how to approach the students, how to prepare myself for the lessons and much more. But there are some general lessons I remember most.

I've learnt that teaching is great responsibility and fun at the same time. On some lessons I was more responsible, which took the majority of fun part away. I was stressed, focused on checking the time too much, treating the students like objects not subjects. On the other hand, there were times where I was not professional enough. I treated kids like my younger sibling, there was a lot of joking or games but we didn't learn that much. I still think I didn't found the golden mean but I am aware that being a teacher means facing this problem on each lesson. It is more difficult as you have different students on each lesson and you are a little bit different (you can feel blue or be hungry). Adjusting the means, method, attitude, humor etc. is like mission impossible, but you have to do it.

Another thing that I've learnt is that conversation and dialog with your students is another fundamental factor of a good lesson. I cannot be a teacher who sits in his comfortable chair and just tells the students what they should do. On a lesson every person who is in the classroom is a part of a small society. To make it work we need to function well together. We need to take care of our needs. So if a student asks me if he can go to the toilet, if he can drink- I will say yes. But I also expect that if I say that it is too loud in the classroom, students will respect that and lower their voices or stop talking. And I, as the teacher, have the power to conduct the lesson in a way that is suitable for all of us.

What potential do I have as a teacher

That is a difficult question. I think I have some potential but I see plenty of areas which need to be changed, which I need to work on. The most important for me is that I want to learn, I want to experience new things and enrich myself.

Plans for the future

One of my goals is to improve my English. I know I have shortcomings and sometimes I feel like I don't deserve to teach English with the knowledge I have, especially when I look at other teachers. Another plan is to practice teaching as much as I can. I believe that when you practice any activity you get better and better at it. One more aim is to simply be human- teacher, so not to forget any of those natures.

Practice: Teaching individual CLIL lesson

 Practice: Teaching individual CLIL lesson

Teaching CLIL lesson for the first time was stressful. Here I will describe my experience, what worked, what didn't, what could have been done better.

What worked

As I've picked 3D figures for the topic of my unit, I can say that visual presentation worked. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with the students on getting to know and understand the idea of 3D figures. Most importantly, they were to calculate the volume of those figures on our next lesson so I thought: What can I do to help them with this activity? I didn't want them simply to multiply some numbers and get the score. This is not what math is about, and for sure not what CLIL is about. So I conducted many activities which focused on projecting and showing those figures.

My another idea which worked was to choose only two 3D figures and focus on showing the difference between them. I decided to do that because the whole volume idea was very new for the students. So I chose prism and cube, as these are the easiest figures for the beginning. They are most similar to the easiest 2D figures- square and rectangle. That's what I started with, and after few minutes of presentation we had this worksheet:

There are planty of examples of the 3D shapes in different sizes and configurations.

What didn't work

On that lesson I had difficulties while giving vocabulary. I assumed which words students know and which are new. That led to them asking similar questions again and again. Moreover, we did too less of repetition because after presentation of new vocabulary students weren't able to use them while working on different tasks.

Next thing is about me assuming what students remember from last year and what knowledge can I use. It appeared they need to hear one more time about the area of a figure as they couldn't understand the formula for the volume.

Two exercises didn't work because children couldn't work in groups or in pairs due to the virus situation. I didn't predict that and I needed to create new exercises on the spot.

What could have been done better?

I think my materials weren't good enough, I know I could have spent more time on making them clearer and better quality. Also I could have found more interactive materials, like 3D models. So far I do find something on the internet but I'm sure there are better sources.

Here is what I've used, maybe it will be useful for some of you :)

https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/hexahedron.html

https://www.mathgames.com/skill/5.120-volume-of-cubes-and-rectangular-prisms

https://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Illuminations/Interactives/Cubes/

https://www.math-salamanders.com/3d-geometric-shapes.html

Practice: Reflection on planning and preparing the whole CLIL unit

 Practice: Reflection on planning and preparing the whole CLIL unit

It's not easy to plan one lesson. When I have heard for the first time that I have a task to plan a unit of 5- 8 lessons I didn't believe in myself. Despite that I somehow managed to complete all lesson plans and here is how I perceive the process.

Choosing the topic was one of the most time consuming task. On my practice I could create a math unit for 5th ar 6th grade. My mentor teacher helped me by describing what subject the students are working on now and what is she planning to do with them next. It narrowed down my searching process but I still couldn't decide on one topic. Finally I came to conclusion that I should pick something easy for me, that's how I can lower the difficulty of creating the unit. I thank myself for that thought till today, it for sure made my life easier.

I chose the topic of 3D figures. Next step was to choose specific information I want to present for the students. There are plenty of 3D figures and on starters I was devastated because I imagined that all of them need to be included in my unit. It took me some time to realize that even during my school years, grade after grade the difficulty of each subject grew. Jus as same as mathematics, it is a big process from the first geometry lesson to 3D figures. The same thing happens for the topic of 3D figures themselves. I took a deep breath and chose to focus on prism and cube. 

Because of the pandemic times we were told to write 5 lesson plans, not more, because the shorter the unit the bigger chance is to conduct it in a school. Next challange appeared: what those 5 lessons should include to create a CLIL unit? I wondered what other school subjects than math could concern the topic of 3D figures? At first I had an idea to include music education by presenting different instruments and calculating their volume. Little did I know that there are not mant musical instruments in a shape of a prism or a cube, which made my idea pointless.

I was devastated because few more ideas after long time of searching for the materials and writing the lesson plans turned out to be a cul-de-sac. What I have learnt after those hours of unsuccessful searching is:

The simpler, the better!

I've stopped to expect wonders from my work. I've realized that I plan the unit for students, for children! They want to learn math, not rocket science. Finally, I focused on the basic vocabulary (3d figure, prism, cube, volume, cubic centimeter), calculating the volume and I added a historical accent to the unit, a lesson about the Stonehenge. I tried to make it as easy as I can and add fun elements everywhere.

Here is an example of my worksheet. On the lesson we talked a lot not only about "Is it a prism or a cube?" but also about the aquarium, ice cubes and presents. After this lesson my students' homework was to write down in their notebooks 3 more examples of prisms and cubes they can find at home or in school. They enjoyed this activity and I am happy to focus on simplifying the message.

Whenever you get stuck on anything, no matter if it is teaching or studying or any other activity, I recommend taking deep breath and trying to switch your thinking on an easier truck.