It is remarkable how fast time passes. These two weeks just flew by!
Being in the class and interacting with the students directly was such an amazing experience. It incredible to see how the concepts and ideas we learn in class play out in reality.
This week my main focus was to act upon the recommendations and feedback I received on the delivery of my lesson plan. My main focus was classroom management, specifically, pause time. My previous lessons were always in the morning, but, to challenge myself I delivered my last two lessons in the afternoon. WOW! Was that a surprise. The kids excitement and energy levels were much different, hence the lesson went on for a longer time than I expected. I had to pause a lot between activities. There were times where I had to walk over to the student and remind them to stay on task. One time I had to take away the object the student was occupied with.
There was one particular time, which involved me calling out on a student. I felt really bad, but he refused to listen to directions throughout the lesson. The student was preoccupied making a paper finger, something they learned in science the day before. I redirected him four times to put all the material away, however, he refused to listen. Finally, I had to stop the class, call upon the student’s name. I asked, “Student A are you listening?” He replied, “Yes, I am.” I then asked him to repeat what I had said. He could not do that. Then I addressed the whole class on manners and the importance of being respectful. The student went red in the face, but, he stayed on task after that.
I am still unsure if that was the right thing to do. In the moment it seemed like it was appropriate. Teaching is a learning experience, all I can think is that I have a lot to learn. I will make mistakes and that is the only way I will learn.
It is often difficult to know, in the moment, how to handle specific situations As you continue to teach, you will know your students better in terms of how they respond to you, and you can pre correct their behaviour which sometimes helps. Sometimes proximity works and students put away the things they should not be playing with. Other times the behaviours are more difficult to correct and asking the student directly to stop and focus needs to happen. We will be doing a workshop on classroom management in the next while that will offer various strategies that might be helpful.
It is good to know that your two weeks went well and you have learned so much!!