7th Reflection: My Mock Teaching

Hi there! I guessed from the title of the blog, you already know what am I going to write about today. Basically, it's about my mock teaching reflection. Time passes by and without realising it, it's my turn already. 

To be honest, I was really nervous knowing that I will have to conduct a class, not mentioning teaching non-other than my own coursemates and also being evaluated. 

How it went in general?

I started off the class with a mini-game to attract my students to the topic.  It's a simple but great idea to hook my students' attention to the class and also to introduce the topic of the day to the class. 

Moving on, I introduce the topic for the day: POLYGONS and started off introducing concepts of polygons. I strongly believe that there's no way a student can learn with just merely sitting down, warming their seats, listening to the teacher. Thus, my teaching styles emphasise on interaction with students and active participation of students during my lessons. Overall, everything was good and went according to my plan except for some mistakes I did on my presentation slides. 

What I would do differently.

Asking me what I would do differently is definitely amending my slides. I feel that my presentation slides are not really attractive even though  I've already spent lots of time editing and fixing it. I was also little nervous when things don't go smoothly with the first introduction part (mini game) where I couldn't replay the countdown timer video. Luckily, I was able to change the activity by counting down 5 seconds myself. I also wish to have group activities in the class to instil cooperative learning within students and also hope to strengthen their friendships. 

What went wrong?

As from the comments of my lecturer, it would be good that I reveal the correct answers for the worksheet one by one when discussing with the students. This to allow students to attempt to answer first before revealing the correct answer. It was my original plan, but, I couldn't because when I inserted the animation to the particularly highlighted answer, all the words are animated together ( which I don't know why). I've tried to explore ways to do so, but I couldn't find it. Thus, I leave it as it is and plans to discuss the answers with the students together.

The second thing that went wrong is when I told my students that I mistakenly type the wrong answers for the Q&A session during activity (NAME THE POLYGONS). I should have told them that I purposely name the polygon wrongly to test the students and to check whether they are really paying attention to my class,

Others went well and I enjoyed teaching them. 

What I liked about the lesson.

Practically, I love the lesson (of course)  because this is my first mock teaching class ever. Yes, I did teach before in tuition class but not with various teaching techniques and fun activities. I love to see how my students (my friends) enjoyed and participate actively in class engaging to my lesson at the same time supporting me.

If the activities and class dynamics reflected my teaching principles

Yes! The activities and class dynamics do actually reflect my teaching principles. My teaching principle is simple: ENGAGEMENT WITH STUDENTS, ACTIVE PARTICIPATION FROM STUDENTS & INTERACTION BETWEEN TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. I strongly believe that learning is best achieved through experience and engagement in class. My whole lesson focuses more on activities rather than teaching where it allows students to learn independently through activities after getting the gist of the lesson from the teacher. I can say that 75% of my lesson time involves participation from my students. GUESS ME, SCAN ME and NAME ME are activities that are created especially for my students to explore and to apply what they have learnt in class so that they will be able to remember what is taught and to have a better understanding of the topic: POLYGONS.

Students required to scan QR code and guess whether the shape fulfill the properties of a polygon or not.

Students required to stick CUE CARD on the screen deciding whether its a regular or irregular polygon and answer will be revealed by removing the cue card.

Students required to name the polygon seen in real life images.

What I learnt in the process

Definitely, I have learnt a lot through this process. I have learnt to think critically where I have to squeeze my brain to think of creative ways to deliver my lesson. I have also grown maturely where I have to put students' needs and student' interest first when planning my lesson plan. Besides, I have also learnt the proper way to design a lesson from scratch and trust me, it's not easy. Not to say it's difficult, but everything is worth the when you see the smile from your students when they enjoy your lesson and learn something from you.

Thank you for the feedback :)

I guessed that's all from me for now. It's been a long-winded blog post already. I'll see you guys in the next post okay? 

Signing off,