I asked my Class Teacher to run a brief activity with my class when I wasn't there to ask for WWW and EBIs about my teaching. Some were really uplifting and some were things I hadn't realised I was / wasn't doing so definitely some useful points to work on. Full notes on this are here, but below I have written some of my most pressing thoughts.
So it seems that in general they like the variety of
activities, particularly when they are doing group work (including when they
are teaching their peers) and the silent lesson went down a treat.
Questioning
A big concern is choosing which students to ask questions
to, and something I remember feeling frustrated about at school.
I want to ask the students who have their hands up, as they
are so excited that they know the answer, but obviously then you’ll probably
only hear from ¼ of the class throughout the entire lesson. Instead, I was
advised to use the ‘hands down’ policy, which has served to get many of the
pupils interested in the task, but I then received this feedback from a pupil “I
don’t like it when you pick on people when they don’t know but other people are
desperate to answer,” which goes back to the original problem of frustration,
so I am again questioning the technique.
A possible solution to this lies in the use of whiteboards,
getting students who think they know the answer to write things down on
whiteboards and hold them up so that I am aware that they know it, but in the
meantime use the random name generator to select a student to answer the
question initially. I think this would work best if I first asked the students why they think it is important that I
find out that some people don’t know the answer.
Task Explanation
A further concern is in how I am explaining my tasks – one student
commented that I am “good at explaining what we need to do” yet another said “make
the task more clear so people understand better.” Unfortunately I think part of
the confusion may lie in the fact that they are not always concentrating when
the task is being explained, but I am also aware that many of my explanations
have been rushed, especially when I am excited for them to get onto the task!
Perhaps a bit more time spent on explaining with bullet
points on the board, and leaving them up, might help. Alternatively, more
detailed task explanations could be given to some students if they are
continually struggling, but this would involve publicly identifying them, which
I would like to avoid.
Relationships
My final, and most upsetting, concern, was a
student who said “you talk to other people on my table more than me.” Due to a
poor scribbling out on the paper, I have been able to identify the table on
which this student sits and will make a concerted effort to speak to all of
them equally until the relationship has been mended. However, the student who
they felt I spoke more to, was the student on the table who needed more
attention in general as he is one of the weaker students in the class. Arrrgh!
