A Productive Week

This week has been a big turning point for me. I have completed the assignment, which I will hand in on deadline day. I also spent last week planning my planning time, if that makes sense. This helped me to break down each lesson and give myself specific targets to work towards. In a motivating way this is great and a by product of this is that I am not thinking about lesson that I am next to teach, spending hours upon hours reading and then ignoring other lessons. I have been going into college an hour early each day giving me more time to be prepared for lessons, prepared for the day and also making a good enough example of myself to potential employers.

Teaching wise the week started with classroom management issues. These seem to appear every so often but I am not worried about dealing with them now, when comparing reflections from a couple of weeks ago. I had a chat with one student in particular at the end of one lesson and said my bit and he appeared to take it on bad as we set individual expectations for student behaviour in the classroom. Will have to see how that one progresses next week.

Today I have had my second teaching observation at the college. It went smashing. I didn't have a feeling about confidence; it was more the case that my personality came out. We started the lesson with bingo, as a recap from last week, and then looked at neural and chemical control of breathing. The students were not exactly excited about this but with the aid of a practical I designed to demonstrate each control mechanism and a pack of chuppa chup lolly pops they really engaged in the lesson. Normally they don't like answering questions on anatomy in this lesson but I actually had to stop them from shouting out! We finished the lesson with a crossword of words used in the session and they then had the chance to structure these words into sentences for their own assignments. I gave prizes to students who I could give answers in the most basic fashion and this helped with student understanding. I am slowly learning about assessment, and really felt the recent assignment helped to put together pieces of the assessment puzzle. I am getting into the habit of individually teaching students and if they really are struggling use the other students' knowledge to help out, rather than my own input all of the time.

Today was also the first day with my HND group for Exercise and Lifestyle. I planned a powerpoint but the computer was not working and the lesson very much fit around a discussion, with group tasks and reading articles that I brought to the lesson. I felt slightly wary, as it was my first taught lesson with the group. Some of the students, in my opinion, were gauging themselves against me by asking questions about absolutely everything and questioning statistics I researched from the World Health Organisation. I feel that I reacted well to the questions by giving honest insights as well as not giving information when I didn't know the answer. This is a lesson that I am really excited about and look forward to teaching over the year. Other lessons I teach on are very much quantitative in nature and thus open ended group discussions can be confusing and inappropriate for the students. I enjoyed today and the time flew by in the session, after activities.

I finish from my course for Christmas next week and am looking forward to the charity events that the college hold to raise money. I am entered into the staff football team for a tournament on the day and this will be followed by the department Christmas meal. These social events are really helping me to integrate into the staff room, again aiding me in being relaxed around the college.

Thanks

Lloyd