Task 2.1.2: Analysing the beginning, middle and end of a lesson
Settling into place
First, we see the female student teacher setting up the camera equipment to start filming the lesson. The students are still walking around in the classroom while the female student teacher started telling some students they need a pen and paper. The students take their seats as they please, they apparently don’t have assigned seats. There is one student who appears to be a bit late and this is adressed by the class teacher. It seems as if she is the one taking the register of the class, although it is not completely clear how she does so. The male student teacher signals that the lesson has started by greeting the students and asking the whole class if they had already experienced student teachers in front of their classroom before.
The beginning of the lesson
The female student teacher summed up the lesson aims by showing them on a slide, asking if every student is able to read the text on the slide, and then also reading the aims out loud. She did not further explain the learning objectives, but she did ask for confirmation of the class to see if they had already worked with the subject before. Then, before moving on, she asks if there are any questions. Around 5 minutes after starting the recording the class has properly begun.
The body of the lesson
The female student teacher introduces the first assignment which the students had to work on. She did this in a very clear way; telling the students what they had to do, how they had to do this, and how much time they had. She also regularly walked through the classroom to see how the students were doing, while also giving them a feeling that there is a teacher who is watching them. The students first worked on retrieving their individual prior knowlegde about this subject and then worked together in groups to combine the individual prior knowledge to a more complete one. After having as much as a complete picture of the flower, they go on and discuss this with the whole class by having each group name a certain part and describing to the female student teacher how to draw this on the board. This encourages the students to participate (they are all contributing to the drawing), to develop their skill to descriptively instruct (how to draw certain parts of the flower), and to think critically (they have the opportunity to give feedback when they disagree with something).
Next, the male student teacher begins explaining pollination with the help of images on a powerpoint. He asks a lot of questions throughout explaining to ensure the students are actively thinking and learning about the subject. He encourages the students by praising correct answers and guiding uncorrect answers so the students come up with the right answers themselves. He also asked the students about subject related words and if they were already familiar with that. During the explanation, the students were given enough space to ask questions when they did not fully understand a topic.
After finishing the explanation, the male student teacher explained the next task for the students. They all received a stack of card which were seperated by terms and their definitions. The students were assigned to match all the right pairs while also working in pairs. The male student teacher first told the students they would have 5 minutes to work on this, but stopped everyone after 2 minutes due to lack of time. He improvises by instructing the students that they will have to finish this assignment at home for the next lesson.
The end of the lesson
There was no particular plenary at the end of this lesson. The student teachers switched from the last assignment immediately to explaining the homework for next class. It is not completely clear if their learning objectives were reached, because they did not assess it at the end of class. However, the student teachers did make sure to ask enough questions throughout class, so you could draw a rough conclusions off the answers the students gave to those questions. It was noticeable that the students were getting noisier towards the end of class and that the female student teacher had some trouble keeping the attention until the very end. The class was dismissed in a bit uncontrolled way. The student teachers named certain characteristics (e.g. “the students with glasses”) and the groups of students that matched those characteristics could leave the classroom.
Feedback
Overall, the student teachers seemed to have a nice structured plan of how to teach this class. They nicely retrieved the prior knowledge of the students by a simple task (structural drawing of the flower) and built on that prior knowledge by adding related new information. All the activities were probably not monitored as precisely as desired, because they ran out of time towards the end of class. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that they kept on asking comprehesion check questions during the lesson to ensure the students were following the class. At times it seemed as if the student teachers had some difficulty keeping the class under their control. But after a couple of times addressing the chatty students (in the back) most of the students also kept their attention at class. The students seemed like they were looking forward to the next lesson of these student teachers. I believe this enthusiasm in the students is something you want to reach as a teacher.
Task 2.1.1: The learning environment
Observation
From what was visible of the classroom in the video, it was clear that this classroom has a main function as a practicum room. This became clear because of the gas/water-tap units which were placed between every two student tables. This illustrates that the room is probably mainly used for science or biology lessons (such as this lesson).
The teacher’s desk was not a particularly ‘normal’ desk, but more a practicum island right in front of the digital board. Next to both sides of the digital board there are whiteboards. The student tables were set up two by two, which encourages pair work but not so much group work. The lights in the room were able to be switched off by a remote control, so the visuals on the digital board could be better visible. Besides this, the room also equipped blinds which were completely light-blocking. For savety purposes, there were also a fire extinguisher and a cold shower present in this classroom. From what we can see in the video, there doesn’t appear to be any pupil work present in this classroom.
Feedback
I think practicum rooms are very encouraging for the students to experiment with the lesson material. It could however also be distracting for the students whenever they have a more theoretical lesson in that room. Keeping the students busy with assignments could prevent them from getting distracted by the appliances in the room. Not having your typical teacher’s desk is also a benefit to my opinion, because this encourages the teacher to more actively be a part of the class and for example walk around more often. Being in a practicum room also means to have to enlighten the students about all savety instructions when they first use this classroom. In this video it appears as if the students were already up-to-date on the savety precautions. They all either hung their bags on the back of their chairs or put their bags in the back of the classroom to keep the walking routes free in case of emergency.
Task 2.1.7: Where is the teacher during a lesson?
The female student teacher
In the beginning both student teachers stood in front of the classroom while they were introducing themselves. Then, when the female student teacher started with her explanation of the task ahead, she stayed in front of the classroom while moving a bit more to the middle towards the students. When she was asking the students for an addition to the drawing on the whiteboard, she kept on coming towards the students when she wasn’t drawing and returned to the board to draw. While the students were working on the task, she made sure to move around the classroom frequently. She distributed her attention over all students equally, but addressed the boys in the back more often because of their messing around. When the male student teacher took over the explanation, the female student teacher mostly stayed on the side of the classroom near the window. There she rested against the windowsill. When the last assignment was about to start, she joined the male student teacher in the front of the classroom to hand out the cards together. While the students were working with these cards she walked around the classroom to see how the students were doing.
The male student teacher
When the female student teacher started her task with the students, the male student teacher stood behind the island to prepare some cards for his assignment with the students. While he is preparing his materials, he does every now and then look up to see how everyone is doing but he doesn’t move away from the island. During his explanation of the lesson material he stays in the front of the classroom near the board. But whenever he starts asking questions to the students, he makes sure to move closer to them. He stood there in a relaxed way, by crossing his legs and resting against the island. When he explained the last assignment he kept standing in front, near the cards. Then he started handing out the cards together with the female student teacher. While the students were working with these cards he also walked around the classroom to see how the students were doing. After the female student teacher and he discussed for a second (about the lack of time), she moved on to explain the homework for next losson. While she was explaining he withdrew himself to the side of the classroom, a bit more into the shadow.
Feedback
During most of the class I noticed that both student teachers did their best to be seen for all students and make the students feel that they have a teacher-figure in front of class. This was at times replaced by giving the other student teacher the space and time for their activity, by standing a bit more on the background. Their way of acting in front of and communicating with the students was overall quite professional, but luckily not too much of that professionalism. They made sure to let the students feel at ease with these new student teachers in class. You could see the difference in this professional attitude between the female and male student teacher, the former being more professional and the latter being more relaxed/friendly towards the students. Both student teachers made sure to walk around frequently during exercises to keep an eye on their students, while also letting them work independently.