My Microteaching Reflection

How effective were the teaching strategies?

I wanted to teach this topic from the bottom up, start with simple signs like a stop sign or a picture and show how they have meanings. Then move up to photos and how they have attached meanings. Finally students will make the connection and see that advertisements are constructed images with intended meanings. The students should be able to make the connection since the scaffolding was put in place. Teaching was done by the peers and facilitated by the teacher. Peers had an opportunity to teach each other and engage in discussion. I wanted this lesson to be full of examples of images and signs and the magazines that were produced for the student age group was relevant to their interests too.

Were the objectives achieved?

I believe the students walked away with critical literacy skills and a keen eye on interpreting signs. This was demonstrated in their presentation of the text. It will be further assessed as students construct their own advertisements and follow-up with an essay.

How appropriate was the content?

The content I provided to the students was very specific. I want it to be relevant to their popular culture and magazines and newspapers and mainly print advertising is something that they will be exposed to for the rest of their life. So I would therefore agree that the content was appropriate for this particular program.

What was done well?

Feedback from the students suggests the lesson went well in general. Discussions were interesting and peaked engagement. My interaction with the students was confident and vocal projection was clear. I allowed the students to provide the information and also backed up and expanded their answers. The instructions were also given out clearly as the lesson progressed.

What could have been done better?

Many things… Firstly, relying on technology is not always the best, there will be occasional annoyances. Perhaps I could have printed off the images for the students. I believe the worksheet was not detailed enough. In hindsight, the (uni) students were able to follow the worksheet fine, however, If I were to give this to a class I had on previous pracs, there will be raised hands. I also did not like the flow between the concepts of signs to photos to advertisements. While I did what I could to squeeze this into 20 minutes, I believe the introduction could have been dealt with a lot more in-depth to give students a solid foundation in understanding sign/signified/signified. Students also wondered what the lesson objectives were at first, and while I suppose the uni students keep an eye out for this as a part of the assessment criteria, the fact that they did see it clearly, means that real high-school students will not see the objectives upfront either. So I need to make the objectives explicit. “At the end of this lesson you will have done…”

I also need to watch my timing with

How effective were any follow-up activities?

I had planned for the follow-up to be an opportunity to create their advertisements and then lead into an essay. I would have loved to have seen this go through. So it is hard to engage the effectiveness in this case, but having done this lesson before, many students find this to be most fun part.

Any other comments on the lesson that you'd like to make?

Perhaps in future, rather than trying to squeeze a lesson into 20 minutes, I should focus on a lesson that is actually 20 minutes, and maybe look at only one objective for the 20 minutes. In the past, my lessons have never exceeded 3 objectives, so 20 minutes for one objective is realistic. I also realise that if I had a class of 20, then having 10 students present advertisements will become very time consuming. And analysis can not be done I groups larger than 3. Overall, I was please with how the lesson went, but in transfer to a real school environment, the lesson I would need to modify some aspects, like extending the time spend on specific concepts.

Micro Teaching ROCKS!

So this week, I’d like to reflect on the whole process of microteaching, I think as a part of the Education faculty staff, you would find this type of feedback useful.

Microteaching is most definitely one of my favourite activities! I’m speaking from my experiences at Curtin where microteaching has been the most enjoyable part of this course above all other activities and exercises that prepare us for the teaching world. Why? There are many reasons, but put simply; it’s fun and practical! Think about how much time we spend and university detached from the schools we all want to teach in. Granted, we are given a chance to engage in practicum, but often, that transition into prac can be quite overwhelming, not to mention the fact that we still have to deal with university assessments at the same time. Incorporating teaching into the internal course makes a lot of sense.

This is what I get from engaging in microteaching lessons.

1. The lessons are short and manageable, they help me to focus on a single or at most, two activities and prepare for them properly. Often when we are teaching, we tend to have a lot on our minds regarding future lessons and hence, our lesson plans and preparation for activities may not be as solid as these dedicated microteaching sessions. Twenty minutes is a perfect amount of time for us to trial a lesson or activity and once we get familiar with hour the students respond to that activity, we can transfer that into our school teaching; with some knowledge of how things will work out.

2. Another reason why I find microteaching to be helpful for my learning is through exposure of other peoples skills! At the end the two weeks we spent on microteaching, I was able to see around 8 potential lessons that I could teach and I picked up many new ideas and resources. So not only does the teacher in the micro-lessons benefit from the experience, but also the students are the ones who pick up on new skills.

3. Microteaching is filmed, while this is may seem like a necessity for assessment purposes, having a recording of the lesson as a reference to see your progression is quite useful. I could see my progression from my first year of teach until now.

4. Feedback is something that teachers always need. Microteaching offers feedback on specific tasks and strategies used. Furthermore, the feedback given comes from multiple viewers and therefore, responses can be gauged from a larger group. While we are on prac, we do receive feedback from our cooperating teachers, however, that feedback is only from one person, and thus the ideas and responses given to us tend to be limited in that regard. The process of giving feedback is also a good way to engage in a lesson and analyse teaching styles. If we are asked to provide feedback to other teachers, then we are able to look at the lessons and see what can be improved for our own benefit.

5. I believe microteaching is a great morale booster. In an environment where you are teaching to your peers, the response and engagement may be better than real world situations, however, that response is needed to boost your confidence as a teacher. At the end of the day, these microteaching lessons are only a bridge to the real world class and so practice in this setting prepares us for the real world.

I believe Curtin has done well by incorporating microteaching into the curriculum. I would like to see more microteaching sessions allowed for this course and perhaps a unit dedicated to learning from microteaching and feedback from peers.