Taking charge of unfamiliar classes

I feel placement has went very well so far, I have covered many extra classes due to one of the cooperating teachers being gone on school activities. In covering his classes I did a large amount of theory work with all his class groups, while the workload was high I still feel I benefitted from this experience as it gave me extra time to work on classroom management techniques amongst other things. the key points that I felt I needed to address when taking these extra classes were Ground Rules.

• Orientation – having material set up for the extra classes and having this workload ensured students were constantly busy which helped with classroom management. I also needed to have a look at what each class group were working on at that time, but it has given me a good insight into the level of progression theory wise between all the year groups.

• Authoritative body language – I needed to set down a marker early that I was in charge and we would be working to the pace I see fit. I did this through

– Proximity. “The farther away the teacher is from the student the more likely the student is going to pay less attention and find themselves off task. Likewise, the inverse is true, the closer the teacher is to the student the less likely the student will be off task” (Dyer, et al., 2018, p. 108).

– Eye contact. “eye contact of teachers plays a significant role in enhancing the discipline, and performance of students at primary level. It is also concluded that by using eye contact teacher can easily control the students in classroom according” (Atta, 2014, p. 95).

– Posing questions. “Asking questions is one of the most immediate ways to help students reflect on their own actions, which is a technique that is often overlooked in favor of a teacher's direct commentary” (Robison, 2020, p. 79).

Overall, the experience of taking additional classes throughout the week will benefit me in the long run as I will be more assured of my classroom management practices when teaching my own class groups.

My lesson plans have improved throughout the placement, at the start of the placement I was planning to cover probably too much material which is not necessarily a bad thing but as the placement has gone on I have got a better feel for each classes working speeds and level of understanding. One aspect I need to look further into is my assessment techniques. From reading essential teaching skills by Kyriacou I now see that some activities that I set up in the lesson should be there with the primary purpose of assessments being made. This can range from being a diagram with the labels taken away and asking students as a whole class group to orally give me the names of each part or asking individual students to list an alternative method of sketching a part on solid works. Overall, I need to up the amount of assessment techniques I uses in the coming week and I also need to think about setting up both formative and summative assessment in class tests in the coming weeks.

Next week I hope to make more progress with both of my first-year groups to finish off the projects before finishing my term of placement.

I hope to reinforce some of the key skills with my fifth-year construction class, so I need to put in some time applying detail to my demonstrations.

Bibliography

Atta, M. A. A. M., 2014. USE OF TEACHERS' EYE CONTACT IN THE CLASSROOM AND ITS EFFECT ON THE SPECULATIVE EXECUTION OF STUDENTS AT PRIMARY SCHOOL LEVEL. Gomal University Journal of Research, 30(1), pp. 91-97.

Dyer, T., Aroz, J. & Larson, E., 2018. Proximity in the Online Classroom: Engagement, Relationships, and Personalization. Journal of Instructional Research, 7(11), pp. 108-118.

Robison, T., 2020. Improving Classroom Management Issues by Asking Questions. General Music Today, 33(2), pp. 79-82.