First Lesson

Wednesday 7th October
First Lesson Reflections

I've spent the previous week and half on my initial placement at a High School near Wigan. I've been observing and filling the role of teaching assistent where appropriate. Last Friday, I was asked if I could research Serif DrawPlus (in particular animation) so that I would be able to help on Wednesday. I spent Sunday creating a spaceship animation. On Monday I was given the choice to teach the lesson on Wednesday and I wanted the opportunity to teach.

The class is a bottom set Year 9 class which consisted of the most problematic students from Year 9. I started off by trying to stamp my authority on the class by making them line up outisde, but the teacher let the students in before they'd all lined up so took it out of my hands. The teacher also took the intro (as previously discussed and arranged). I then proceeded with the started which went pretty well. I maintained calm and waited for everyone to be quiet. I didn't have to resort to putting the timer on the screen and they responded well. The students then proceeded to draw a simple still frame and everyone seemed to have followed the instruction.
I then implemented a mini-plenary and got the students back around the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). I was trying to then teach them some simple animation. Unfortunately, I was a little more impatient about trying to tell them what to do and didn't insist on silence (although made sure it was quiet). This was due to the fact that time was against me. However, it was soon clear that the students hadn't really listened as I had to explain the same instruction again and again (adding a new frame).
For my plenary I had got some students work to show on the IWB and managed to get everyone at the front but the bell went and I didn't really enforce the students to stay behind. This will cause problems in the future.

In the future, I will make sure I explain myself better. I will insist on silence during my teaching. I will start the plenary 10 minutes before the end and inform the students to save and log off and then lock their screens. At the end, I will enforce any time added on. When showing students work, I will get them to type in their username on the laptop and show it themselves to add more pride. I was pleased with how confident I seemed and hid my nerves well. I also changed tone well and really started with a bang. It was enjoyable overall.
I will start to put together a unit of work for this class.