19/04/2016 - Day Seven - Professional Placement - Berserker Street State

School
Today was a big day for me at Berserker Street State School. I taught my first ever
lesson to this class and it was History. I felt confident with the topic but I had a lot of
information (teaching strategies, classroom management) floating around in my
head. I knew that the first lesson was going to be hard in respects to teaching at a
new school for the first time and the class testing the boundaries, but I didnt realize
how testing it was actually going to be. Straight after the lesson I was shocked and
deflated, but now after receiving my feedback from my mentor teacher I am excited
about teaching the next lesson. I cant wait to build upon my experience and
incorporate new strategies into my lessons to benefit the students. Below is a
reflective self-evaluation on the lesson.
What were the main outcomes of your lesson and to what extent did you
achieve them?
1. To present a lesson that flowed with smooth transitions I believe
that the transitions during the lesson could have been smoother. I
think that the main distraction for me was the behavior of selected
students. I was so focused on what was coming next in the lesson
and finishing all the content of the lesson in the time frame
allocated that I didnt stop the lesson enough to refocus disruptive
students and acknowledge their behavior.
2. Classroom Management Students were testing to see what was
acceptable and what wasnt during the lesson. I dont believe that I
followed through enough with warnings and I didnt deliver any
consequences to ongoing behavior issues. Before next lesson I am
going to reread a document that I have read by the Education
Department on classroom management. Next lesson I am going to
stop the lesson more to address behavior and use the behavior
chart in the classroom.
What were the two most successful aspects of the lesson and
your lesson plan in terms of:
1. Your development as a teacher: My projection of my voice is
improving. I am naturally a really quiet person so this has been an
ongoing issue for me throughout my GDTL. I feel during this lesson
though that my voice projection had really improved. I still have
space for improvement for my voice projection but I am currently
happy with the outcome.
2. What did the learners gain from the lesson: Learners gained
from this lesson an extended knowledge on significant historical
events that happened in Rockhampton in the past.

Were there any aspects of the lesson and/or plan that were less
successful? Why do you think this was? If you were to teach the
same lesson again, what two changes would you make? Why?
1. I do not believe that I differentiated enough for the lower students. I
should have, and as advised by my mentor teacher, wrote the key
words from the information sheet onto the board so that these
students could recognize which pieces of information they had to
match to the event on the timeline.
2. The second unsuccessful part of my lesson was that I did not
enforce the behavior management chart in the classroom. I should
have been giving warnings and making students move their pegs for
unacceptable behavior.
If I was to reteach todays lesson, I would focus on enforcing behavior
management and I would make sure that I differentiated the lesson more
so that everyone could keep up to the task. I believe that by altering these
two aspects of the lesson it would have made it easier to teach as
everyone would have been on task and there would have been less
interruptions.
What two aspects of your teaching and /or planning do you plan
to work on in the next lesson?
1. The first aspect of teaching that I am going to work on more in my
next lesson is to circulate around the room more. My mentor teacher
has provided me with a cordless mouse in the classroom and the
desks are in groups so I can teach and be seen from the students in
any part of the room. From teaching this lesson I now appreciate
how important it is to circulate around the room to make sure that
the students are on task and keeping up with the lesson.
2. I am going to enforce the classroom behavior management chart
and follow through with warnings in my next lesson. I have seen
from the lesson that I just taught how important it is to stay on top
of this to maintain control in the classroom.
Summary of discussion with Mentor Teacher:
Straight after the lesson, my mentor teacher handed me my observation
sheet for feedback and suggested the following improvements for the
next lesson. A copy of the feedback observation sheet is attached for
reference.
1. Circulate around the room more to make sure that students are on
task and keeping up with the pace of the lesson.
2. To extend on the differentiation of the lesson more to enable the
lower students to keep up.

3. To enforce behavior management in the classroom to maintain

control and to ensure that all students are on task.
After classes had finished for the day there was a seminar in the stadium
for teachers, parents and community members to attend. The workshop
was called Berserker Twilight Program the speakers John Edwards and Bill
Martain had flown over from America and were discussing their theories
and practices to us. The following information they passed onto us was
invaluable to me and I cannot wait to start using it in my lessons.

Transmissions Model This is when information is (in the words of

John Jammed in) and the people that are receiving the information,
either adult or child, usually do not remember what has been said.
This was valuable to me in the fact that I will try to avoid this
method in my teaching career. The following slide shows how the
information should be presented to the students.

Constructivism (Butler and Edwards): The model for this is below. I

thought that this was a great tool to use in the classroom. It is
evident that everyone hears the information and processes it into a
different way. It also establishes that you might tell three students
the same thing but based on their interpretive filters and mental
models etc they all hear different information. From observing this
model and hearing John speak about it I now know how important it
is to ask the student what they heard after I finish speaking to the
student. This ensures that the student retains the knowledge that I
am trying to tell them.

John Edwards continues the presentation to tell us that after 11

minutes of speaking (for an adult) and six minutes (for children) the
listener usually stops hearing and learning what the speaker is
trying to say. He emphasizes that it is really important that students
learn from each other as well discussing the topic that we have just
spoken about to learn from each other. During the presentation John
stopped every 11 minutes to let us discuss in our groups the topic
that was being presented.
Most learning happens when talking to other people (Butler).
The learning pit (Butler and Edwards) John emphases how important
it is to make sure that no child is left in the pit.