This blog is a reflection on A
Level Day - the first 'real' teaching many of us had done on the course, where
we were split into groups of 3 and given a class of about 15 A Level students
to teach a 'historical skill' to. My group - Mr 'Banker' Green (Trainee X), Mr
'Big in Oxford' Hockaday (Trainee Y) & I - chose to teach the skill of
interpretation, using the Profumo affair as a 'mystery sort' that pupils had to
try to piece together in small groups.
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As I sat in Derwent Bar on the
first Friday after we had split into our teams to plan A Level Day, I recall
feeling more than a little overwhelmed by the task that was ahead of us. I
couldn’t begin to imagine how we were going to turn the scribbled mess of ideas
in our folders into an effective, engaging and challenging A Level session.
Knowing that my team managed to do just that last Friday has left me with a
real sense of achievement, as well as some helpful pointers about what aspects
to focus on improving throughout my mini-block placement.
I felt that the strengths of
our team were inherently rooted in our strong personal relationships with each
other. This meant that we were comfortable enough to constructively criticise –
both in the planning stages of the day, but also to help each other to reflect
on areas of improvement after every session as the day went on. This meant that
on the whole, our sessions improved each time. We were also open to help and
feedback all day from both the school teachers and our university mentor – taking
the opportunity to create a new resource (a flipchart) at lunchtime, and
discussing how to make our questioning more effective as a result of some
feedback we had been given. We even found ways to observe what the school
teachers were doing and adapt it into our next sessions – for instance, when
one of the teachers joined in to circulate and question groups of pupils in one
of our sessions, we kept an ear open for the sorts of higher-level questions
she was asking and began to use them as the day went on.
Another strength of our team
was our presentation skills. We were all confident speakers and I learned a lot
from both of my colleagues in terms of manner, keeping calm, and the use of
humour to create a positive learning environment (although this does not come
as naturally to me as it does to them!)
We were also helped by the fact
that the topic we’d chosen, ‘History and Interpretation’ was a very stimulating
one as it would have been unlike anything the pupils would have explicitly
studied in school. We also came up with 3 really engaging activities which
challenged the pupils and allowed creativity – in particular, Trainee X’s
suggestion that we use the Profumo affair as the basis for a ‘detective’ style
activity. We felt it was important to keep teacher talk to a minimum and create
interactive activities so that the pupils could learn by ‘doing’. I believe
this played a large part in our good feedback from pupils, and I think they
enjoyed the element of challenge and creativity.
Personally, I believe my
biggest strengths were my confidence, which was especially helpful as I had to
start the session off and get the pupils initially engaged. I also contributed
a lot in terms of creating the resources for the session, and I think my
organisation and conscientiousness helped me with this task. I felt that my own
time management was good when conducting my starter, although I had an easier
job of it as my activity was only 5 minutes long, compared to Trainee X’s 20
minute slot.
As a team, we encountered two
main problems on the day: time management, and coping with different groups of
learners. These linked to each other, as we had based our time management on
the experience we had with our first group of the day who were very quick to
respond to our activities. These timings did not work with the second group, as
they took a much longer time to respond to the activities than the first group
had. This led Trainee X to give them more time in order to finish the activity,
meaning that Trainee Y and I ended up quite pushed for time! We then made the
mistake of letting this stress manifest itself in the way we spoke to the
learners, creating quite a rushed and pressurised atmosphere that was remarked
on by our mentor. We took steps to counter this by writing down actual timings
on a Post-It at lunchtime, and referring back to it constantly throughout the
next two sessions. The timing, pace and general atmosphere was much improved as
a result and our mentor commented on the improvement when she came to observe
us again.
Personally, I felt I had two
main areas to improve on as a result of the day. The first is my questioning
skills, something highlighted in the formal feedback from one school teacher at
the end of the day, but also an area in which I felt I was the least confident.
I found it very difficult to come up with questions off the cuff, although I
had thought that I would be able to do so easily. This has taught me to script
my questions in advance of the lesson to make sure they are
supportive/challenging enough (and not to argue with Trainee X and Y about the
need to plan a defined list of questions!) Some feedback we were all given, but
which really rang true with me, was that we were ‘spoon-feeding’ the students
the answers instead of allowing them to get there on their own. I thought it
was a mark of bad questioning or teaching when the students couldn’t get the
answer straight away, but now I understand that ‘think time’ and scaffolding
are necessary to get the students to come up with the right answer by
themselves. I forgot that our session was very challenging and involved quite a
lot of students having to think about the way in which they were thinking – a
high level skill that they would not have been used to. The pupils were also
probably feeling quite shy as they were mixed with lots of students they didn’t
know, in an unfamiliar environment. In the future, I will ensure that I give
the right amount of support and do not simply tell pupils the answer to
challenging questions. I will also do my best to create a ‘safe’ atmosphere
where everyone feels confident enough to speak.
Linked to this, I felt that my
starter activity may have been slightly too challenging for the students as
their responses to my AfL questioning were too hung up on the content of the
sources I had distributed. This meant the pupils did not respond to my second
question about why they thought I’d asked them to do the activity. This, again,
is because it would have been unfamiliar to them to reflect on the learning
process in this way. Similarly, the language was a bit too difficult for them
(some of it was original spelling from the 16th century), which to me seemed simple, but I’d failed to put myself
in their shoes. I think that whilst on mini-block, this will be less of a
problem because I have spent time observing my classes, studying their prior
attainment and discussing potential strategies with my mentor, the Head of
Department and the SENCo where appropriate. I will also check the resources
with my mentor to ensure I am not making incorrect assumptions about what
children may find easy/hard.
I had an excellent time on A
Level Day. It was encouraging and inspiring to see the way that my colleagues
worked. It was invaluable to have experience of informal observation before
mini-block started, because it helped me to handle the nerves I have been
feeling about being observed. Most of all, it has given me the drive to make the
most of mini-block and improve the areas that I fell down on last Friday, to
make sure that the high points of teaching that I experienced during the day
become more and more frequent. As another trainee said at the end of the day,
the experience proved to me that I made the right decision by starting this
course, and I look forward to the hard work ahead.
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| Mr Hockaday and I. Mr Green hiding out of shot, perhaps somewhere on the floor... |
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