QCR520 Blog Entry 6 - Microteaching Tips on Teaching, Classroom Management and Planning - Wee Kiat's Post

Please post about: (1) 3 tips for teaching/ classroom management/ planning gleaned from microteaching. (2) Give specific examples from your own or other lesson observation.

Looking back at the semester, it has really been a pleasure and an honour to be learning about the pedagogy of literature with each of you. We had intense moments of debates as well as zany moments of just bursting out in laughter (for nothing). Before I begin my post, allow me to dedicate the following song to each of you (not that we are there yet):

 

 

Okay, enough emoting. Let us move on to proper topic at hand, that is the microteaching. Having been through all the microteaching sessions, I am sincerely impressed by the different pedagogical style undertaken by the various student-teachers in the class. From the traditional lecture style method to the innovative usage of multimodality, I am amazed at how versatile all of you were during the microteaching sessions. The examples listed below are just a few observations I made. Hope it will be edifying to the development of our personal pedagogies in future.

 

1) The usage of humour in class discipline (Samuel and Mark)

Looking back at my short one-month stint in Junyuan Secondary School, the one thing that is stuck in my mind is how teachers always sought to scold their students whenever they become rowdy. One question I have always asked is whether there is a better way to discipline students other than being aggressive with them. Think that question was answered when I observed how Samuel and Mark conducted their lessons.

 

Apart from Mark's excellent clarification of difficult concepts in the lesson, the presentation of the Haw Par Villa picture with the edited portion on the punishment of making noise in class is castration, is effective in catching the attention of students. If used in a classroom setting, I can really see how students will actually roar in laughter but will later cooperate with the teacher and pay attention in class. Because the teacher is willing to bring himself down to the level of the students and speak in their language (that is, in terms of humour), the students will respect the teacher.

 

Similarly, with regards to Samuel, the ability to integrate humour into a boring lecture is an impressive skill. Whilst one might run the risk of losing the students' attention, is this skill is sharpened, it can becoem a powerful tool to engage the students. Usually, in frontal teaching, one might run the risk of the students not paying attention. However, in the Singapore Education system, frontal teaching still remains an essential element in education. Therefore, if Samuel (or any one of us for that matter) practices the skill of incorporating humour into our frontal teaching, I am sure students will learn a lot more.

 

2) The usage of difficult theoretical terms (Pepper and Jia Min)

In the past, I am usually hesitant in teaching students complicated terms. I tend to have this access-limiting mentality about students, doubting their ability to cope with theoretical terms. However, by observing how Jia Min and Pepper conducted their lesson, I am beginning to have hope that I may be able to teach my future students, using complicated terms.

 

In Jia Min's class, she spent an extended period to teach one term, "metaphysical". Seeing how she used different methods to teach, such as the usage of the picture, dictionary definitions and other resources, we can see how Jia Min sought to educate her students about this term. The subsequent usage of the word "metaphysical" on the book Fasting, Feasting is also well done. As adviced, the lesson would have worked better had it been two sessions, one focusing on teaching the word "metaphysical" and another focused on writing the thesis statement.

 

Pepper's microteaching session was also impressive. Though I had some concerns about the quantity of information that her lesson has, it is nonetheless well-scaffolded. Pepper moved from situational observations to theoretical discussions to application to the texts. The lesson flowed very well and I believe students will appreciate how complicated theoretical frameworks actually help one to understand the text better.

 

Both microteaching lessons demonstrate how difficult theoretical terms can be used to assist the students in understanding the text more effectively.

 

3) The usage of multimodality (Xin Hui and Liz)

Being a film student, I am really impressed by how Xin Hui and Liz incorporated video clips into their lessons. There is always a tendency to use films to distract the students, especially when teachers have no good ideas on what to teach. However, Xin Hui and Liz have demonstrated how it is possible to use multimodal texts to conduct an effective lesson.

 

In Xin Hui's microteaching lesson, she used footages from Holocaust documentaries and compared them with the gas chamber scene in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Through the comparions, she got students to understand how traumatic events are portrayed differently and what are the reasons behind the different means of portraying traumatic events.

 

In Liz's lesson, using a video that advertises Ivan Heng's performance as Emily of Emerald Hill, she manages to get students to understand how gestures play an important part in portraying gender. She challenges students to not accept mainstream notions of gender, but actually get students to question how often these gender roles are constructed then real. Liz could have used the video more to her advantage, explaining how Ivan Heng's Emily is actually manjaing at the camera.

 

These two microteaching lessons are examples of how multimodality can be applied in the classroom.

 

With the above comments, I believe that there are many more skills we can glean from the microteaching lessons. Thank you all for such a great semester in NIE!