i'm not sure if the kids are actually learning anything, but i know i definitely am. this morning i taught my second high school lesson to a group of grade 9 students in PAA. the topic of the lesson was saving and banking.
i found this to be a really tough topic to teach because it seems so obvious to me - the answers to the questions, the explanation of what it is - that to break it down into grade 9 terms was actually so hard. and i don't think i did a good job of it. well, if i had stuck to my powerpoint i might have done a better job of it. there were a few students who were picking up what i was saying quite quickly. they clearly had some prior content knowledge and so our conversation quickly escalated to a more advanced level. unfortunately, that left the rest of the class in the dark. oops.
my co-teacher gave me some good feedback afterwards because i was feeling pretty badly about the lesson. the rabbit trail was fine, but i needed to return to what i had planned. because along the way, i lost a lot of the students.
we also finished with an activity that didn't really tie much into what i had talked about so far. oops again.
classroom management was tough today since we had a sub instead of our regular cooperating teacher. the sub was fine, but not a very assertive personality. i ended up moving one student twice and doing a lot of SHHHHs and please be quiets and please raise your hand. i feel like i said the latter at least 20 times.
in all fairness, i haven't been able to train these students according to how i want to so that makes it tough as well.
highlights - at the beginning of class we read a story together. after learning from last time, i had highlighted two copies for the students to read. and then i got two student volunteers and gave them each a copy. with me as narrator, the students read through the story in front of the class. everyone listened, everyone was attentive, no one spoke out of turn. and we gave our readers applause when they finished. it was great - and i learned the hard way after last week's reading was a flunk!
there is a good part to this learning as you go - you do eventually learn. it just sucks a little along the way.
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