Critical Reflection Week 4

Reflecting on this week it has been a successful week in reaching the aims of each lesson. I organised the alternate program for Thursday and for the remainder of the week I had been given different lessons to teach, pretty much on the spot. At first I didn’t like this idea as I like to be organised and know what I am teaching beforehand but it is a part of the job and I did managed to do this without any difficulties. It was good practice for me to use the knowledge I have and just make the lesson up as I went to suit the class.

Thursday I organised the activities for the remaining year 8 and 9 students. They were split into groups and I was given a group of about 32 year 8 students that stayed with me for the whole day. First period we had a persuasive writing task to conduct about modified games. I decided to slightly alter the task as the task was designed to be written after the students had played modified games in a period before, however because there were more students than expected we rotated activities. The original writing task was to write a persuasive essay about why or why not modified games are more beneficial for students as compared to traditional games.

The group I had was made up of a mixture of students with behavioural problems, special needs and some academically gifted. I started the lesson off by having a discussion about what modified games are and examples of games they had played that were modified and why they are good games. This allowed me to see the background knowledge the students had on the topic as I had not taught these students before.

I altered the task by asking the students in the groups they were sitting in, to choose a traditional game such as, soccer, and design a modified game of soccer. After this task they were then required to individually write a persuasive essay about why the modified game they had created, was better than the traditional game they chose. I think this task worked well for the majority of the class as the students were able to use their imagination and build on each other’s ideas during the group work.

The group work task promoted inclusivity as the students with special needs were included in a group and as I walked around to each group a asked a different person in the group a question about the game they had created, for example; have you come up with a name for your game? Do you play this game on the same size field as the traditional game? I tried to create a quality learning environment by clearly outlining the high expectations I had for each group for this task. I did this by asking questions about the game the group had developed and then leaving them with a few more things to think about while I visited other groups.

For the group with lower academic and special needs students I asked questions that were challenging for them and for the girls in the academic excellence class I asked them more challenging questions and expected a high quality of writing from them. I think a quality learning environment was created because for most of the lesson most students were engaged and showing enthusiasm as they explained the game they had created. At times two groups of boys got off task and were laughing and being silly but I went and sat with the group and allowed them a minute to settle down, let them know I was glad they were enjoying the task but to calm down a little and they did this quiet well and after prompting them with a few more questions about their game they we back on task. Apart from these two groups the remainder of the class self-regulated themselves well and this showed me that the task was engaging and worthwhile.

If I was to run this lesson again I would choose the groups prior to the lesson to even out the multiple intelligences and balance the different personalities in the class but because I did not know the students prior to this lesson it was hard to do so.

I took this class for period two where we played modified games of dodge ball. I chose two of the more athletic boys out the front each a captain of a team, I then allowed the students to divide themselves up into two equal teams behind each captain. I told the class if this cannot be done well I will choose the teams. I used this technique because I did not know the athletic abilities of each student in the class and I wanted to see if they could work together to make equal teams. They did this while I set up the game and I had them sit down one team on each side of the halfway line while I explained the rules because there are a number of different modifications that can be played in dodgeball.

This lesson went well until about half an hour in when one student decided to cheat. I then had students kicking balls (which is not permitted in this game) and nobody going off when they got ‘out’. I blew my whistle twice and instructed the class to stop, come in and listen. The class remained kicking and throwing balls leading to me blowing my whistle again. The students then began to stop, come in and sit down.  I waited until everyone was quiet and the balls were on the ground and I asked them at what stage did kicking become a part of the game? One of the boys answer ‘we made our own modification to make the game better’. At that stage I realised that the students had lost engagement and I needed to allow them some student direction to maintain a quality learning environment that the lesson had began with. I acknowledge that I was glad the students were using the knowledge from the previous lesson and thinking about how they could modified the game to make it more enjoyable, but that everyone needed to know the rules for the game to work. I then asked the students what modification they came up with that involved kicking, and together as a class we compromised and came up with a new modification of dodge ball which they played.

This incident allowed me to recognise why allowing student direction is important for maintaining or gaining engagement and as I learnt previously throughout this professional experience, if students are engaged then fewer behavioural problems are likely to occur thus allowing a quality learning environment to exist.

Reflecting back on my professional experience I think I have incorporated aspects of the NSW Quality Teaching Model (2006) throughout my lessons. I think I have drawn upon students background knowledge, I have set high expectations for my students in every lesson both behaviourally and academically. I have strived to maintain inclusivity and engagement in my lessons and allowed student direction in one particular lesson.

I have recognised that the hidden curriculum does exist within the school and for some classes it may have equal or more importance placed upon it, as compared to the official curriculum. 

Week 3 of professional experience

Whilst critically reflecting on the inclusivity of all students in my lessons I believed I still had work to do with  that one class, in trying to get them all involved in practical lessons. I had tried different strategies such as, the ball must be passed from a different boy to girl for the first six passes before they can attempt to score, if a girl scores it is worth 2 points (as it is mainly the girls that do not participate). These strategy started to work but there were still students standing still. Adding another ball to that particular modified game may have solved the problem. During that lesson debrief with my cooperating teacher I had been set the challenge of coming up with three different inclusive strategies to implement in my next lesson to try and get all the students moving and participating. 

The strategy I included in my next lesson was to have a team of completely girls and  to divide the remaining boys into two teams. I decided to try this because there seems to be a lot of issues between the girls and boys in this class. I included a game in the warm up that I thought the girls may have played before because I knew I had to get them enthusiastic from the beginning. This strategy worked well  throughout the whole lesson  (warm-up, drill and game) with the girls and I was very impressed with their effort as a team. I made sure I included as much positive reinforcement, praise and encouragement as possible and the girls became more and more confident and involved.

This week the school goes into an alternate program with the remaining year 8 and 9 students. Each faculty runs a different day and is in charge of all the students and implementing literacy and numeracy activities into the day. Myself and fellow prac student have organised the HPE day included a period on persuasive writing, modified games, numeracy activity (connected to nutrition) and the fourth period students will select the sport they want to play.