Thursday, January 31, 2008
Another Microteaching DONE!!!
Yup, another of my microteaching is completed! The math one, in particular, the one on Percentages, remember? Can say tat it went on quite fine, 80% of wat i expected of myself lah. Once again, i realised while rehearsing for it, tat my weakness in planning lessons is tat i tend to over-plan, and once again, i was only able to carry out 3/4 of wat i planned within tat time frame...really need more practice on tat to ensure tat everything can be completed even w/o rehearsing b4hand.. and anyway, this time i rehearsed when i was alone at home...haha!
I guess the 20% which i'm not satisfied with myself was during one part of my lesson when i kinda "lost myself" and ended up laughing wif the class for awhile at the "joke" i created. Well, the "joke" came frm one of my slides which was supposed to intro to em wat GST is, and it basically looks like the pic below, with the heading of "GST (Goods and Services Tax)", and a scanned pic of a receipt below. My original pic only had de red circles, no blue ones. I meant it to focus the students' attention on the part of the receipt tat mentions the GST to be paid, BUT, instead, they were paying greater attention to the stuff bought even though it was nt completely scanned, as shown by the blue circle. Since it wrote "Anti-wrinkles", "Blemish control mask", they were like asking "Cher, why u buy anti-wrinkles stuff?" and the whole class started giggling.... and ME TOO!!!LOL!! I kinda expected such a reaction from them lah, but din expect it to be so extreme..LOL..haha, my peers really noe how to pretend to be real sec sch students sia!!! And cuz of that, i started laughing wif em for a few seconds in between words too, which sounds bad..haha...lost of composure as a teacher! But nvm, at least i now noe tat i'll hav to learn how to not laugh too heartily when i hear a joke in class while teaching...HAHA! (Bottling up one's tears is unhealthy, hope bottling up one's laughter wun be..haha!)
But on the whole, I felt tat my math microteaching class did a great job in pretending to be real students to mimick real classroom situations...at least compared to my chem microteaching class who always give correct ans and quite quiet one, the math class is much better..haha! At least it not only gives us a feel of doin teaching in class, but it oso gives us the chance to perform classroom management. Great job guys! Anyway, microteaching does hav it's limitations too. Like when i teach in real classrooms, i'll hav to speak at a much louder voicer than during microteaching. And in real classrooms, we'll hav to battle wif a higher surrounding temp than in the air-conditioned microteaching classroom. When teaching in real classrooms, i'll hav to handle cold sweat and warm sweat too (LOL!), but in the air-conditioned microT classroom, it's abit hard to sweat ya.... During microT, ur peers tend to "give u face" more (so tat they dun get sabo-ed by u during their turn to mictoteach..haha), but in real classes, students can't wait to see u make mistakes and crumble..(well, maybe nt all students r lidat lah, but i prefer to prepare myself for the WORST-CASE SCENARIO..) but having microT is still better than nothing at all b4 putting u in the real test in schools.
Today oso had a "Teaching in the social context" lesson, and we discussed on the teacher appraisal system used by MOE. Muz admit tat i came out of class rather disoriented (but not disillusioned, thankfully) upon knowing better what is in stalled for me in terms of teacher appraisal. But nevertheless, a good mental preparation for what is to come. The EPMS (Enhanced Performance Management System) does tend to promote politics among tchers to ensure tat u get a reasonable grade for appraisal, which is bad...wats more, the size of ur bonus and capacity for promotions will be affected by it too..oh wells, tats life i guess...Not to mention, there'll be more work on documentation of de stuff u've done for de year oso... apparently, a teacher's job isn't only to teach and teach well, he/she has to be all-roundedly proficient too (juz like students) in terms of management skills, teamwork, administrative skills, and any other skills u can think of.
But i guess at times, whether one gets to shine or not depends quite alot on the oppotunities he is given (some call it luck) and not merely on one's abilities. True to a certain extent i guess, but i'll call it God's provision instead of luck =) Just like in microteaching, i feel tat the topic u get to teach does play a part in how much room for creativity and innovation in teaching u have.
In any case, I believe that the Lord who has helped me through 19 years of stressful Singapore education system will be able to also help me thru seemingly minute matters like staff appraisal =) "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth." - Psalm 121:1-2 Pray that i do not get disillusioned in my purpose of teaching bcuz of things like appraisal and politics. NOTHING should make you crumble and fall when you know that you have God as your 24/7 helpmate. Honour God, and He will honour you too. Lord, please help me to be the teacher You want me to be.
12:15 AM
Lyna