Week Three Reflection

What were some positive aspects?

I have definitely developed greater confidence to manage the classroom in terms of pacing and
classroom behaviour. I am now familiar with the classroom's behaviour chart and actively keep a
record of students' behaviour and the consequences on the behaviour chart i.e. obtaining a
warning before escalating to further stages. I have found that by being consistent and following
through with what I said allows students to understand that their actions are fairly and
appropriately dealt with to minimise classroom disruption.
I have also improved in my questioning technique to probe students for answers and to
encourage them to actively construct meaning from their own learning. I have developed a sense
of what kind of teaching strategies are most effective and what style of delivering lessons is most
engaging for most of the students. The students are now familiar with my expectations and now
see me as 'their teacher' rather than an extra helper in the classroom. I am pleased that they treat
me with respect like they treat other teachers, which gives me an indication that I am slowly
developing my teacher presence within the classroom.
I am also extremely happy to obtain positive feedback from my mentors about the lessons I
conduct. My mentor has told me that she has noticed a significant difference in my teaching and
that I have incorporated the advice and suggestions that she had previously suggested to me into
this week's lessons. I have simplified my lessons and can clearly focus on the one objective that I
want students to achieve in a single lesson without clouding too many tasks into the one lesson.
What were some areas that I need to improve in?
I am still working on the task of differentiating tasks for different learners in the same classroom,
and I personally identify this to be an area that I need to develop more confidence and
proficiency in. Furthermore, as I have a mentor and myself in the classroom, it is easy to delegate
tasks for my mentor to help support the students who require individualised support. In a
classroom situation where there is only myself however, this would not be easily achieved as
attention is spread across all students. I have definitely noticed how a few students who appear to
not understand the content and concepts taught, actually do understand it, and possibly with more
detail and in more depth than other students. These students simply do not demonstrate their full
potential because they lack focus and are not able to demonstrate their ability unless they receive
one-on-one attention and prompting.
Whilst the timing of my lessons have improved, this had then created the problem of students
finishing very quickly and were left with a lack of activity to continue onto. Whilst this is hard to
predict, I need to factor in the chance of students finishing at different rates and to plan
effectively of further tasks for them to do that are related to the concepts just learnt.

In terms of behaviour management, I find that I still 'give too many chances' and 'turn a blind
eye' to off-task behaviour and unrelated conversations in the classroom more than I should be
doing.
How does this inform me for my future lessons and teaching practice?
With the experience that I have now gained from 3 weeks of teaching in the classroom, I have
built upon my repertoire of teaching strategies for the future by observing my two mentors in the
classroom. They have advised me to observe other teachers during DOTT sessions to see a
variety of teaching methods from different teachers who teach a variety of different students. I
am also very grateful to be teaching a 'You Can Do It' education program in the classroom,
which is a program which focuses on teaching students different 'life skills' such as confidence,
resilience and persistence as I believe this is just as important as learning and meeting curriculum
objectives. This has been very beneficial for both the students and myself, and is definitely
something I would like to incorporate into my future teaching career.
Having told my mentor that I do not feel confident with conflict resolution skills for the students,
I am very grateful for when she explicitly models her answers and responses to when students
approach her to ask questions or make statements. It has given me an idea of how to build their
skills as a person beyond just teaching about literacy, maths and other school subjects. I have
found that by making a clear effort to build and develop a relationship with the students and by
getting to know each person more personally, has resulted in a closer, more trusting teacherstudent relationship, which has in turned helped to make teaching and learning in the classroom
more effective.