Peer micro teaching [PGCE FT 2010-2012] 6 April 2011 After watching the peer micro teaching session, provide

the following feedback: 1. Were the objectives of the lesson met, that is, were all the learning outcomes developed? Explain. The objectives of the lesson were not stated at any point in the lesson. The students were not informed what they were expected to get from the lesson. Therefore, it is very difficult to say whether the objectives were met. After viewing the lesson, I can propose that the objectives might have been: At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to: (a) State the two fixed points are the lower fixed point and the upper fixed point. (b) Describe the different types of thermometers. (c) Read the temperature from a oC scale. (d) Calibrate a thermometer. I have identified too many objectives for this lesson, the teacher must not have too many objectives as in the rush to attain the objectives, it may happen that misconceptions are created in the mind of the students. Moreover, the students may not have a deep understanding of the concept and end with a shallow understanding of the concept if not root learn the concept. 2. Do you consider this lesson to be learner centered? Explain. According to me not lessons should be fully teacher-centered or learner centered, it must have a degree of both teacher centeredness and learner centeredness. As far as this lesson is concerned, I have identified that: (a) The first part of the lesson was teacher-centered. It was always the teacher doing and narrating the lesson with too few questions being asked to the students to make the class as learner centered as possible. However, I believe that the questioning style needs to be improved. What do you recall from the previous session Ok we check whether the students have understand the previous lesson, but not in this way. This gives me the impression that in physics, I just need to rote learnt the bits and pieces of information that was given to me. The recap part need not always take the form of a open-ended question, It can be in the form of an activity where the students have to use skills and previous knowledge to identify the various forms of heat transfer , say, in a room which is being heated by a lit fire. The students would then have come up with conduction, convection and radiation. They would have to understand the concept first and then learn. This promote learning with comprehension and makes the lesson more learner centered. (b) The second part of the lesson where the teacher introduces the concept of temperature is also teacher centered, though she asked a student define temperature, again promoting rote learning. The questions used to make the class learner centered were not appropriate. What can you say else.. about the scale? Instead of an open-ended question, she could have used a closed-question. For e.g. List the different scales used commonly used to measure temperature. The lesson was more learned centered until when she provides the worksheet. The students are then seen participating in their learning process. The two worksheets appear to be meant to make the student learn to read a thermometer. The third worksheet was meant to assist the students to calibrate a thermometer. This activity was about 1/3 of the lesson. The third part involved a teacher-led demonstration. And finally, there was a summary of that day lesson which is also students centered. In general, the degree of learner-centeredness in this lesson is acceptable, though with the

appropriate use of questioning and other activities, the lesson could have been more learnercentered. 3. Do you consider that the teaching-learning strategies were targeted at mixed ability learners? Explain. The lesson do appear to target mixed ability learners, as the worksheet involved activities to cater for students of different abilities. However, the lesson do not cater for the different abilities of the students, the same activity was designed for all students. Each time she made reference that you know this but never check whether the low ability students know it. The same worksheet was provided to all students through the worksheet was graded. The strategies used in the lesson are: (a) Questioning The questions were not targeted to students depending on their abilities. It appears that only one student was answering most questions. The questions could have been of different level of thinking with questions requiring HOT addressed to the high ability students. (b) Group work At certain point, the students were required to work in groups, but there appear to be not rule to group the students. The students group themselves with the mates with were closer to them. The grouping could have been done, considering the ability of the students. 4. Did you identify any misconception? If yes, explain. The unit of temperature is Kelvin, having symbol K, not oK. The SI unit of temperature is Kelvin and not Kelvin and degrees celcius. The lower fix point are the ice point and steam point. From the demonstrations, it appears that there is a misconception what is the ice point and steam point. For ice point, the thermometer is placed in pure melting ice and not melting ice and water. And for the steam point, the thermometer must be placed just above pure boiling water. While reading a thermometer, the thermometer must not be removed from the (medium) liquid whose temperature is being measured. One student removed the thermometer to then mark her thermometer, which according to me is wrong practice. 5. Were the questions asked by the teacher challenging? Explain. The questions asked were not challenging. At no point, it required higher order thinking. Most questions were of lower order. 6. What can you say about the hands-on activity(ies)? Can you propose something else? Yes there was a hands-on activity where the students were asked to calibrate a thermometer. The lesson can be more constructive if the students were provided with three beakers of water, one at room temperature, a second at a lower temperature, say five degrees and the third at a higher temperature, say 45 oC. The students are then asked to put the right hand in the hot water and the left hand in the cold water and then put both hands in the water at room temperature. And they then record their observation. The students then use a laboratory thermometer and a digital thermometer to record the temperatures. The aim of this activity is to show that our senses cannot be used to estimate temperature and to check student skills of using the laboratory thermometer to measure temperature. 7. What is your general impression on this session? Explain. For an experienced teacher, this lessons shows very poor planing. The way she teaches

appear to lay emphasis on rote learning of fragmented facts. The prior knowledge was tested but not related to that day lesson. So why did she test prior-knowledge. She could have related loss in thermal energy to a decrease in temperature and in this lesson we will measure this change in temperature. The first slide was may be intended to provide a hint of the previous lesson as it showed heat transfer but the slide failed in its purpose; there was not proper use of ICT. The second slide was merely to display what she was says, let accept it as to accommodate for the visual learner. But she could have give notes on a sheet of paper as well. How has ICT been used to improve her teaching. Slide 3 shows a thermometer with two scales and the boiling point and freezing point of water marked but no reference to the boiling point nor freezing point was made at that stage nor at a later stage. What is the purpose of having it there? For the conversion, more emphasis was made for conversion from F to oC than for conversion from oC to K and K to oC. Moreover, the teacher assume too many things without confirming it. She assume that the student knows the conversion, did she check that they still remember it. The definition of ice point and steam point was not made clear; this can lead to formation of misconception in the minds of the students. Also the definition of physical quantity was not clear. And the thermometry property stated also are not clear; thus teacher leaves a lot of space for misconception. For thermometers, again teacher assumes that student know about the various types of thermometers. She could have given the students the different types of thermometers and allow the students to use them, thus ensuring that the students know about the various types of thermometer. For the group work, no clear instructions on the roles of the members of the group was given. One one student was working in the group. She did not cater for all students, when she was explaining on worksheet 1, one student was working on worksheet 2. That student may feel neglected. I feel it was a good approach to make student learn to read a thermometer. She have lost more than 1 minute for the software was not well calibrated initially. She could have used the time to explain something else. She took almost 2 minutes to realise this. She gives the students the temperature sensors and aMixer and say that this is the temperature sensor. This will create misconception in the mind of students. The sensor was given to two students only. She did not make sure that all students see the sensor. In the experiment, the was a sensors and heater in one beaker, no explanation was given. When recording the temperature the thermometer must be in the liquid/medium. The cooling graph was not clearly visible. Ask student to sketch graph at home but range of values displayed was only from 74.7 to 81.3 and 17.7 to 15.5.