Unit X | Week Four 19/04/16

Placement Week 1

The first week of placement at Darwin Aldridge Community Academy (DACA) was an interesting experience. With a mixed group of year 7, 8 and 9’s in a day, you could see the abilities and communication teachers and students had with each other. With the year 9’s, the teacher had planned out a seating plan for the 4 groups of year 9’s in the morning before the students arrived so that they could focus on the lesson. The teacher had also laid out the table in a way the group can see each other and communicate.

 

There was one group of year 9’s that were a disruptive than previous groups. The teacher composed herself in a way that the laughter in the classroom died down eventually. Warnings were given to the selected individual and breaks were eventually taken away as a last resort. What I took away from this was that even though teachers are set to work within time limits, not everything will go to plan as things will get in the way and teaching could be delayed. 

Micro teaching

In my micro teaching session, I chose to teach my peers and tutors my mother tongue language, culture, history. I feel like I went about on my timing really well as I didn't include a lot of information as the session was only for 10 mins! However, I feel like I provided enough content so that my peers learnt at least three things from me. What I included was, my language, Bangladeshi history, the meaning behind the flags design/ colours, Bengali writing etc.

My secondary school art teacher used to talk to GCSE students in a manner where we all felt comfortable and that he was one of us. He would gather us around a big table and show examples of how to do the work while talking about things that related to the work and a bit of banter. This made us feel like adults and we felt respected.

So form this experience, I used the method in the micro teaching and I feel like it worked for me, I felt more and more comfortable as the session went on. I also sensed a connection with my peers as they wanted to know more about my cultural background. This then led to me telling personal stories about back home, which I didn't mind sharing!