Describe
briefly the literature and assessment culture in your Practicum school. What
did you learn during Practicum?
1.
Read Shepard, L. A. (2000) The role of
assessment in a learning culture. Educational
Researcher 29(7): 4-14.*
2.
Earl, L. (2005) Thinking about purpose in classroom assessment.
ACSA.
I taught two sec 1 express classes in a girls' school. My CT supported my use of group work and socratic questioning during our lessons to trigger higher-order thinking. At the same time, she emphasised that we should be "exam-minded" by requiring students to write their answers in the PEEL structure. So, I feel that my school values critical thinking in students (the so called "intangible") and also value how students write their answers (the so called "tangible"). The latter is partly so that students can do well in assessments like tests and exams where they need to answer essay questions.
ReplyDeleteI taught 2 Sec 2 Express classes and they were doing 'Madame Doubtfire'. I didn't get a chance to incorporate much socratic questioning in the lessons as we had to complete 10 chapters in 7 weeks though I tried. I only had 1 measly hour with my classes each week for Lit ):
ReplyDeleteHowever, I did set 2 worksheets for the students to fill in as classwork. These worksheets questioned their thoughts and impressions of the main characters. You could say it was a 'reader-response' kind of "assessment".
I feel that the assessment culture, as always, was results-oriented. The PEEL essay-writing format was also greatly encouraged and enforced.
- Ju Ling
Reading the posts of others makes me abit sad that I didn't get to do more with the students. My lessons were mostly plot-centric and focused alot on themes and characterization. I wonder if I would have more to say now if it had not been a 'novel' term? I think so!
DeleteI taught 2 secondary 2 express classes for literature as well in my practicum school. The focus for the term was Singaporean literature and unseen poetry, so the girls read 3 short stories; “Taximan” by Catherine Lim, “Welcome” by Gopal Baratham, and “The Tiger” by S. Rajaratnam; and also 3 short unseen poems; “The Tyger” by William Blake, “ Two Young Women” by Diedre Barry, and “To Be a Woman” by Shakuntala Hawoldar. I had two hours per week with each class, though I did miss a significant number of lessons with them because of all the holidays (national day, Hari Raya and teachers’ day etc).
ReplyDeleteThe girls were mixed ability students, who generally liked literature, but were weak in their skills, unable to analyze the material effectively, and thus unable to easily recognize and pick out the literary devices and the themes present in the text. Furthermore, it was the first time they were dealing with unseen poetry, and the sentiment amongst them was generally negative. Thus my CT supported my use of heavy scaffolding, though the provision of worksheets, notes and so on, to help them cope.
The PEEL structure was of course enforced and emphasized, and my school even had a workshop for the teachers on Socratic questioning, and ways to promote higher order thinking, which I tried to incorporate in my lessons through group discussions, and assignments that encouraged them to input their thoughts and opinions.
While like every school, there was an emphasis on grades, my school was moving towards implementing differentiated instruction on a large scale, and so we as teachers were encouraged to employ some strategies in the classroom that fostered this. While there was no time for me to do this in my classes- it was done at the level – with the higher ability students from the better classes getting different assignments from the rest of their peers.
-Anisha
I taught one class of secondary two boys during my practicum. Sad to say, I did not get the chance to be as flexible as I would like to. We attempted to complete the WHOLE Merchant of Venice text in 6 weeks (which was a really tall order in my opinion). The school took a very structured approach to the teaching of Literature. There was a coordinator who was responsible for overseeing the whole pace and teaching strategies that we would use. The coordinator generated the worksheets and resources, and really, all we had to do was to use the worksheet in class and teach based on what the coordinator set out. This ensured that everyone was on the same page.
ReplyDeleteThe emphasis was really on personal response to the major themes and characters in the play. Students were given a quiz, a essay assignment, a research assignment and an exam to sit for within the short span of 6 weeks. Needless to say, things progressed like a bullet train. I was unable to fully deal with the intricacies of the text and had to rely on the self-motivation of our boys to explore on their own outside of class in order to prepare themselves for the numerous assessment they had to sit for. At the end of 6 weeks, we spent another 2 weeks preparing the boys for their dramatisation assignment whilst teaching a refresher course on Poetry.
Overall, I wasn't very comfortable with the tight reign that the department had on the teaching of Literature, but I guess it was unavoidable with so much to cover in such a short time. On the bright side, since there was no need to worry much about planning for lessons or preparing resources, it gave me more time and flexibility to focus on my CS 1.
Oops, Rachelle here by the way (:
DeleteI taught a sec 1 Express class during practicum. Given the general calibre of students in my school, teaching and learning had to be simplified, and so, accordingly, asseessment.
ReplyDeleteFor term 3, I taught my class the basics of poetry, following a textbook called "Fun Literature Learning". The textbook was structured so as to introduce students to basic elements, such as Rhyme, Alliteration, Simile, etc., through the use of very basic poems.
One example would be a poem like "The You Can Be ABC" which was really just a series of alliterative words like "You can be / An artistic actor or a brainy barrister / A clever conductor or a dynamic dancer"
My CT would require me to "go through" the content of the poem, almost line by line, ensuring that the students understood the poem. For this purpose I would devise comprehension-style questions that sought to get students to think about what a persona meant or felt.
Then I would try to get the students to apply their understanding by creating something. For example, in the lesson about Alliteration, I would get students to come up with "nicknames" for their friends that were alliterative.
The term test was set by me and edited by my CT, who made some major changes to some of the questions. This test was also very simple and did not involve any kind of essay writing. Instead, students had to do elementary tasks such as identify rhyme schemes and examples of alliteration. There were also short answer questions based on the set poems from the textbook.
In summary, the teaching and assessment of literature, at least for the sec 1 Express students, appeared to be focused more on basics and fun rather than exam skills.
What I learned in practicum could be itself the subject of a reflective essay. For this brief post, I'll just say that I learned in practicum the importance of slowing down, planning less activities, and giving "lead time" to students when asking them questions in class. I also learned that students do need to take some time to think on questions and come up with answers (shocking, I know).
During my first week in my practicum school, i was told to teach English Language instead of English Literature. I had to inform the school that i would be glad to teach English Language subsequently but for the purposes of my practicum, i would need to teach English Literature. I was subsequently told that in my practicum school, they would prefer to blur the distinction between English Language and English Literature.
ReplyDeleteI taught the book "flour babies" by Anne Fine for secondary students. In a nutshell, the book is about a school project which entailed students designing a "flour baby" and "pretending" to be parents for three weeks by taking care of the "flour baby". The students in my school did a similar project.
The students enjoyed the project designing their "flour baby". That was worth 40%. There were two other tests worth 30% each, one on the material covered in the book and one on an unseen poem.
The journal entries were of varying quality. Some students did reflect deeply about their experiences and wrote some mature thoughts. One student wrote "i neglected my flour baby for today as my mum was diagnosed with a colon problem. It's more important to care for the living than something not alive".
I marked the journal for the depth of their answers.
The teaching philosophy for lower secondary literature in my school is essentially to help students "enjoy literature". It was not very demanding academically.
Nevertheless, the students do respond to "deep" issues and are not superficial per se. My normal academic class were quite moved by a poem about child abuse. So i guess its one thing to demand that they be familiar with literary techniques and another to engage "deep" issues.
In my school, the students do Language Arts (LA) instead of literature. With no need to follow the Literature syllabus set by MOE, the entire LA curriculum is designed by the school.
ReplyDeleteOne large component of LA assessment was based on the students' LA Night project. The students are allowed to work in groups or individually and can choose between performing a play, writing a short story or poetry or making a film. There is little teacher intervention and the students are free to choose the theme of their performance. I feel that this caters to different learners as students can not only choose the who they work with, if they want to work with anyone that is, they can decide on the type of project/ medium of delivery. This fexibility means that they are able to do what they are most comfortable with/ most interested in. An example of the flexibility would be a PRC student who did his entire project in Mandarin which he later translated into English. The teachers felt no need to restrict his choice of language and wanted him to write in the language that would best allow him to express his thoughts.
While the rubrics to assess all the different projects are the same, I noticed that the teachers assessing the students were mindful that they could not follow the rubrics strictly as it is not possible and unfair to judge a film with the same yardstick as a play.This is a move away from uniformly administered assessments that Shephard (2000) mentioned though it must be said that the teachers still feel the need for a single set of rubrics across all projects.
This is not to say that the school did away with formal assessments such as essay writing and comprehensions. Those were still used but lesser than they would in most schools. The students have not been able to completely move away from rote learning but there is now less need for it. Students are also assessed based on class participation which is a form of dynamic, ongoing assessment as recommended by Shephard. It is worthy to note that the more vocal students have an advantage on this front.
During my practicum, I was given the Language Arts (LA) curriculum instead of a proper Literature class. Then again, what makes a "proper" Literature class is another debatable issue for future discussion.
ReplyDeleteI was tasked to teach the Sec 1 NA classes "Oliver Twist" from scratch in 10 weeks. The Language Arts curriculum in this school, I would say, is still undergoing constant experiments for improvement. As students are generally weak in the language, it was difficult to integrate Literature into the English lessons if they cannot even figure out what is going on in the book.
Assessment wise, it was more assignment-based semi-formative summative type. Class work/group activities were mainly formative, while take-home assignments and group projects could be a combination of both formative and summative. Quizzes on parts of the book were given as an attempt to get the students to start read the book before lessons on those chapters. Without those quizzes, students almost always attended class with zero knowledge of what those chapters are about. It made teaching extremely challenging as whatever I said was not properly conveyed to the students since they couldn't even relate to what I was saying without having read the text.
All the theories we learnt in NIE were not that easy to implement in this school given that the student profile here is of rather low ability. Perhaps the most useful strategy after trying out many others (which include group work, pair work, KWL, DRTA) was really frontal teaching. In fact, it felt almost like I was in a NLB telling stories to little kids - but it was good because they were really engaged for those lessons and their understanding of the plot and characters improved tremendously. It might not be the best way to teach Literature, but for a low ability class, I guess this is one way to expose them to the story, to trigger their interest, even before we can talk about making them appreciate the subject.
Another thing I have learnt from practicum - always scaffolding the lessons for the students, especially when they are of lower ability. I found myself struggling to break things down to their level, and even as I tried, my CTs commented that it wasn't enough. Scaffolding in different forms (filling in blanks instead of copying chunks of words, giving helping words instead of expecting them to write out a full sentence, prompting statements instead of a question leaving them clueless) helps the kids understand the lessons better, learn better and more effectively. It is very time-consuming yes, but having something learnt for the day is better than having nothing learnt at all if I had carried out a lesson meant for higher ability students.
During Practicum, I was tasked to teach Language Arts (LA) for two Secondary Two Normal(Academic) classes. The chosen text was Animal Farm. The objective of LA in the school is that of integration, where it is envisaged that language can be taught through the study of literature. However, it seems that that ideal --while noble and sound in theory – is exceedingly tough to implement in reality, especially when the target group of students is that of low ability (who have problems using capital letters and periods correctly, who after months of studying the text still think it is call Farm Animals).
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Literature teaching, my lessons were plot-centric. These plot lessons are unavoidable since a lot of the students would not have read the text out of their own volition (or even bring the text for that matter). I tried dramatizing when I read aloud to the students; I tried showing the clips from the Animal Farm movie (but I find that that takes away even more motivation from reading the text); I tried expert groups. None of those approaches really helped. Reading assignments (usually tasked for weekend homework and usually comprising 3-5 pages) and reading quizzes did not help.
However, I did, at the end of Practicum and for my final observation, do a last hurrah and started the class off with an essential question: Is Change Always Good? I know an essential question should inform a unit plan / scheme of work, but since the SoW was already assigned to me, I decided to use that essential question as a summary and also to tap on higher order thinking skills after I finished the series of lessons linking Animal Farm to Russian Revolution. I presented the students with a scenario – they won the Rebellion against the school Principal and overthrew her, and they were free to make changes to anything and everything in the school. I then got the students to fill up worksheets in groups that would give their group discussions more structure (e.g. changes they would make the lessons, school food, holidays, etc), and got them to justify why. They definitely enjoyed the lesson – some of them came up with provocative and even audacious changes which I had to fend off. At the end of the lesson, the message – not all change is good / change for change’s sake is not good – did get through to a tiny number of students. That was heartening, but also at the same time it was disheartening to see that a lot of the students were completely unmoved – and even slightly baffled – by the exercise.
In terms of assessment, other than my reading assignments and quizzes (in which most of the students failed abysmally), students were not assessed that much on Literature. A good amount of what they did would inevitably fall back into English Language (e.g. write a group newspaper report on an incident in Animal Farm). In the common test, they had to answer questions that were based on an extract from Animal Farm, such as questions on characterization and the use of irony, but some of the questions were not entirely literature-based. It could be my own personal bias, but I think LA here has a more of an English Language slant to it, and I am unable to give Literature the amount of care that I would like.
On the whole, I have learnt to moderate my expectations of students. I know setting high expectations for students is something which is usually encouraged, but I realized I needed to really break things down for the students. The most basic and simplest of concept requires extensive deconstruction. In light of this, I also learnt to be patient with the class. I also learnt that I can never stop learning as a teacher. For example, I need to constantly think about how to get the class to read or at least retain the information that is presented to them (even if they do not read the text).
- Angela
The assessment culture in my practicum school was quite conservative: students were tested mostly on their writing skills, according to the PEE structure. This was particularly the case with the Sec Ones, who underwent rigorous processes of PEE indoctrination as they studied poetry. Because there was a great deal of emphasis in preparing them for the written CA, most of my lesson handouts featured short answer questions anticipating the PEE structure. While there were fun moments of formative assessment (dramatic performances of poems, for instance), most of the learning skewed towards the ultimate goal of succeeding at test questions. We had revision lessons just before the CA, where I was tasked with 'making sure that the students know how to answer questions' to the poems that we had studied--no more, no less. This made for some truly sedentary lessons, which I myself felt sorry to be delivering.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, though, I had more leeway in assessing the Sec Twos on their understanding of Catherine Lim's short stories in "Or Else, the Lightning God". I was able to formatively assess students with many groupwork products including comic strips, character charts, skits, and diary entries. In terms of formal assessment, however, the school relied largely on the written test and the dratted PEE for both the unseen prose test and graded take-home practice. The final grade, then, did not take into account the students' class participation, potential talent, or full writing ability. Instead, it boiled the 'thematic' learning done in class to the bare bones of functional, but prosaic PEE paragraphs.
This apparent divide between thematic and functional learning--for lack of more elegant handles--is something that I've yet to reconcile. While I do value the fact that students should know how to write well, it is wrong that a simple writing tool has come to rule Literature lessons. For the sake of teaching PEE, I had to restrict my lessons, and model very formulaic answers for my students, who tended to take them as the gospel truth. This is something that I was quite uncomfortable with, even if it served as a lesson in exam techniques that the students actually appreciated.
Relatedly, I was also caught off-guard by the fact that students seemed to expect such functional assessments, and would not actually submit work unless it was graded. In fact, students would take the boring summative assessment tasks more seriously, as compared to the fun formative assessment tasks. Whether a symptom of changing times, or increasingly savvy students, this attitude towards learning is quite dispiriting, and did challenge my views of learning.
Lastly, like many of my classmates, I also found that it was important to scaffold students' learning. This can be done in daily handouts, and even in assessments, with helping words and guiding templates. My CT also stressed the importance of including the allocated marks for questions even in handouts, so that the students could use that information in figuring out what they should write. Again, this was something that first struck me as overly functional and tedious, but that I subsequently came to appreciate as a learning aid for weaker students.
I can certainly identify with Evelyn on the "apparent divide between thematic and functional learning" which I referred to as the divide between the "intangible" critical thinking/discussion, airy fairy stuff (for lack of better description!) and the "tangible" exam-oriented PEEL output respectively. While she felt sorry for delivering lessons that focused on PEE, I felt sorry for the lack of it and for having too much critical thinking type of activities such as debate, songwriting, and group discussions.
DeleteSeparately, there was a lesson I taught to two different classes which exposed a stark weakness in my lesson delivery. I had difficulty in giving clear instructions regarding certain literature concepts. I thought after the 1st class, the 2nd would be better because I could improve by working on the feedback from my CT. However, the instructions were still unclear in the 2nd class. The puzzled looks on my students' faces really makes me feel inadequate as a teacher. Perhaps, we could touch on lesson delivery during this semester? Thanks!
Describe briefly the literature and assessment culture in your Practicum school. What did you learn during Practicum?
ReplyDeleteIn my Practicum school, there were no upper Secondary classes taking Literature, so I only had one Secondary Two express class for Literature.
My Literature Coordinator was a very capable planner. She planned the entire scheme of work for the lower Secondary levels, which included various ways of assessing the students. I was lucky that I only had to modify materials that were already created by her.
One of the major assignments was that the students had to craft a poem inspired by their artwork which they had already created in their art class. The students had to write a 300 word analysis on what their poem was about and how their poem supported their artwork. The students had many great ideas and some were really creative, but a lot of them had trouble with analysing their own product.
Writing was also a major part of summative assessment in my Practicum school. The school was very big on the PEE structure and basically made me hammer that framework into the students every chance I had. It did work, to a certain extent, but it took very, very long.
What did I learn in Practicum? To ask open-ended questions in order to facilitate a meaningful class discussion. My CT was very big on clarity in explanations, so I basically had to learn how to explain concepts in the easiest and clearest way possible. I'm still struggling with that now, but I'd like to think that I've gotten much better at it than before.
I taught a Sec 1Exp class, and 2 Sec 1NA classes, and our text for the term was The Little Prince.
ReplyDeleteThe SOW had been created by two other teachers, but I was encouraged by the HOD to modify the plan and differentiate the way I would teach the text to my Exp and my NA classes. She also gave me a lot of room to move away from the specified activities and to improve on the suggested forms of assessment.
While it was exciting at first to be given free rein, I think I was actually very lost because I had no idea how to deal with most of my NA students, or what they actually needed. A lot of time was spent on classroom management and checking whether the students actually had the books/completed their worksheets etc.
I tried telling stories, group discussions on issues/themes, letting students listen to the audio book, getting them to fill in autograph entries, worksheets, frontal teaching with ppt slides, videos, a brief drama session... But to begin with, in retrospect, I really should have just gone through the WHOLE text with them, line-by-line first. This is what the 1NA classes (especially) desperately needed, because 90% of them would not have read it on their own.
Assessment-wise, the summative assessment for 1Exp included a comic, a personal reflection question as well as a class test. 1NA had to do a pen portrait, a personal reflection question, as well as a class test. This was all criterion referenced, because we were focusing on trying to find out how much the students understood about the text. Formative assessment for both classes included worksheets on which I gave thorough feedback, as well as general feedback and sharing in class after groupwork and group discussions.
I've learnt:
1) ***to manage my expectations of the learners
2) to scaffold
3) how I need to make my lesson objectives more tangible (rather than merely expressive e.g. students must be able to analyse)
-Kar Mun
Describe briefly the literature and assessment culture in your Practicum school. What did you learn during Practicum?
ReplyDeleteI taught Literature to a small class of 24 Secondary Three students in River Valley High School. I had less than eight weeks to prepare them for a common test based on the novel 'The Chrysalids' by John Wyndham, and they were instructed to read the novel for the first time during the June holidays.
All 24 students chose to study Literature at Secondary Three, so I didn't exactly have to convince them to love the subject. In fact I was very impressed by the eventual standards of their essays, group presentations and debates, which indicated that most of them could really relate to the novel, think critically and appreciate the nuances and themes of the text.
However, my CT for Literature gave me a reality check of sorts when she told me that Literature isn't thriving as a subject in our school, as fewer students are choosing to study it as the years go by. There are some potential changes ahead that might be implemented to address the issue, but I really hope I can continue to teach Literature. As it is, I only had 2 hours of Literature lessons a week during my practicum.
As for assessment, students were given an overall grade for the term based on an essay about the novel's themes for the common test in week 8 + a group presentation which required them to examine specific characters of the novel so as to come up with skits, deliver a presentation and answer questions from their classmates about the character's motivations, hot-seating style.
I could tell that my students took a lot of pride in preparing and executing their group presentations. Some of the skits were really elaborate and hilarious, while their presentations and answers to questions demonstrated a good understanding of plot developments and character traits. I did not face much problems grading them for their respective presentations.
However, I was less impressed by some of my students' essays during the common test. While marking their scripts, I noticed that many of them were unable to articulate their opinions well, something which I thought they would not have much problems with due to their responses during lessons. As such, I now feel that me and my CT could have set aside more lessons for them to practice their writing, which would have helped them to do better in their common test.
Having said that, I don't see any major problems with the literature and assessment culture in River Valley, largely due to how students there are mostly self-motivated and keen to learn. I've learnt that there are students out there who still love Literature as much I did when I was in secondary school, and that engaging high-ability students is a challenge that I really enjoy.
I taught two Secondary 2 express classes in an all girls' school. The students were generally engaged during lesson since most of them were performing arts students. The girls are able to articulate their responses however they have difficulties writing a good PEEL paragraph. My school place a huge focus on writing PEEL. They conducted a " PEEL writing clinic" for students who did not do well during the Mid-Year Examination. Many of these girls performed better during the Common Test after they have completed the writing clinic. For summative assessments, the students sat for graded assignments. For formative assessments, I will provide feedback on their PEEL paragraph during their group/pair presentation or individually after I have marked their paper. I have learnt that it is really essential to scaffold learning and promote higher-order thinking. As we only get to see them once a week, it is important to frame my lessons well so that meaningful learning can take place.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed my practicum @ Compassvale. I was assigned to teach Language Arts to both the Sec 1NAs and Sec 3NAs. Although this is a "Heartland" school, teachers there have a strong belief in their students having the ability and capability to cope with materials that are more often seen in the Express cohort. In the "short" 10 weeks of practicum, I had to teach a short story - The Gold Cadillac by Mildred D. Taylor and Boy In Striped Pyjamas to my Sec 1NA class. With the Sec 3NA, they had to grapple with the Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Assessments were in the form of Standardised Tests carried out fortnightly.
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed teaching my Sec 1NA class although many teachers thought they were a handful bunch of 40. On my first observation with the class, I noted some issues that I was uncomfortable with the practices of their form teacher eg, how materials were collected, movement in class & etc. I decided to iron-out my own set of rules upon being introduced to the class. I believed this set the tone for the next few weeks and a number of improvements were noted by the CT. Teaching Lang Arts to this class was rather an issue as the students lacked motivation to read the set texts. I noticed how some students couldn't deal with the themes cause it was simply down to not having read the text. Students also lacked content & context knowledge hence this created further barriers to engaging with them. I studied previous assessments in term 2 and did a quick profile of my students. As much as some teachers were compelled to use a thematic-based approach to deal with teaching the texts, I felt that adopting a more linear approach best suited my students, especially my Sec 1s because of the baggage they had with Literature. I felt I was more a History teacher at times for eg. teaching the history of the auto mobile industry in Detroit City when dealing with The Gold Cadillac. I stepped out of the norm of tasks by asking the students to design a poster on cars from the past and present and making them a group oral presentation to promote collaborative learning and instilling confidence in their presentation skills. The students were removed from the bore that was to engage with the texts. This was clearly reflected in their work. Many went beyond in conducting research on the issues the text dealt with such as racial segregation, discrimination & lynching of the Blacks in the South of the United States back in the 1950s. We talked about the KKK (Kru Klux Klan) even when the text did not deal with it. I felt the highlight of these series of lessons was that it coincided nicely with racial harmony and I taught it in my cultural outfit while being formally observed (a definite plus point). Deep down, I felt that sense of satisfaction as I was able to garner enthusiasm in class and at the same time teach values to my kids when presented with teachable moments like this. Teaching Boy in Striped Pyjamas followed a linear approach, starting with a shock quiz on the first chapter. Students realised that they had to read on in order to participate in class discussions which by week 6 were rather interesting. Applying aspects of the mechanics to how a gas chamber worked in a concentration camp both excited the students and scared the shit out of them (an the occassional CT sitting at the back of the class). Students came face to face with the horrors of the holocaust when they watched videos on how 6 million Jews were exterminated during Hitler's reign. I felt that they gained greater insight and reflect on the world around them and that of the past which was able to foster enthusiasm for future lessons. Majority (around 85%) of the class performed well in Standardised tests based on the texts. You did however have to deal with the odd ball once in a while who didn't bring a book but fortunately was able to follow the lesson, being bombarded with questions from the hyped up teacher wanting to make his point clear on abiding the rules of the class.
Teaching the Sec 3NA was more challenging, a stark contrast from the Sec 1s. I don't really know whether it is a "cool" thing in not participating in classroom discussions but this seemed to be a general phenomenon. Discipline was never an issue but it was more on achieving active participation in classroom discussions. The 3NA class had to grapple with Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. I had to teach this text from scratch, focusing primarily on themes of wealth vs contentment & resilience. On and off in dealing with the text, I would slip in an article or two relating to the themes such as the Rise in Materialism prompts moral decline in society today, where students were expected to debate about concepts relating to tangible assets and intangible assets and how contentment in life could be achieved. Students were left to analyse prominent figures in society today such as Aung San Suu Kyi in relation to the protagonist & other characters in the book. I learnt that it was important to scaffold questions and be open to ideas. It is also important to consider possible student responses when preparing a lesson and think of ways to develop them or add value to them.
ReplyDeleteOverall, the 10 weeks has taught me that a lot of thought has to go into lesson planning and that one lesson which works brilliantly for one class may go horribly wrong for another. Assessments, be it quizzes or tests, can serve well in helping us gauge our students' understanding and progress in their academic learning - whether they are thinking on the right track. It also serves as an indicator allowing us to reflect on our teaching pedagogies and lesson ideas.
For Secondary 1 Lit, I taught Charlotte's Web for two Sec 1 NA classes. I realized that I would need a variety of class activities to keep students interested- so I mostly used a set formula of video, teacher-led approach, discussion, quiz. It was a 45 minute lesson 1 or 2 times a week, depending on whether it is an odd or even week. Sometimes, I would concentrate on themes, but mostly, on plot and characterization 3 chapters at a time. I also attempted group work twice, where pupils will arrange the sequence of plot events and draw out their favourite scene. Formative assessment took place in the form of quizzes and short answer questions. Surprisingly, there were several moments where some students gave insightful comments. I've learnt that it was always important to highlight and "cash in" on those moments to delve deeper into the story.
ReplyDeleteFor Secondary 3 Lit, I co-taught with my lit CT, who was very helpful in giving me immediate feedback for each class I taught. The set text was Tell Tale; a collection of local stories. For the set text, I taught The Drowning, and introduced it with a video of a tsunami scene from a movie and went on to divide the students into groups to discuss the relationships and characterization in the text. For Sec 3s, I really had to work on my questioning techniques. It was important to strike a balance between the points I wanted to cover and to also discover and feed off the points that the students have given me. I had to learn how to motivate them to participate in discussion. Often, it meant showing that I myself was enthusiastic; and I tried to be encouraging and explained why it was important for good class discussion to take place. My Lit CT would always tell them that class discussion would help them in developing their thinking skills needed for Literature. For Unseen, i taught them two poems concentrating on tone and structure. It was always important to remind students to Identify evidence from the poem, relate it to an idea and then expand the idea. They always tended to infer too much without noting the much evidence. Another technique was to ask them to notice similarities within the poem, and also to note interesting differences.
Like others here, I've learnt that it was always good to anticipate students' responses and think of ways to respond to them. As a beginning teacher, we are relatively new at teaching literature and would need to think through our responses before going to class; instead of thinking on the spot. I realized also that if a student provides a good point that I may not have spotted, I would need to devote some time to explore it as well, instead of sticking rigidly to my lesson plan. After all, it is literature and it is the richness of class discussion that drives interest for the subject, and even, results.
Jillyan
Selected Roald Dahl short stories were what the Literature department in my school wanted to focus on for Semester 2 of the school year for Secondary Ones. In addition to their weekly hour-long Literature lessons, students had to participate in a compulsory drama course, also lasting an hour long, each week. I taught two Secondary One Express classes (the best Express class and the last Express class) and one Secondary One Normal Academic class (the last Normal Academic class).
ReplyDeleteStudents had their own Literature journals, and I was encouraged by my CT to make students use their journals by copying down notes during lessons. This worked very well for the Express classes, as they were more receptive to new material, but the NA class was less enthusiastic about copying down notes. This showed in their notes from the previous semester, which was mostly haphazardly copied or incomplete. My CT had also used the journals to make students do simple exercises, for example, filling in blanks (adding in subjects and objects) into a template to create their own poems that heavily used similes and metaphors. I used the journals in both ways: to have students copy down lesson notes, and, later on, to have students write their own short stories containing a plot twist.
On top of their journals which students had to use almost every lesson, students had worksheets to complete, and two class tests in Term 3. For their drama class, students had to come up with their own scripts based on the Roald Dahl short stories they were reading for Literature in groups, and act their own scripts out. Their scores for this assignment, however, were not included in students' CA marks.
It was more difficult than I'd initially thought to teach Literature to disinterested and distracted students. Lesson planning helped a lot, but there was the constant need to improvise and adapt on the spot to students who were not understanding as quickly as I had anticipated. I appreciate even more now that scaffolding and teacher modelling are so helpful for lower-ability students.
Sharifah
Describe briefly the literature and assessment culture in your Practicum school. What did you learn during Practicum?
ReplyDeleteDuring Practicum, I was assigned to a Sec 2 Express class for Literature - a class that quite frankly wasn't interested in studying literature, unless it was with their former teacher. It wasn't a subject any of them (save for one) enjoyed; it didn't help either that I was following such a rigid scheme of work (my CT wanted me to cover the themes and characters of "Animal Farm" with them), so it was difficult to get them to focus - especially after they had spent the past two terms doing fun stuff like projects and sketches and short drama skits.
That being said, when it came to assessment, my school was pretty relaxed in the sense that there was no fixed requirements. I was given much leeway in terms of what I could take into consideration for the students' CA. After consulting with my CT, we decided on just three assignments: an essay on themes, a character scrapbook and classroom participation.
The first lesson I learned: there are a lot of things that need to be taken with a pinch of salt. I was informed that my class was a strong class, active in the participation department, hardworking and always prepared for discussion. I was also informed that the students was already exposed to Animal Farm; they had watched the film and should have read at least the first five chapters of the book, though most were expected to have finished reading the entire novel by the time I took over. However, what I grew to realise after my first few lessons with the class was that I had my work cut out for me; I had to try my best to make Animal Farm as interesting and appealing as possible to students who:
a) hadn't read the book or even watched the movie;
b) couldn't relate to the story for some reason or another;
c) didn't understand the story's relevance to history, the story's context or even the story for what it was on the surface.
The second lesson I learned: expectations need to be adjusted to meet the students' ability while simultaneously providing them enough of a challenge that the tasks do not appear too easy or too simple. During the ten weeks of Practicum, I was almost pushed to the limits to come up with creative ways to present Animal Farm to my students. However, because the text itself remained "boring and irrelevant" to the students in spite of what I tried to do, most of the work I received from the students was pretty generic and unfortunately appeared as though there was very little thought and effort put behind it – which in turn led me to the third and arguably most important realisation:
Students matter.
Yes, that has always been the point of being a teacher: teaching and guiding the next generation. But what I learned was more than just confirming what I already knew from my months of contract teaching and NIE training; for successful learning to take place, the students’ hearts need to be in it. And that takes more than fun and exciting lessons; it requires a strong rapport built with the students - and one that I sadly lacked because of the time factor. Hopefully, it will be something I can change once I start my permanent teaching stint.
As a practicum teacher, I was not involved in the setting of tests for the students. However I could see the link between what was being tested and what was being taught in class. Students in the school would be dis-interested if what was being taught did not have an eventual purpose. Thus, using tests was a good tool to motivate some of the students. For the motivated students, the tests served as a way of checking for understanding.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there was an open book test which I felt the students were not given proper guidelines. THey were allowed to bring in notes and during the test they were more focused on regurgitating their notes (which were good) than analysing the given extract and the question. In the end, you could see some very well-prepared answers, but sadly they did not answer the question. So, I guess certain guidelines must be set in place for an open book test for students and teachers to get the most out of the assessment.
Ben