| Date: | 1st February 2016 |
| Group or individual with whom I worked: | Year 7 boys 6th form and year 10 girls. |
BEFORE my placement …
| What am I aiming to achieve from my placement today? What do I need to be mindful of? What issues/questions need to be addressed to ensure I achieve my aim? Do I need to be aware of particular theories, or have particular skills? Have I thought about all of the ‘what ifs’? |
| Knowing that I had a free period midway through the day, I organised a meeting with my placement leader and during which we will discus an action plan for ways of meeting some of the core tasks. Between myself, my placement partner and my placement organiser, we made an action plan of how we would meet some of the core tasks through him.
During the leadership lesson, the students were told the week before they would be entering a year 10 girls badminton lesson. Knowing that the year 10 girls last period were going to be taught badminton I prepared a small skill based activity for them, I had to consider how the lesson may have ran with the extra support of the 6th formers in the lesson who were also trying to act as TA’s / Leaders.
I want to observe how a teacher adapts teaching for the strengths and needs of all pupils.
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DURING my placement …
| What did I notice happening around me today? What was I thinking and feeling? How was I involved? Did I do anything to intervene and change the situation that I found myself in e.g. how I conveyed a point or whether I decided not to do something I had planned to do? Did my reflections at the time change the session I had planned or my actions? |
| Before period one, during a chat with our placement leader we discussed how we wanted to interview key stage three children about their views on PE. So an email was sent out to form tutors to send some students every tutor time on a Monday to the PE department where myself and my placement partner could deliver a presentation to them about PE, a future in PE before ultimately asking whether they found the subject to be important or not.
During period 1, I sat in a gym instructor lesson for the 6th form, mainly observing how the lesson went as I was looking to see how the teacher adapts teaching for the needs of all pupils. This was evident throughout the lesson, as the lesson on safeguarding and health and safety progressed, it became more apparent that the teacher leading the lesson was very strong in this field, as he was not just reading from a book or off of a PowerPoint, he was holding discussions, had hand outs for all different learning types. I planned to sit through and observe only, but I became more involved within the lesson, giving examples of safeguarding and personal experiences. This was effective as the students then began to bounce back their own ideas of what health and safety, and safeguarding could be within a gym or a classroom. I feel as if I reflected during the lesson, knowing that a strong subject knowledge was evident I then decided that my time could be better spent by getting more involved within the lesson.
My next lesson was last lesson when we shadowed the 6th formers who entered the year 10 girls badminton lesson. They decided to play a snakes and ladders game where the students would move to a different court depending on whether or not they lost their match. I used this opportunity to witness some normative assessment within the lesson. Before the 6th formers led the snakes and ladders tournament the main teacher revisited a skill from a previous lesson.
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AFTER my placement … (based on the Gibbs Reflective Cycle)
| Describe the activities you undertook whilst on placement today. Set the context, what you did and what happened. |
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Period one. During the “gym instructor” course for 6th form students I observed and assisted in the delivery of the session. The students had to discuss safeguarding issues around working in a gym and link their own experiences within. Originally, due to a mixed range of abilities within the group my goal for the lesson was to just observe how adaptation was used within the lesson including a range of different aids. Within the lesson students mainly discussed and shared experiences but at the end of the lesson students had a work sheet to fill in. myself and the teacher used different teaching methods and aids, such as PowerPoint, work sheets and pictures.
During the second lesson the 6th form group were scheduled to run a snakes and ladders style tournament for the students within the badminton lesson. Before however the main teacher led a skill-based session, revisiting the drop shot that I modelled. I had to adapt the way I explained for different pupils. This was due to a large number of pupils having low success. I modelled and spoke through the skill in front of the whole class and visited individual small groups who needed extra guidance. The lead teacher also had a sheet explaining the teaching points of the drop shot within badminton. This is an example of adaptation as when the students could not understand the drop-shot at the first time of asking, I changed my delivery to fit the needs of the students within the lesson. The students then seemed to have a better understanding of the skill and improved.
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| Document how you felt through-out your placement today. Were you anxious, confident, pleased or disappointed? |
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During the day I was pleased that I managed to get the information that I was trying to observe. I was confident during my discussions and modelling in front of the students. Overall I was pleased with how the day went.
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| Evaluate today’s placement activity. What went well, what went badly, what would you have done differently? |
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I think that the observation went very well. I managed to see evidence of adaption within the lesson which I managed to use within my work. I feel as if the students really benefited from a range of teaching methods and resources and therefore that’s why the first lesson was so productive. I think that the modelling of the drop shot within badminton went particularly well. I think this is was down to the fact that I visited smaller groups and reinforced the teaching points. However, I would have liked to prepare my own resource sheet for the drop shot, as the teachers sheet was slightly different to how I was modelling it albeit the same information just with different language.
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| Take a deeper, analytical and critical approach to today’s experiences. Can you make connections or apply academic theory or current policy to understand why today’s activities went well or went badly. |
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Within the lessons today, and since I have been on placement, it became apparent to me that teachers alter the way they teach to match the needs of the students in their lessons. (Capel & Whitehead 2005: 168) explain that teachers are required to work flexibly and creatively to design environments that will engage all learners. Arthur (2005) suggests that professional teachers are aware of the social setting and have the ability to anticipate change. I believe this was evident within my lesson. The social setting I found myself in was year 10 girls core PE, so it could have been easy to allow the students to be disengaged. However by visiting smaller groups, and changing the way the teaching points were delivered teaching was adapted for the needs of the pupils and I believe this is why the students improved during the lesson.
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| Draw conclusions. What have you learnt from today’s activities and your reflections? |
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Today I learnt that a good teacher should have different teaching styles dependent on the learners they have in their class. I feel that reflecting on observing adaption for two different groups with different academic levels, you can see when the teacher changes the way the lesson is delivered.
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| Action plan. How will you apply what you have learnt from today’s activities to the rest of your placement and your future professional and personal development? Do you need to undertake further research or reading? Are there courses that you need to undertake to fill a skills gap? |
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After today I will consider different resources when taking lessons or episodes. After seeing how effective a different visual aid can be. I believe that in future I should research the different types of learners: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinaesthetic and how I can implement these within my lessons.
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| Have any questions arisen today that I need to discuss with my Placement Supervisor or University Placement Tutor (UPT)? |
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How is the best way to find how students learn on the first lesson?
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RETURNING to my reflections …
| It is often useful to return to your reflections after a period of time. Revisit the experiences you had; think about how you felt (positive and negative feelings) and re-evaluate your experiences. Do you feel differently about the experience now time has passed have your feelings changed in light of the experience or do you now view the experience in a different light? |
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Returning to my reflections, I feel that the day did go well as I had hoped. When I previously felt annoyed that I didn’t get chance to present my own work sheet, whilst I would still have preferred my own, it did prove to be effective and backed up my teaching points.
Looking back at the different resources within the gym instructor lesson, it was a very strong example of teaching in my opinion, after researching into different learners and teaching styles the fact that the teacher managed to cater for all of the pupils within his lesson was very impressive.
After time passing and completing research, I feel that the use of adaption within lessons is even more beneficial than I previously realised.
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