Today was big day for me as it was my turn for micro teaching. It was indeed an experience to feel what is was like to handle a class with a bunch of uncooperative students. The following are my experiences:
1) Instruction
It was initially easy to command the class as i lay down the ground rules as the the rules and routines that were in force. however as the lesson progress and the students became restless, the class was getting a little out of hand. Thus i felt giving instruction rather tedious towards the later part of the class.
2) Class management
I felt the class exagerated a bit towards the end by asking irrelevant questions and acting rowdy and uninterested. Personally i feel an express class would not succumb to such unruly behaviour. This is from my short contract teaching experience. And the students in an express class will take harsh words from the teacher seriously and will try to behave in the future. To find someone sleeping outrightly is also an uncommon scene. Thus i think we have to make the classroom managment scenerio more realistic to suit the level we are taking. Otherwise everyone is out to get even with the next 'teacher' by behaving as badly as possible.
3) Relevance of Micro Teaching
I felt the experience is suitable to prepare us for classroom managment issues. In other words, how to tackle real life classrooom issues. However i have yet to see the relevance of this approach as far as teaching geography is concern. I feel we should focus more on strategies and methods of conducting a geography lesson in class, the effective way, rather than focusing purely on behavioural aspects. The latter is definitely beneficial however, without a good background of the subject and effective delivery modes, little will be achieved just by tackling classroom managment issues. I hope this view could be discussed further in class.
Well i look forward to further comments on my strenghts and weaknesses, so that i can improve myself.
