#2 (12-29/Oct.)

 

   In the last two weeks, I focused on planning and teaching tasks. Firstly, I started planning for science lesson, and I discussed with my MST about which topic and on which time I can do it. Having conversations and planning are very important in teaching process, and they helped me to keep all my work organized. Hence, I kept in touch with my MST for preparing my first lesson, and she checked my lesson plan. I was very lucky because I didn’t get in any obstacles that hampered my work during teaching and also because my teacher was very helpful and kind. She helped me in preparing the materials and she advised me to do many things that later I realized they were really beneficial during the lesson. For instance, she advised me to revise the transitions rules before starting centers. Overall, she stood beside me and gave me a lot of support.

 

   Teaching lessons practice has improved me in many aspects such as I improve my presentation and communication skills. Moreover, I gained enough knowledge about children’s behaviors and their different levels. I have noticed many situations of child development that have been covered in the college courses. I was able to interpret them by connecting them to the theories that I have learned. For instance, the theory of ZPD of Vygotsky was very obvious in the learning environment. When the teacher gave the students support examples to achieve the outcome of the lesson. Supporting student to achieve challenged task is basically will lead to learn. Vygotsky believed that when a student is in the ZPD for a particular task, providing the appropriate assistance will give the student enough of a "boost" to achieve the task. In my opinion, observing and collecting evidences of learning environment are important to understand child development process and to help in planning for learning.

 

   Through teaching practice, I gained many ideas about strategies of behavior management and teaching strategies too. One of the teaching strategies that l have learned is providing the concepts, ideas, new vocabulary, and also parent weekly letter in both languages. This makes students understand what they got in both languages (English and Arabic). Further example of teaching strategies, the teacher was always giving plenty of examples that help the students to understand the idea. One of the behavioral management systems that I liked in TP is “Classroom jobs”. The teacher choose students for several jobs such as: line leader, clean-up police, teacher assistance and board cleaner. This strategy is very effective in classroom management and it helps the teacher to prevent mess.

 

   Having such as these experiences, made me realize the importance of successful learning elements that existing in effective behavior management strategies and efficient teaching techniques. In addition, I improved my knowledge in dealing with unpleasent behaviors and finding solutions to prevent choas.