Goal Three

In my lesson plans during practicum 2 I focused on how to open and close my lessons. Depending on the type of lesson, I would start with a hook, a question, or a reminder about what we had been talking about during the last lesson (for group lessons). To close the lesson, I did one of two things. If it was a group lesson, I would finish with either a reminder or re-cap of something we had discussed during the lesson (for example, what is a denominator) or a follow up for the children to complete before the next lesson. For whole group lessons, I would plan a transition to the next activity, for example, if handwriting was before morning break, I would stop the class just before the bell, advise them that after karakia they were to put their books away, then go to morning break. I would then choose a child to start the karakia and remind the children to put their books away when the bell rang.

I found that having a planned opening and close meant that I knew where I was starting and gave me a firm finishing point.

During my second practicum I started to use a number of different types of resources in my lessons. I’ve started a list of resources and have discovered there is a plethora of information available that will hook children into a lesson and help them to learn. Deciding what to use is the most important part.

To hook children in to my Matariki lessons I used short videos and audio, including a story about a child starting at a new school at Matariki from the Radio New Zealand website, video of the Ōtaki Kite Festival and a video on how to find Matariki from Te Papa. I also developed a lesson around a Digital Breakout based on Matariki, which worked well at engaging the children, although it was too difficult for them.

I created a number of handwriting lessons during my time on Practicum 2. The standard structure of the lesson includes the children either writing a ‘silly sentence’ or drawing a picture related to the letters in the lesson. I included a step-by-step drawing of a Penguin, based on the letter P which the children enjoyed doing (one girl drew 14 penguins over the next few days). The other teacher in the class changed her lesson and used this as well.

The school is starting to explore some phonics learning, and I was asked to include phonics in some of my handwriting lessons. This is a new topic for me and I found videos useful, both for my learning and for engaging the children.

I used a number of follow-up activities from Sheena Cameron’s reading book and when teaching a maths unit on time, the first lesson included each child making a clock out of a paper plate which was used in the subsequent lessons.

As my confidence grew, I started to try out a number of different behaviour management techniques. This is definitely an area I need to continue to focus on, but I am starting to develop a toolbox of strategies. I think I will feel more confident using these strategies from day one during my next practicum. I found clapping relatively effective for quietening the whole class (54 students) and as my confidence grew, I would continue clapping until they were quiet and listening. I also used hand gestures (hands on head, shoulders, touch my nose, fold my arms etc) and waited until they were quiet and copying me before speaking. I need to use more vocal commands and will start using Whakarongo mai Titiro mai (Listen here, look this way) on my next practicum. I also used the phrase Macaroni Cheese, with the response Everybody Freeze, this worked well at times, but I introduced it quite late during practicum and will try it from the beginning of the next one.

I found the behaviour in my group lessons challenging at times and tried different techniques to improve this. I began to place particular children in specific spaces, for example, next to me or away from another child that they were chatting with. In one of my first reading groups, a quiet child was sitting directly to my left at a kidney-shaped table. It was hard to see them, and I realised that I wasn’t involving them enough in the lesson. I made sure that they were sitting in front of me at the next group lesson so I was more conscious of asking them questions and involving them in the group discussion. This was a good reminder for me early on and meant that I was aware of ensuring all children were involved and in my line of sight.

A number of group lessons involved the use of small whiteboards and pens. Particularly in the last two weeks (as the children started feeling the long term), some children would start fiddling with the pens and drawing on the whiteboards. This distracted the rest of the group so I started getting them to turn the whiteboards over until they were required. On several occasions I also collected the whiteboards and pens and kept them next to me until they were needed.

When sending children away to work as a whole class I would often remind them that their friends are not always the best people to sit with, and that they should sit with a learning buddy who will help them to learn, and not distract them. I would also move children at times, both on the mat and when they were working at desks, if I thought they were distracting others or not completing their work.