Nightmare of having field trips
Hi hi,
We had a wonderful field-trip micro-teaching by Jenny, although it must have been a traumatic experience for her. She is so so brave to volunteer for this one and only field-trip micro-teaching, not to mention the extra time and effort she has to put in to plan for this lesson, much more than any of us with the normal micro-teaching. And I thought that it was really well-done, in terms of the activities she has planned and the way she structured both the handout (scaffolding) and the materials (jigsaw and all), and the way she conducted the entire lesson (the pre-, the during, and the post-). Well done, Jenny girl!
Perhaps because this is our only field-trip micro-teaching, lots of creative misbehaviour (snail on white board) turned up. I don't think a real field-trip will see all of them in one go. This is of course good for our learning. But, poor Jenny has to be the one to sacrifice for all our learning. Got to say a big thank you to her.
Because some of us have not experienced planning and conducting any actual field trip either in our school experience or NIE (except the Historians), Jenny's micro-teaching surfaced lots of useful tips and learning points for the ignorant ones amongst us, me, for instance. Will try to list as many as I can remember here. So, this post is really long. But I would have lost some stuff that was in my brain by now, due to my incapacity at retaining info without writing them down earlier. Sigh....
The activities
First, she broke up the students into groups, giving each of them a piece of jig-saw puzzle each, to fit, so that they know where they have to proceed to. This is truly a good idea! Students will find it interesting and there will be a healthy competition amongst groups to see who can get to their station faster, just like a treasure hunt. :) [Our group tried to make things difficult for Jenny, pretending not to know how to fit everything together. And the already very traumatised tcher could not help either. Poor Jenny.]
The 4 stations were chosen with care and much thought, despite the constraints of the campus. I really like the stairs and the relief factor going hand in hand. And assigning groups to different station is a very good idea. It won't do to be examining only 1 spot, with 40 students pushing here and there to try and see what the teacher was talking about. The only concern I have is that the students were too far apart for just 1 poor teacher jaga effectively.
But I would not say the same for our group. Behind the jigsaw puzzle were our assigned topics to examine at our station. Frankly speaking, our group was so so lost as to what we should be doing and how to relate what is available at our station to what were assigned to us. Jenny could have given clearer instructions at the onset but even after she has given us the instructions, we were still quite lost. Some of us thought that she wanted us to examine the factor or the type of weathering she wrote at the back of the jigsaw piece according to the corresponding picture on the picture side. Ie, we were looking at portions of the tree according to the individual pieces of jigsaw. Were we the only group having this prob?
Even after things started to make sense, we still have problems linking what can be seen at our station to what was assigned to us. This is partly because we do not have our content [which should not be the case as actual students] with us, and partly due to the lack of good spots near our tutorial room to examine some of the weathering processes. And also the impossibility of getting students to spot certain types of weathering processes. How to get students to spot and examine hydrolysis, for example, in the field? So, we ended up regurgitating what is in the text book. Perhaps, narrowing down to fewer weathering processes that were more obvious would help. But then this may create the misconception in students that those weren't seen do not occur. Teachers got to ensure no such misconception occurs.
Then, she got the groups to present what they have at their own stations. The rest were to take down notes as others present their points. Another bigger jigsaw is at work here, where students shared what they had and learnt from others what they didn't. And the handout was really helpful for this. Cool!
And finally, the debriefing back in class. [sorry, cannot rem much except the rock profile diagram and homework]. But the tcher built on what students should be extremely familiar by that time, and went on to introduce the more difficult rock profile diagram. This is really well-done.
Good practices
Recapped what was learnt in previous lesson and informed students to tap on the content that was learnt then, to the field-trip activities.
Informed students what is going to happen during the field trip (will be broken into groups). Students will know what to expect later on.
Setting golden rules. I love the one she said about listening when someone else is talking and that the outdoor is not a classroom confined by walls, and hence it is less easy to hear what the speaker is saying. She also listed rules like getting students to inform teacher should they need to leave the group for the toilets.
Choosing trustworthy students as leaders to help her manage the class. Wise move for an actual situation.
The use of a little white board to help out those, whose learning styles incline towards the visual, is a wonderful idea. What a thoughtful teacher.
When students were presenting, she asked repeatedly if others can hear the presenter. And if she knew that some weren't paying attention, she made them repeat what the presenter has just said.
She also went from station to station to check on their students. Although the fainting Mas took her attention away from another group.
Things that can be done better
When students were walking from the class to the field, she could have assigned responsible students to help her to check on the students behind. She could have picked councillors/prefects or monitor etc to help.
Should not leave her items out of sight. It gives the class ample time to do silly things like hiding the markers, putting a snail on the white board, and finishing the choco bar that tcher has confiscated. Maybe carrying a bag or paperbag will be useful.
Okie, this is way too long.
SW
We had a wonderful field-trip micro-teaching by Jenny, although it must have been a traumatic experience for her. She is so so brave to volunteer for this one and only field-trip micro-teaching, not to mention the extra time and effort she has to put in to plan for this lesson, much more than any of us with the normal micro-teaching. And I thought that it was really well-done, in terms of the activities she has planned and the way she structured both the handout (scaffolding) and the materials (jigsaw and all), and the way she conducted the entire lesson (the pre-, the during, and the post-). Well done, Jenny girl!
Perhaps because this is our only field-trip micro-teaching, lots of creative misbehaviour (snail on white board) turned up. I don't think a real field-trip will see all of them in one go. This is of course good for our learning. But, poor Jenny has to be the one to sacrifice for all our learning. Got to say a big thank you to her.
Because some of us have not experienced planning and conducting any actual field trip either in our school experience or NIE (except the Historians), Jenny's micro-teaching surfaced lots of useful tips and learning points for the ignorant ones amongst us, me, for instance. Will try to list as many as I can remember here. So, this post is really long. But I would have lost some stuff that was in my brain by now, due to my incapacity at retaining info without writing them down earlier. Sigh....
The activities
First, she broke up the students into groups, giving each of them a piece of jig-saw puzzle each, to fit, so that they know where they have to proceed to. This is truly a good idea! Students will find it interesting and there will be a healthy competition amongst groups to see who can get to their station faster, just like a treasure hunt. :) [Our group tried to make things difficult for Jenny, pretending not to know how to fit everything together. And the already very traumatised tcher could not help either. Poor Jenny.]
The 4 stations were chosen with care and much thought, despite the constraints of the campus. I really like the stairs and the relief factor going hand in hand. And assigning groups to different station is a very good idea. It won't do to be examining only 1 spot, with 40 students pushing here and there to try and see what the teacher was talking about. The only concern I have is that the students were too far apart for just 1 poor teacher jaga effectively.
But I would not say the same for our group. Behind the jigsaw puzzle were our assigned topics to examine at our station. Frankly speaking, our group was so so lost as to what we should be doing and how to relate what is available at our station to what were assigned to us. Jenny could have given clearer instructions at the onset but even after she has given us the instructions, we were still quite lost. Some of us thought that she wanted us to examine the factor or the type of weathering she wrote at the back of the jigsaw piece according to the corresponding picture on the picture side. Ie, we were looking at portions of the tree according to the individual pieces of jigsaw. Were we the only group having this prob?
Even after things started to make sense, we still have problems linking what can be seen at our station to what was assigned to us. This is partly because we do not have our content [which should not be the case as actual students] with us, and partly due to the lack of good spots near our tutorial room to examine some of the weathering processes. And also the impossibility of getting students to spot certain types of weathering processes. How to get students to spot and examine hydrolysis, for example, in the field? So, we ended up regurgitating what is in the text book. Perhaps, narrowing down to fewer weathering processes that were more obvious would help. But then this may create the misconception in students that those weren't seen do not occur. Teachers got to ensure no such misconception occurs.
Then, she got the groups to present what they have at their own stations. The rest were to take down notes as others present their points. Another bigger jigsaw is at work here, where students shared what they had and learnt from others what they didn't. And the handout was really helpful for this. Cool!
And finally, the debriefing back in class. [sorry, cannot rem much except the rock profile diagram and homework]. But the tcher built on what students should be extremely familiar by that time, and went on to introduce the more difficult rock profile diagram. This is really well-done.
Good practices
Recapped what was learnt in previous lesson and informed students to tap on the content that was learnt then, to the field-trip activities.
Informed students what is going to happen during the field trip (will be broken into groups). Students will know what to expect later on.
Setting golden rules. I love the one she said about listening when someone else is talking and that the outdoor is not a classroom confined by walls, and hence it is less easy to hear what the speaker is saying. She also listed rules like getting students to inform teacher should they need to leave the group for the toilets.
Choosing trustworthy students as leaders to help her manage the class. Wise move for an actual situation.
The use of a little white board to help out those, whose learning styles incline towards the visual, is a wonderful idea. What a thoughtful teacher.
When students were presenting, she asked repeatedly if others can hear the presenter. And if she knew that some weren't paying attention, she made them repeat what the presenter has just said.
She also went from station to station to check on their students. Although the fainting Mas took her attention away from another group.
Things that can be done better
When students were walking from the class to the field, she could have assigned responsible students to help her to check on the students behind. She could have picked councillors/prefects or monitor etc to help.
Should not leave her items out of sight. It gives the class ample time to do silly things like hiding the markers, putting a snail on the white board, and finishing the choco bar that tcher has confiscated. Maybe carrying a bag or paperbag will be useful.
Okie, this is way too long.
SW
posted by S W at
8:19 am
1 Comments:
Wah SW! You are a better obeserver than I am! Great pointers there! I should have changed roles with you so that I could be the student (as I always am) and play (as I always do)! Haha!
But this observer also can come up with pranks one... Hahaha!
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Banana Saviour, at 5:54 pm
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