Pttls_Development_Journal__Entry_3

Development journal: Entry 3 The initial areas of weakness and threat, as recorded in the SWOT analysis, have shown how my initial analysis was more pessimistic than would, to date, appear to be the case. With the particular group of learners that I am teaching, they are a less able group who have been finding it difficult to concentrate and be included during traditional school classroom type activities. Many, but not all, of the group, have been excluded and are deemed to be disruptive. On observing this particular group being taught by my mentor, I noticed how they were kept interested and included throughout the lesson. Recapping the previous lesson, and reiterating previously taught health and safety matters, was kept fairly short, but comprehensive with regard to the matters that needed to be recapped. Demonstrations of the practical task being covered in this session were kept short, and the learners were able to begin their own practical exercises as quickly as possible. The learners did not have time to become disinterested during the session, and sessions should become a student centred as quickly as possible. When I began to teach these sessions, I followed the example shown by my mentor and tried to keep the lesson as well paced as I could in order to stop the learners from becoming disinterested. I do not believe that I was initially successful at this, and after a discussion with other teachers, we agreed that I tended to ‘waffle’ at the beginning of the session. When I kept the session opening and demonstration as short as I could, while still covering the necessary areas, the learners were much keener to engage in the practical tasks of student led activities. The main lesson I have learnt from these teaching sessions and observations of colleagues, is that in this particular area of teaching, and this group of learners especially, the faster you can move from teacher led activities to student led activities, the more interested the learners will remain. I am still a little concerned about my ability to keep students interested on a personal level. I believe that I am communicating with the group as a whole, and with learners working in groups. I still need to work on my communication skills when dealing with learners on an individual basis. I believe that my initial diagnosis of my strengths was the most accurate part of the SWOT analysis. My existing knowledge and experience of the subject area is very high, and the hands-on practical approach does work very well, and I do enjoy passing this on to others. I feel the opportunities in the SWOT are on course to be fulfilled, but there is still some way to go with regard to these. From the area of weaknesses, I have found that I still need to work on keeping learners engaged and interested, and that my expectations of learners may be too high. My non-disciplinarian attitude does not seem, at present, to be an issue. The threats I thought would be a problem still need to be addressed in part. I have had no major issues regarding learner behaviour, but have had to exclude some learners from a lesson for not bringing the required safety wear into sessions. I still need to carry out further work on delivering the required learning, but have not had any personal disappointment. Because of the different ability ranges in the session between the learners, I feel I still need an ongoing appraisal of strategies for differentiation. I have noticed that a particularly keen learner may get to complete a task before the others, and it becomes necessary for me to give some additional task to complete in order to fill the time slot. I may therefore have to include more work in the overall session plans to allow for this, while at the same time realising that learners of a lower ability can still carry out the main learning aspects of the task without completing the whole session. There may also be a need to increase the minimum core content of the lesson, as I believe the learners are capable of more than is currently included. This will need to be introduced in such a way that it can be carefully monitored in order to ensure that levels are not going to high.