Teaching Reflection - Essay Example

?TEACHING REFLECTION ESSAY-CHEMISTRY al Affiliation) According to Dingrando (2002, p.14), teaching chemistry puts an emphasis on a variety of approaches geared towards identifying goals of education that cover intended targets in the personal, intellectual, and social domains. My work placement at *****, gave me an invaluable insights into the relevant approach to teaching chemistry. The experience was extremely helpful in understanding the various methods used by teachers in helping their students understand the subject with an in-depth comprehension of concepts. My two-week placement entailed working hand in hand with the chemistry teachers in the school. I was able to observe their methods of teaching the science and I assisted in a number of areas to enable myself be more acquainted with what dissemination of scientific knowledge to secondary school students is all about. In my first week of my work placement, I was able to take charge of some class activities, whereby I was assigned a duty of assisting students with difficulties in chemistry (Ellison 2008, p.46). My interactions with the teachers offered me an opportunity to learn about developing a lesson plan that is suitable for teaching science and chemistry in precision. The plan is an extremely important step, if the teacher wants to remain relevant in the classroom. Here, an instructor starts by identifying what is going to be covered in every particular lesson. Then the objectives of the lessons are determined, so that a teacher can identify the specific behaviours and capabilities that a student should exhibit after every lesson is covered (Sanderson 2002, p.23). Most of the teacher in the school used descriptive objectives. This provides a better platform for the educator to get great feedback on his/her teaching effectiveness, and students’ progress as well. Taking time to determine what the learners already know about the subject matter would enhance the overall success of completion of a lesson. Chemistry is relatively practical lessons, and having this in mind, teachers ensured that the necessary material and apparatus necessary to be used in a particular lesson are identified in the lesson plan in an attempt to accomplish the objectives described. These materials are highly useful in facilitating the learning process. Thus, as observed, a lesson plan increases the efficiency of teaching practice and the quality of the students’ learning time (Dorin 2002, p.29). Varieties of teaching approaches were also evident in the school learning processes. Here I actively participated in facilitating group discussions. These activities tend to generate interest in the topic under study and students are able to learn from friends. The teachers were also involved in helping out in explaining the concepts that were beyond the then understanding of the students. The teachers also had a variety of methods that they used to facilitate learning process. They give out assignments that required further reading and research on the subject matter. The main theme here was, “thinking further”. Learning partnership among student also seemed to develop a longer term learning culture among themselves (Gabel 2004, p.31). As observed, this approach helped weak students to learn continuously from their peers and consequently gaining much more understanding on chemistry. I also learnt that the teachers generally applied the three learning theories in identifying a suitable methods and media of teaching in the school. These include the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains. The psychomotor domain is generally skill based. Here the student tends to produce a product. It entails practical instructional levels that include imitation, practice, as well as habit. The psychomotor domain steep in a demonstration, delivery as well as the first level, imitation, which simply is a return of demonstrations that are under the control of the instructor. Additionally, the practice level is a proficiency building experience, which is conducted by the students themselves without direct oversight of their instructor. The habit level on the other hand is reached when students are able to perform the skills in an approximately twice the time that the instructor takes to perform the same task. The delivery is proficiency and demonstration building in nature whereas the evaluation is a performance and skill test. In addition, the content that has to be known to perform the skill is the cognitive that should be treated accordingly (White 2008, p.33). These learning domains assist in identification of learning strategies that are highly suited to each chemistry lesson. The majority of students lie within the general psychomotor domain. Thus, they understand and acquire knowledge with hands-on kind of approach. The others that lie within the popular cognitive domain were mainly considered during the process of lesson planning. for example: I learnt that as a teacher one should give a comprehensive and thorough explanation that make students to think as well as reflect on the concepts being taught. Furthermore, I also learnt that a teacher should always consider the students who lie in other domains. This is achieved by delivering information in such a way that it enhances an interactive learning, with an explanation imitation, demonstrations, and practice methodology (White 2008, p.45). In my experience, students will learn better when they remain active and when participatory lessons are delivered. Mostly the teachers employed the following methods to deliver training to the students in chemistry lessons: lectures, practical lessons, tutorials, discussion, and combination of these. Various factors influenced the selection of a suitable technique for imparting knowledge besides motivating learners. For instance, attitude, physical skills, mental and the instructional processes are selected in a rather systematic way (Hebden 2007, p.49). As a result, this process ensures that the knowledge intended is imparted to students in a form with which they can cope. The teaching level is packaged to suit the students and information should not exceed the level that they cannot easily comprehend, nor should it exceed a level, which would patronize the students (Tzimopoulos 2003, p.67). Effective communication is essential throughout a discussion since it dictates the amount of information absorbed. As an educator, interacting whenever the group conversation went ‘off line’ and when talks seemed to fade. Adequate preparations were useful in dealing with such eventualities. This way the teachers dealt with the problem by presenting other issues relating to main topic of conversation that rejuvenates activities. Research activities assigned by the instructors followed by discussion; provided an effective method of self-learning. Each student is adequately encouraged to carry out a research on a given topics and arriving at solution. This way the method promotes motivation since the students advocate their own point of views (White 2008, p.56). The teachers ensured that they monitored the learners throughout the assignments. The following debates also helped the students to build confidence and promoted equality and diversity as well. Most importantly, practical lessons with the theme-“applied knowledge” played a big part in helping students understand concepts. They also learnt various chemicals and experiments apparatus The main challenge experienced by the educators is that planning process was a tricky activity because a right plan can end up wasting lot of time that could be useful in teaching. Thus, every teacher should be overly cautious of the planning process (White 2008, p.58). The school administrations organised a few seminars that saw educational experts come to share their knowledge and experiences with the teachers to enable them be more efficient and effective in the teaching activities. Evaluation exercises were carried out to identify the behaviour of students and the effectiveness of the lesson plan and other teaching techniques. During my work placement in the secondary school, I learnt how to evaluate the success of teaching chemistry. Firstly, the understanding of the concepts taught was monitored through administering assessment forms. The test conducted evaluated students on their capability of grasping chemical principles as well as determining their capacity in visualizing structures and all processes at conceptual level (White 2008, p.58). In addition, the extent to which learning of various concepts was beneficial to students was determined by asking the concerned students to meaningfully answer questions that reflected their own gains from chemistry lessons. It was also noted that the students enjoyed most of the practical exercises. These experiments were prepared and designed in way that they enabled students to apply what was learnt in theory for better understanding. In addition, there was a tremendous and significant increase in the comprehension of chemical reactions (White 2008, p.61). This forms the basis of understanding chemistry. Thus, an effort by the teacher to help student learn the basic reactions processes in various lessons helped students a great deal grasp the major reactions that lead to understanding chemistry. Students also enjoyed and actively participated in reading articles provided, on the periodic table. Periodic table forms the basis of understanding various reactions. In an attempt to keep the students endorsed and more focused on various topics, lengthier web based exercises and activities were recommended. Student assessment is an important aspect of learning (White 2008, p.61). This intensive process includes several activities. In my experience from my work placement, I learnt that the assessment of students starts by keeping records. Keeping accurate records is a responsibility of a teacher. Reporting of these assessments is by relating achievements of each particular student to the learning outcomes. The records are kept are up-to-date now and then and are immediately available should a need be. The teacher in the school kept an anecdotal file where they note information on work and behavioural habits. On the other hand, the students were guided on how to keep portfolios of the work they did in the classroom so that they can comprehensively demonstrate their learning as well as progress to the parents. Testing, as I came to learn, should be done in a systematic manner. In case of a poorly performed test the recommendations is to re-teach and retest making use of revised test. This disapprove the use of bonus point assignments that targets to cover up for the poorly designed assessment. According to White (2008, p.64), students’ assessment as well as evaluation is an ongoing co-operative process that is carried out among teachers, parents or guardians and students themselves. The importance of this assessment helps the teachers to gather sufficient information about students’ achievements. This is helpful in making judgment about student evaluation and growth. This helps in gaining information and ideas about future instructional needs. The students also get a chance to learn about their strengths and weaknesses. Assessments and evaluation techniques includes teacher designed test, assignments, observations and projects and other state standardized and commercially tests. Teaching plans includes well-designed methods of students’ evaluation and assessment (White 2008, p.75). This helps to improve teachers’ instructional strategies and test student knowledge as well. It also gives the students feedback to make study plans. References Dingrando, Leonard 2002, Chemistry: matter and change, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, New York. Dorin, Hannah 2002, Prentice Hall chemistry: the study of matter, (4th ed.), Prentice Hall, Needham, Mass. Ellison, Michael 2008, Advances in teaching physical chemistry, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C. Gabel, David 2004, Handbook of research on science teaching and learning, Macmillan, New York. Hebden, Jeffrey 2007, Hebden: chemistry 12: a workbook for students, Hebden Home Publications, Kamloops, B.C. Sanderson, Richard 2002, Teaching chemistry with models, Van Nostrand, Princeton, N.J. Tzimopoulos, Nelson 2003, Modern chemistry, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Austin, Texas. White, John Henry 2008, Teaching chemistry, University of London Press, London. Read More