It's finally Week 10

This is going to be my final post before I hand in this assignment to Mr Wan.Today was our last topic in class and since we only discussed about classroom management very briefly during the previous class,Mr Wan went into more detail during this class.

Mr Wan asked us what we have to do in order to manage a class.We gave our ideas.I said that teachers need to know the psychological needs of the students which he said was very true.He also added that every teacher should know how to help those who are quick at learning and the slower ones.He also mentioned something I never really thought about in order to help a teacher manage a classroom and that is for students and teachers to discuss together about the rules of the classroom.I think this is a great idea.Usually we students do not get a say in what rules are being implemented but if we students have a say,we are more likely to follow those rules.

Someone once said,"Children now love luxury,they have bad manners,contempt for authority,they show disrespect for their elders,and they love chatter in the place one exercise.Children are now tyrants,not the servants of the households."

Mr Wan explained this quote from some anonymous person to us but I do not think this is entirely true.First of all,everyone loves luxury.No one wants to live a hard life and not all of them have bad manners or show disrespect for their elders.I think these are just stereotypes older people are creating for us younger generation.Now,for a class to be managed well.a teacher must start on time.Mr Wan said some teachers only walk to their classrooms once the bell rings which is true but if they do that they will be wasting precious time.What if they were to do that for a whole year?Or if they were to teach the same students for 3 years.I have had a teacher who taught me for 3 years.The students would be missing out on a lot of lessons.Moving on,students need to know the classroom procedures and I think it is the teacher's job to tell them about the procedures.Teachers also need to understand who to teach for mastery.They need to relate their topics with something their students know.They need to have a set induction for their students.I think our education system focuses way too much on test scores instead of mastery.Watch this talk by Sal Khan and you will get what I mean.

We are more focused on scoring A's than actually learning something.Teachers also need to have high expectation for students' success.Teachers need to believe in their students and motivate their students.Students are people too and they need encouragement for them to believe in themselves.Being in an Asian culture,it is quite rare to find students from encouraging families who support them very much.Hence,I think we could start a trend by actually encouraging and supporting those students to achieve their dreams.Then they could end up like this little girl :)

This is what teachers should be doing.https://www.facebook.com/Upworthy/videos/1499399073434279/ This is a great video watch it.Moving on,there are a few things you need to develop classroom rules.

1.Materials

Eg,Chalkboard,chart paper,marker

2.Methods

-You can do this by gathering students around and asking them what they think could actually wreck the classroom and discuss what they can do to solve or avoid the problems.

There are a few guidelines for good classroom management.A teacher can maintain a good classroom environment through arranging student's seating arrangement which will affect their interaction with their classmates but sometimes this does not always work.It depends on the type of students because some students learn better when interacting with their classmates.Teachers should also consider seating patterns which affects interaction between students and teachers.The noisy,naughty and talkative students should sit in front.So,that the teachers can have an eye on them.The seating arrangement should also be convenient for the teacher's mobility.A teacher cannot just stand at one spot during the entire lesson,he or she has to move around the classroom to make sure that all her students understand what she is trying to deliver.

There are many ways a teacher can establish a good psychological environment through their voice tone.I remember a lecturer I had in Segi College who spoke so softly in class,that only the students in the from role were able to hear him.When we asked him to speak up,he said he is not going to talk loudly because he has been talking to whole day but no matter how good you are in teaching if your students cannot hear you,then what's the point?A teacher should also have respect for their students.I believe one of the core virtues every teacher needs to have is to have respect for their students.I have met so many teachers think they are so much above their students.I heard of a story from a friend of mine in Segi College,that her lecturer shouted at her friend for not giving a presentation up to the lecturer's high expectations.The lecturer then bragged than she has a masters degree and that the student who gave the presentation had no qualification at all.Excuse me!That is why she is attending university right?To get the best education she can possibly get.Some people are really such snobs.If you are a snob and you like to look down on your students,I highly suggest you change your profession.It puts people down when you insult them.Teachers are suppose to build you up not bring you down.Moving on,every achievement should be valued by the teacher,no matter how high or how low.If the teacher puts in effort,encouragement should be given.This world has too many judgmental people,why don't be an encourager?

What is a good classroom management?In my slides,a good teacher is like a good manger who manages the classroom which is true in my opinion because teaching a class is like being a CEO or manager in you own company but instead of guiding employees,you are guiding students.A teacher like a manager or CEO has to state the rules of the company but make sure those rules are not too strict or unreasonable.I remember a primary school teacher I had who punished a student by asking him to carry a wooden chair for not doing his homework.That was abuse.That shouldn't be a way of punishing a student.Some teachers really have no heart at all.The teacher like a CEO should be good at strategising.They should arrange the students' seat to minimise disturbance.If I were a teacher I would ask those smart students to sit with the weaker students so that they can learn from each other.Some people say that smart students do not have anything to learn from the weaker ones but you make be surprise some smart students are quite proud and they could learn things like humility from the weaker ones.Lastly,a teacher must know the name of all his or her students.Mr Wan told us that he used to ask the class monitor to pass him the seating plan of the students of the class he was teaching so that he wouldn't forget their names.I remember an Add Maths teacher that I really hated who did not even bother to remember our names.He said that the only way we could make him remember us is by being really smart or outstanding or being really terrible.

Why is classroom management important?A well organised classroom is the fist step to an effective teaching environment.If you are someone who gets easily distracted like me and if you have a short attention span which is something I have too,then a teacher who is good at managing the classroom is highly needed so that you can focus in class.

How does a teacher organise academic content and instruction?First, a teacher needs a lesson plan.Well for me I have met teachers without a lesson plan but they still teach very well but those are the really experienced teachers if you are a novice or a trainee teacher then I highly suggest you have a lesson plan to have a clearer vision of your goals and objectives.Even super experienced teachers need lesson plans to help themselves run the class more smoothly.A teacher also needs to create a good learning environment.One that is not too strict to the extent that the students are afraid to approach the teacher to ask questions.One that is not boring either or else the students would fall asleep and won't bother learning.Lastly,a teacher needs to generate motivation and provide clear introduction to all aspects for their lesson to run more smoothly.

Week 9

It is the 9th Week and we carried on with micro teaching today.I didn't do mine of course because I did it the previous week but let me tell you my thoughts on my friend's micro teaching.Today in class,Razdi,Rita and Stanley did their micro teaching.

Stanley went first.He taught English and he was really nervous.He was sweating a lot but you cannot blame him since it is his first time.We all start from somewhere and you can see that he really is trying his best.He taught us about adjectives and started by asking us to give examples about adjectives and form sentences with them.I find this a good way to warm up.He continued by showing us various examples of adjectives in a book he bought.There is one constructive criticism that I was to give him and that is that he should really use Powerpoint or the white board to teach his students.I couldn't see what those examples were from the activity book he bought and I wasn't too far from him.In an actual Malaysian classroom,you're going to have 40 students in a classroom and you cannot show them an example with an activity book.He even gave us exercises to do which is a good thing because we need to reinforce our knowledge but the answers were never discussed.We wouldn't know where we went wrong or where we went right.All in all,I think he did put in a lot of effort into his micro teaching and I believe he would one day be a really good teacher with more practice.

Razdi was the next one and he taught my most hated subject,Sejarah.He used a video to start his class and he continued by using his slides to teach us.He was really confident but majority of what he did was reading from the slides and he did not try to relate what he was teaching with what we knew.I think he should try to relate the topics taught with the latest news or anything young people are into these days.I think he did not teach to many things and it was just enough for the students to absorb.He also gave us some exercises but it only had 3 questions which was too little for me and he also did not discuss the answers with us.

Moving on,we had Rita.Rita taught Bahasa Malaysia.She was a really active teacher.She constantly asked us to give examples of what she was teaching and that was good.It keeps the class alive and students active but my she taught way too much.She had 35 slides and I could not absorb everything she was trying to teach.Not many students have very long attention spans and I think her one lesson should be divided into many lessons because there was just too much to learn.I couldn't cope and she too did give exercise but did not discuss.

Mr Wan was sick today.Hence,he only briefly went through the classroom management topic with us.Classroom management is the provisions and procedures necessary to create and maintain an environment in which teaching and learning can occur.This is what my slides said and it is true.I have been in a noisy classroom before and I could not concentrate when the teacher was teaching because the students were making so much noise.It was not a good environment for me to learn.According to my slides here are the guidelines for good classroom management practice:

1.seating patterns which affects peers interaction

This is something very common done even in primary school and it actually helps but sometimes not entirely.I used to sit next to a friend of mine who we discussed everything with even schoolwork but teacher said we talked to much to each other.Hence,she switched our seats.I did talk less to my new seat mate but whenever there was a question I wasn't sure about or did not know how to do my homework.I did not ask my new seat mate for help but it did make the class a little bit more quiet for the other students to concentrate.

2.seating patterns which affects interaction between students and teacher

There a few students who are very talkative in my class,and they were often placed in front so that the teachers will be able to catch them talking.When they were placed in front of the class,their behaviour changed because teachers were able to keep an eye on them.They did their homework,paid attention and spoke less.Sometimes they even participate in class.

3seating arrangement for teacher mobility

This is a good idea so that teachers can keep an eye on all the students to make sure they are doing their work

4.equipment and materials

5.rooms arrangement

Moving on,there are also ways of establishing the psychological environment through voice tone.Mr Wan mentioned this before.He said that we need to speak loudly in order for students to hear what we are saying.None of them are bionic people who have the capability of listening to really soft sounds.This reminds me of the time I was studying in Segi College.The lecturer spoke so softly,we couldn't hear what he was trying to say and there were so many students in class,not everyone could have sat in front.Furthremore,organisation is important.I love Unitar but sometimes the slides given to us and the notes given to us regional centres are all over the place.It isn't concise or concrete and sometimes there were grammatical errors in the notes.Other than that,respect is extremely important.As I have said in my numerous posts,I hated my secondary school.One of the main reason was that I did not get the respect I wanted from my teachers.They saw me as a slow and weak student who did not have much of a future but this gave me the motivation I needed in order to succeed and prove that wrong.The main reason why I have decided to do my practicum in my former school is because I want to prove to my former teachers,how much I have improved and how talented I am in my field which is English and then they will be sorry for ever looking down on me.Every student's achievement is also to be valued in order to create a psychological environment.My Physics teacher,Mr Kent once told me that he did not care if I did not do well in my SPM.How could he say that?As a teacher you are suppose to care for your students.Full inclusion is also needed for good psychological environment which is not what every teacher did.I had a Sejarah teacher who made me feel so excluded in class.She handed out our test scores from the lowest to the highest and she read our marks in front of the whole class.I was at the bottom of the class and she made me feel so inferior by doing what she did.

What exactly is good classroom management then?A good teacher is one who is a good classroom manager.She must have a set of rules maintain discipline and arrange the classroom carefully to minimise disturbances and provide students with a sense of confidence.I have complaint a lot about my secondary school teacher but I want to tell you about teachers I really love who have changed my life and how I saw myself.First of all,my piano teacher.She is an amazing woman that I hope to be like one day.I am a slow student and I do not catch up as fast as other students but my piano teacher told me to never give up and not to compare myself with others.She always told me that I am capable of anything I put my mind to and is extremely patient with me.It has boost my self-esteem and given me the confidence to actually sit for music examinations.Same goes to my vocal teacher who has always encouraged me to sit for exams.She will always tell me whenever I am making improvements and she always believes in my capabilities.Other than that,teachers need to know the names of all the students in class.My add maths teacher did not even know my name.It made me feel as if I was not important.He told us that if we want him to remember us we have to either be extremely smart or extremely terrible.It sounded like he did not care about the average students like me.

In conclusion,I think a teacher needs to organise an academic content and instruction well through having a clear instructional plan,creating an environment to learn at the beginning of the lesson(don't be like my secondary school teachers who have created hell on earth for me) and generate motivation and provide clear introduction.