Reflection Of Teaching: It Is Hard Work

Introduction

Teaching is hard work because it is heart work. A good teacher should be a good leader and a good friend. He should also be a disciplinarian with an eye for detail. To increase his productivity he should have well thought out plans and programs for teaching. A good teacher should aim at stimulating rather than entertaining and should encourage the students to adopt deep approaches to learning (Whyte, 1999). Biggs, 1999 says that academic standards can be attained in larger and more diversified classes if learning outcomes can be seen more as a function of student activities. To maximize learning outcomes blend of various styles of teaching is important as pure lecturing can be monotonous. I personally use student centered learning

Overall, I succeeded in most of the areas. However, there were parts of my teaching that I could have done better. After watching the micro-teaching video I realized that the strength of my teaching is the lecturing style and the structure and quality of the information, as these were commented by the students. I also got the impression that everyone was happy with the lecture and they had many questions to ask at the end of the lecture. One of the issues I had been concerned about was the pace of the lecture, I noticed that I went too fast in between and skipped some parts of the slides. That was mainly because I was nervous about finishing the lecture in eight minutes to dedicate the last two minutes for discussion. The need for a video and more student activities were the points raised by most of the students and I will look into this for my future practice. I could have also incorporated more discussion by asking them their views on the kit method. A video would have helped in giving a

I introduced new topics by explaining it to the class and then asked the students questions. If I were starting metabolism, for example, I would talk to them about the concept and then would give them a case study. These questions would encourage students to think about the new idea and then apply it to the case study that we had already talked about in class. I always encouraged my students to ask questions. After giving case studies I would put them into group of three and would ask them to write down their thoughts and suggestions. Some of the students have told me that they feel like I am talking ‘with’ them rather than talking ‘to’ them. I have noticed that they are very comfortable in my class and approach me with brilliant questions. While I was invigilating a group of final year students I had to explain them the method to calculate concentrations and dilutions. In science experiments, often one needs to know how much material to use or how much of a solute is present in a solution. I asked them to pair up with the person next to them and gave them a few problems to work on. They approached me whenever they were stuck and I cleared it out for them. By the end of the day they were quite acquainted with all the necessary calculations. They discussed together and prepared the work plan for the week. Group work can be an effective method to motivate students,