Day Twelve

Today I have been reflecting on my own teaching and practice within numeracy and literacy with connection to graduating teacher standard one, teachers must know what to teach. In my numeracy lessons over the past week or so we have been problem solving. It has been really interesting to continue on with my AT’s teaching model and reflect on how effective I personally find it. The content that I am teaching is definitely above their level but they need the challenge to progress. One thing that I found in this weeks lesson is that my students are losing focus really quickly because the content is too hard and they give up. From discussion with my AT about this in regards to other levels, we discussed about where to pitch a lesson. Either to pitch it high and some student are engaged whilst others aren’t or you pitch it lower and more are involved but some aren’t challenged. The evaluation from this discussion is that my AT personally finds it more beneficial to pitch a little lower because he commented that it is extremely hard to regain students who have got to a point where they give up. When students have given up they quickly close themselves to ever been able to accomplish that task. Whilst if students don’t get to the point of giving up then they are able to complete their task with a positive attitude therefore increasing self-esteem and motivation. As mentioned, this thinking has two sides though and a balance really needs to be found. My thinking is that students need to be challenged whilst also feeling like accomplishers. Which leads me to thinking how can as a teacher I facilitate this learning. Is there a way that I can challenge my students without them giving up and becoming closed to the task. This I do not know, but hope to develop throughout my teaching profession.