At this point in my teaching practice I feel that I am ready to discuss matters relating to effective delivery of lessons. I have worked particularly closely at this aspect of teaching and will bring to light my very own thoughts, experiences and future goals that I have managed to set myself. The most important of all these is the fact that I feel that changes can be made in terms of becoming a better teacher or at least I understand that there is a need for evaluating oneself and learning from the evaluation lessons which cannot be learned through theory alone.
The very first lesson I learned in becoming an effective teacher is that children learn better when they are interested, motivated and can clearly see what the teacher is presenting to them. This is also stressed in the 2004 Qualifying to teach handbook. The standards S3.3.3 also stresses the importance of promoting active and independent learning and that children should take some responsibility to manage their own learning.
On this paper I will focus on the areas mentioned above and would also like to look into differentiation as another instrument for delivering effective lessons. On my teaching practice I have now covered a substantial number of lessons in the core subjects on which I will base my writing. My very first lesson I taught began with a numeracy lesson. I had observed a number of numeracy lessons delivered by the class teacher already. The teacher employed a number of effective strategies to motivate the year 1 and 2 numeracy group. For e.g. the teacher introduced a number locking method by which children took the biggest number and locked it inside their heads and then added the smaller number by the use of their fingers. This method was so effective that it could also be done with subtractions as well as additions.
The method was not part of the school strategies but one that the class teacher discovered herself. It was a method that did not involve the use of equipment and could be practiced anywhere in the class and even on the playground. I found myself instantly employing this strategy to teach my numeracy lessons. I have also learnt from my observations of the class teacher ways to engage children and capture their attention through clear explanations and motivating children to discuss questions and to work collaboratively. For e.g. the teacher allows the children to pair in groups to discuss a particular answer or ways of working out a particular equation. This is part of the school targets of promoting dialogue between children. This really works well as children are very keen to share answers with one another and those in year 1 usually benefit from talking to a year 2 classmate. I maintained this process of encouraging children to discuss among themselves and found that I successfully captured their interest and enthusiasm for numeracy.
I found myself very motivated in planning my numeracy lessons as I began to employ interactive methods of learning and ways that really encouraged children to participate. This motivation was extended to other lessons I taught. For instance, in Literacy I did a lot of interactive work during carpet sessions, modelled exactly what I wanted children to do and consistently asked if the children were clear in their objectives. I employed the school policy of using different colours to highlight the emphasis on different things. Even the writing of the date on the whiteboard was done in colour code so as to stress the importance of writing the date. I feel that these small interactive moments and focusing on school policies and maintaining these practices helped to deliver my lesson very effectively.
I took the initiative to introduce a new rule in the class. This decision came about due to behaviour management needs. I found myself that while I was delivering lessons and capturing children’s interests on the other hand I was not balancing my behaviour management on the same level. This was a problem I had to address in order to continue the practice of delivering effective lessons. This is where I introduced the ‘name mats’. Name mats were given to each child to sit on. This ensured that children did not move around from place to place while on the carpet. This did not eradicate behaviour problems but helped me to focus more on my lesson delivery.
I have found myself adapting to the class teacher’s differentiation methods. The class operates in a colour code system where the red group is the lowest achieving, the blue and green are average and the yellow and orange being the above average group. The colour code system has always been in place in the school but care is taken that the red group is not made to feel like the lowest achievers but more as a part of a normal group. Hence a lot of my planning involved incorporating the red group into the whole of the lesson and making them a part of the whole class yet providing them with work that is appropriate for their level.
Aspects of differentiation proved to be the most challenging for me to manage. I simply ran out of ideas of different activities for different lessons and to maintain this week after week proved to become very difficult. I engaged in discussions with my mentor and class tutor and also began to participate in the P.P.A. sessions with other year 1 and 2 teachers. This decision helped me to overcome my difficulties in providing stimulating and interesting modes of differentiation to the class. My overall experience in teaching so far has been one of learning and moving on from strengths to strengths to deliver effective lessons. I still have a lot of work to do in terms of making my lessons more interactive and differentiating in such a way that does not hinder the learning experiences of the lower ability groups. In light of my experience so far, I believe that I am aware of the essential elements of delivering effective lessons.
