Reflection on Week 6

Week 6 has started and came to an end in a blink of an eye. This week’s discussion covered a very important topic which most teachers fear. LARGE CLASSES. Teacher’s preparations and readiness becomes greater as the number of students increases. It is quite difficult to control students when there are too many of them. At the same time, it is also questionable if all of them are participating in the class. Some of them might be doing other work and attend classes just for the sake of fulfilling the course’s requirements. However, all these can be changed if the teacher uses the correct approach in her/his teaching to make the class more interactive. I read all the websites suggested at the main page. They are very helpful. I like the suggestions on ‘In Class Activity’ and some of the miscellaneous ideas. I have tried some of the ideas such as giving class rules early, preparing seating charts and to preparing handouts early. The article on ‘Teaching Large Classes’ is also very handy. There are so many links in that page and everything is well-explained. 

 

I prefer the idea on ‘Think-Pair-Share’. This term is something new to me. It is a simple activity where teacher asks questions, students discuss in pairs and later share with the class. This will also improve the student’s confidence since they have shared their answers with someone before sharing it with the whole class. Talking about confidence, Concep Test is also interesting. Students usually feel confident when their friends share the same

answers. Besides these activities, I also like ‘Jigsaw Learning’. I have a reason for why I like this activity. During one of my Masters classes, my lecturer used this method and it was really good. At times, it is so bored to sit and listen to lectures all the time. Through jigsaw learning, we collaborated with each other in order to gain knowledge. Time for discussion was given and at times, my lecturer asked us to present. We also had to submit report of summary on the article. The benefit of this activity was that we managed to read the articles without reading it in full! And when we discussed, we understood better. We also helped each other whenever there were any doubts.

I have prepared many PowerPoint slides for students but now I realize that my slides were not interactive. I also understand why my lecturers always used plain and simple templates, had minimum bullets and use limited colours in their slides. Some of us like to have very compact slides with a lot of information, and we also like it very colourful. Through this week’s task, I’ve learned how to create interactive PowerPoint slides. I enjoyed preparing the slides and can’t wait to use it in class.

          As for my final project, I had a discussion with my students and I told them about my idea on using WebQuest. I am still collecting materials to create the WebQuest. For the students to get an idea on WebQuest, I shared the URL on my WebQuest which I created for last week’s task with my students. I asked them to go through it and try writing an essay after reading the materials and watching the videos uploaded. I also asked them to try the quizzes. I will discuss on their progress next week when we are back to school.