Online Microteaching

https://padlet.com/antzvanderwesthuizen/microteaching-group-1-and-2-feedback-wdkuoontrg4nrim1/wish/2667188686

Reflection on comment

This comment was given to me regarding my online lesson by one of the fellow classmates. It states that one of the aspects that I did well was that the lesson was engaging, and that the way that I interacted with the learners was very good. It also states that in the lesson the students felt comfortable and at ease. Looking at these positive comments makes me happy seeing that I have been working hard to get more engaged with the learners and as it states in my teaching philosophy, I always wish to make the students feel comfortable in the lesson. Seeing that I achieved that is good.

On the other hand there were negatives as well where the person suggested I use a video in the lesson to introduce the lesson a bit better. It is a good critique and I fully agree with that comment. It would have introduced the lesson better and grabbed the student’s attention better. When I teach online again, I will be making sure that I incorporate this into my lesson.

Personal reflection

Teaching online was not a new thing for me but teaching with this platform and that type of engaging lesson was new to me. Online teaching has it benefits and disadvantages and everyone that taught experienced them in a different manner. In my case the aspect of teaching online that I love was that there are so many resources that I could incorporate into my lesson. Teaching online gives you as a teacher a much bigger playing field that normal teaching. I also love teaching online because I could teach anywhere I wanted to. I could be sitting in the office of at my house and teach which helped with not having to travel anywhere specific. Likewise the students that I was teaching could also be anywhere and they didn’t have to meet up with me at a specific location, just to get the lesson. One thing I did dislike was the fact that loadshessding has a huge impact. I believe a lot can go wrong when teaching online. From the laptop not working, to slow internet to no power at all so special attention is needed when preparing the online class. Another ting that is hard for me is that I like to have my learners in front of me and not on a computer screen. It is so much easier to engage the learners when they are there in person and there is no way to see if the students are even paying attention on the online platform.

I learned a lot in just one online lesson. But I think the biggest thing I learned and improved on was my technological skills. I have struggled with it from time to time but what this lesson did was help me learn more about the technology and I can use it better in the classroom. It also improved my skills of using more resources in the lessons.

What I would do differently in the next lesson is start with a video or clip that would introduce the lesson to the students in a more engaging way. I would also spend more time in the preparation of the slides that I used in the teaching of the content. Even though I used Kahoot at the end of the lesson which is a great way to end off the lesson, I would either make the kahoot a bit longer, testing more aspects of the content or I would have used a different platform to test the understanding of the lesson.

To help teach the topic that I did, I choose the Canon man app. It is a great online application that shows and teaches a topic very well. The topic was graphs in mathematics, and this tool was excellent in showing the relationships that are presented on a graph. It was a very good resource to use. Apart from that, I could have included a video off of YouTube to aid the introduction part of the lesson and to get them engaged with the content. Lastly I used Kahoot to test the learner’s knowledge. Even though it is a great and fun way of testing the knowledge, I think I could have used it better and asked the students a bit more in-depth questions on the platform in order to get a better understanding of the knowledge that the students gained.

The online teaching has developed the teaching I do now in schools because it has opened my eyes to what resources are out there and how I can apply them to my lessons to enrich the teaching and learning that takes place.

All in all it was a amazing experience, and from it I learned a lot about the different ways of teaching and I learned a lot about the way that I teach and the strengths that I have as a teacher and what I might need to work on a bit more.