Dialectical Journal for ED 335 Teaching Practicum
Observations/ Account
(What Happened?)
Mrs Brittney, she arrived her class a few minutes
before the actual time of the lesson kicked off, she
arranged the chairs into two groups and as the
students came in, she kept instructing them to sit in
on the groups. After the students had settled down,
she called on one the students to come and open the
envelope and find out the topic they were going to
study today, So the students opened the envelope
and the topic was internet. Mrs Brittney went ahead
to put the question on the white board. “Is internet
good or bad” After, that she asked each group to
support one of the sides and she asked them to share
in their own groups why they think so. After that she
asked them to tell the other group why internet is
good or bad. This turned it a debate and the teacher
with her paper she kept writing out the wrong
statements that diverse groups had would say. After
the debate, she wrote the following wrong grammar
they had used, and she corrected these mistakes
calling out the name of the student who would have
said it. This helped the students at the end of the
class to know the right words to use while
expressing themselves.
13th 01.2018
The teacher came into class, this morning and she
had the students (grade 2) sit in the circle and
reminded them of the rules of the class. She went
ahead to give the instructions of what they were
going to do in class today. She divided the class into
three groups, and she gave the two groups coloring
material as she worked with one group. After
working with one group with writing letters, she did
the same with the other two groups. At the end of
the lesson, the teacher she took the class out and
they played musical chairs and that’s how the class
ended.
14th 02. 2019
Today I had a chance of observing Ms Farida, and
this was in grade 1. He class started a little late and
this was because she could not find the classroom
key, which eventually were found, and she started
her class. She started the class with asking the
students to sit into two groups as she called the
different names of the students and assigning where
which group to sit. After that, Ms Farida she gave
one group colors to paint as she worked with the
Date 12th 02 2018
Reflections & Critical Response
(What do I think of it? What went well? What could be
improved? How? What will I do differently? How does this
connect to the theory I have read from class?)
Today, watching mrs Brittney teach the English in
the middle secondary, it changed my view of a
lesson plan. I would confess that her lesson activities
did not look captivate. However, I came to
understand that at times even in middle high school,
where we expect students to be able to be explained
to the concept, they could still learn without writing
out notes in class. Mrs Brittney she made her lesson
from of activities and at the end of the lesson I
realized that students understood the concept and
learnt a lot from it. I can connect this to what we
learnt in “Teaching Redemptive”. The environment
and classroom management play a fundamental role
in the learning of the students. And, I have realized
that putting children in the age group of (12-16) in
small groups without good classroom arrangement it
would be difficult to monitor them. Therefore, I
think Mrs Brittney has done a decent job on teaching
this class and when I get my class I would love to
borrow some of her ideas into my own classroom.
Though I feel like the being and the end of the
lesson was not fun enough for the 12-16-year old.
I think the lesson went well because the students
responded well, but one thing that was outstanding
for me, was dividing her class into three groups and
working with each group individually. On asking her
she was able to explain that student’s learning levels
are at different. So that’s why she has put them into
distinct groups. Connecting this to what we have
learnt in class, it explains how paramount formative
assessment. Through assessments as a teacher you
get to evaluate your students and come up with ways
of helping them. For example I believe Ms Araine
its what she did to get to know, that students in her
class are at different levels of understanding.
Observing Ms Farida teach this way honestly, I was
amazed by the technique she uses to teach two
groups of students who are at diverse levels of
learning. Again, the classroom management and
arrangement was awesome, and this was able to help
the students all to remain settled. I realized that, she
arranged the sits of students in a way that as she
works with one group, she can still monitor the other
group. According to what we have been learning
other group. The first group, she was teaching them
how to count from 20 -30. And after 30 minutes she
was able to attend the other group which was
coloring, she asked them to put their coloring aside
and she worked with them for also 30 minutes, while
she was working with this group the other was doing
their work of counting objects and writing on the
paper. This other group were working on adding 2-
digit numbers. After that she gave this second group
work and after they had finished she dismissed the
class.
15TH 02.2018
Today I again I had a chance of observing Ms
Arina’s class in pre-school, this class started at
10:30-11:30. The teacher started the class with a
song and the students gradually joined in doing the
actions. The teacher after that, the she sat the
students in a circle and read them a story book about
animals that live in the sea. The teacher after reading
the story about the sea animals she showed the
students toys of these sea animals and she asked
them if they could remember them. The teacher after
that, she gave the students pictures to color, the
students were able to color and after that the teacher
called the students back in the circle and asked them
what they had learned. A few students mentioned
the animals they had learned. After that the teacher
dismissed the class.
19th. 02.2018
Today was my very first day of teaching and surely
time seemed not to be going. I started my English
secondary class with an ice breaker. I asked how
everyone’s weekend was, I did this as a way of
waiting for other students had not arrived yet. I was
in class 10 minutes before the lesson started. The
lesson started on time and I was able to go through
the agender of the day then the lesson kicked off. I
was teaching about “either or and neither nor”. I
went ahead and explained to them what these two
words mean and later I gave them lots of examples
relating to these two words “either or and neither”.
After that I asked the class to take off some time to
generate sentences in line with those two words and
be able to present before the rest of the class. The
class went on well after everyone had finished
presenting before the class, I asked them if they had
any questions, but I received none from them.
about classroom management and today I feel like
this is a great away of maintaining a class and it can
be through which we organize our classes, as a
teacher I should organize my class in a strategic
way, where I will be able to monitor all the students.
Again, I have learnt that one way of maintaining
order in a class is by finding an activity for the other
group of the students as am working with another
group of students. I have learnt that activities like
coloring are good for keep the students busy and not
disturbing.
Today during this class, I realized that students get
tired very fast and they are easily distracted, and I
ought to keep each activity and the lesson short so
that it can be beneficial for each of them. Again,
connecting this to social cognitive development,
children in pre-school are Infancy and Toddlerhood
and therefore, everything is supposed to be kept
simple because at this age I have come to realize that
kids ought to enjoy and have fun at school with a
few basic lessons like learning 1-2. The other thing
that caught my attention, was the way the teacher
deals with a few indiscipline cases, the teacher after
telling the students to behave during class, she asked
the student to remain behind and she explained to
the student that next time she will ask the parents to
let her stay home. This helped me realize that,
parents can help us as well in case of indiscipline by
reminding the students from home to behave.
It being my very first day of teaching, I was able to
observe a few areas that I think are so paramount. I
realized that I need to have more examples most
especially when teaching the English language. For
example, being able to explain something using
different examples so students can understand better.
Again, I understood that as a teacher time
management is very important. In the first one hour I
had finished, I had to keep student engaged by
asking them to give me more examples to test if
their had understood the concept. The other thing
that I can’t forget to talk about is the element of
classroom management, I understood that knowing
the name of your school is very important and it’s
part of classroom, because at times there is a student
in your class who is making noise and you want to
call on them to remind them to be silent, it sounds
rude to identify them as “You”. Those are a few
things that I learnt today.
20th.Feb.2017
Today I had I started my lesson with putting the
students in a circle sited down and I reminded them
of the class rules and started my lesson with
teaching social studies. I was fortunately teaching
them about Africa and the class was exited to see
pictures from Africa, the class that I was teaching
lower primary. After that I had a chance reading the
class a book which I found a bit challenging because
the students became very excited by pictures in the
book and some of the students left their sits and
came closer to me to have a close look at the
pictures. Again, it was a bit scary to teach when Dr.
Kim was observing but I did. After class I took the
students out and we played an African game “Riding
the train “which some students I should confess that
I took more than I expected.
21/02/2018
Today, I had a chance of teaching lower primary
about English and the lesson started off well. I
started my lesson by reminding the class about the
classroom rules and then went ahead to review
yesterday’s lesson bout literacy and the new names
of African animals. I then went ahead to introduce
my lesson about singular and plurals. I started off by
showing the students different objects I held one pen
in my right hand and held two pens in my other hand
and introduced the meaning of plural and singular,
then went ahead to give more examples to the
students. The class was lively, and it was in order, I
had, I had less distractions compared to yesterday.
And I felt like the students had understood me and
got the concept.
22nd /02/2018
Today again I had another opportunity of teaching
lower primary, I was basically reviewing what we
had started on yesterday in the English subject, the
lesson started well, and I realized that students from
the start were very happy and active. I started the
class by asking the students how their night was and
this I should say triggered the students even those
who were not yet in the mood of class they became
active and they were able to share with me how their
night was, after I had some share with me, I
reminded them of the class rules and went straight
into yesterday’s lesson and I asked them what I had
talked about yesterday in our English class lesson.
Thereafter I had some remind the rest of the class
(Those who would remember). I should confess lots
of the students didn’t remember what singular and
plural means. However, when I started giving them
The lesson went as played but I was able to make a
few observations. First, I realized that students in the
age rang of 6-9 they are easily distracted, and they
cannot concentrate for a long time. I was able to
discover this as I was reading them I was reading
them a book after 7 minutes of reading the book
some had started playing with each other’s hands.
Then I also observed that as I teacher I ought to have
plan B just in case things don’t go as planned I
ought to have more activities to engage the students
if you finish the lesson before time, this is because I
realized that I finished my lesson 15 minutes before
the actual time of ending the lesson and I could not
think of anything to engage the students and so the
teacher had to help me and come up with another
game to keep the students occupied for the next 25
minutes so that they are not idol in the meantime.
But am enjoying the teaching experience and
learning lots of things from my cooperating teacher.
I had a wonderful time I should say. Today being
my third day of teaching, I felt like I was managing
the class and I was more confident compared to my
first day. Again after 3 days of teaching back to
back, I should say am in love with teaching and the
students are used to me, some we have even become
close friends. Also, this experience has helped me
evidence most of the things that I learnt in my
psychology class. While studying we were told that
human beings are more visual, I realized that as I
was teaching that these students could recall plural
and singular by using objects, As I left the class after
teaching I had left my marker and the student came
running after me saying “Teacher here are your
markers” That explained to be the psychology
theory I learnt last semester.
From today’s lesson I surely observed lots of things,
During the time when I asked the students to tell me
what we had learnt yesterday and couldn’t remember
honestly inside me I was not happy however, I
decided to keep a positive attitude and remind the
students of hat I had taught yesterday. Now
reflecting on that situation and connecting it to the
book we used in my first year” Teaching
Redemptive” by Donovan L. Graham, I ought to be
understanding to the students and remember that
they are human and we are all fallen, therefore my
duty as a Christian teacher is be able to support them
at the expense of feeling bad because they did not
understand a concept I taught I should, rather be
redemptive and accept them the way they are.
Another thing that I reflected on after this lesson
was, the way we talk to our students while trying to
some examples then they all remembered what
plural and singular meant, So I went ahead to give
more explanation of these two words using real
materials. After the review we had a chance of
learning to design African jewelry. This activity
took more time than I expected, because of students
kept asking for more paper to do their paintings.
During this activity I tried to help one the students
just paint one part of his picture and when other
students saw me helping this one student they all
came up to me and asked me to help them paint part
of their paintings, therefore I had to go ahead and
help all the seven students who came seeking for my
help. However, I was surprised by these two boys
who did not did not ask for my help but asked for
the extra paper and did exactly the way I had drawn
for these other students that I was helping.
23rd/02/2018
Today I had a chance of observing the English class
with Miss Nasifa, and she started the class a little
earlier then the expected time. She kept walking in
class to each student’s disk and she was asking them
how they were doing, as she did this more students
kept coming in for the lesson. When the teacher
realized that all students were now in class she
started her lesson. The teacher asked the students if
they had read the book she hade assigned them to do
in the previous lesson, and unfortunately none of the
students had done the work apart from one student
in the whole class. Therefore, the teacher went ahead
to change her plan and instead of looking at the book
she had planned to look at she decided to teach them
about prepositions. She went ahead to ask the
students to read the book for their next class. After
the lesson, the teacher called Najibu (the student
who had done her reading) and she gave this student
a bar of chocolate for having done her reading. The
teacher went on to give an assignment about her
lesson of preposition as homework then dismissed
the class.
correct them is very key. My cooperating teacher
hinted on it yesterday, that whenever I want to
remind the students to use the inside voice in class I
ought to also use the inside voice not to shout at
them. Therefore, today when I used the inside voice
to remind them to use the inside voice they all
responded positively, and they spoke softly for the
rest of the lesson. This opened my eyes to
understanding that whenever, we want our students
in a class to be able to do something, we ought to be
able to do what we are asking them to do. And, it is
important me as a teacher to always be an example
to in action but also in what we teach them because
as a teacher I influence these students highly.
Again, this was an interesting lesson because, it was
my first time to observe this class. The first thing
that I was able to observe is the way the teacher
handles the students in her class. For example, when
she asked the students if they had read the book she
gave them as their homework and most of them had
not done it, I thought the teacher was going to get
mad at them but ,their teacher did not get mad at
them. However, she encouraged the students to try
and their reading before their next class. Connecting
this “Teaching redemptive” book by Donovan L.
Graham, I believe this what Donovan meant by
saying “Being able to view our students as fallen
creatures and our obligation as redemptive teacher to
restore them” This also has helped also to discover
that being a redemptive teacher does not necessary
need to be in a Christian school. We can be teaching
in a secular school but still be redemptive in our
teaching. Another thing that reflected on in this
lesson, extinct motivation helps students to have
their tasks accomplished on time but may not
necessary beneficial to them, for example when they
asked the student who had done her homework of
reading the book, what it was all about she could not
even tell what the main characters in the book, but
she had read the book and had gotten the prize of
chocolate. Therefore, as teachers I believe we ought
to use less of extrinsic motivation because, they
don’t impact students that much. We ought to use
more of intrinsic motivation that will impact our
students for a lifetime.