Mentor Observation
Monday 2nd December: Dinnington Comprehensive
Brief
Overview:
The
session was designed for year 10 G.C.S.E students of a mixed ability. The
lesson took place period one on Monday the 2nd of December in the
schools main hall. There is a stage available within that room and the full use
of tabs and wings. The learners are currently working towards a production of a
20 minute Pantomime and the aims of this lesson were to explore the characterisation
and physicality of their specific characters within the performance. (See
Lesson Plan for further details).
In concluding the lesson I felt that the strengths
came from the structure and content, and its relevance to the topic and in
meeting the aims and objectives. The learners seemed instantly engaged right
from the start and I felt this came from the starter routine I have established
with them prior to this session. However, I knew that the learners were
familiar with the starter activity so in order to challenge them I adapted the
key words and themes behind the game to link it to the subject matter. I felt
that after having time to understand this specific group of learners I had
established that the group needed an introduction that would lose inhibitions
and increase energy levels, if this had not been done then the quality of
characterisation and willingness to participate would have been reduced.
I believe that the success of my structure and content
was the quick pace of the activities. I was aware that certain individuals
thrive more when they are constantly being challenged and pushed, while others
needed the extra time to explore and develop. To facilitate for this I set
several tasks that lasted roughly fifteen minutes, each task had a series of
smaller tasks within it, therefore those who were moving at a quicker pace
could move through the series of tasks effectively and the other learners could
focus on the original task.
An area that needs considerable improvement would be
my questioning techniques. Although I plan a series of questions prior to the
lesson and incorporate those into my lesson plans, these prompts seem to get
lost once the lesson begins. I need to consider the way in which I phrase a
question in order to compensate for the level of learners within the group. In
order to do this I need to make sure I have a clearer understanding of what level each learner is at not only in this
specialist subject but also in terms of functional skills, and although I am
aware of such information I need to make sure I am constantly reflecting on it.
As well as the way in which I
phrase a question, I also feel within questioning that a weakness comes from
the way I react to the responses given. I feel that I need to build confidence
in myself and realise that if I am not getting the responses that I am aiming
for, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I have not provided enough information or
essentially done what is asked of me. I have to be able to reflect on the
answers given and assess where there has been a lack of understanding and which
areas may need to be revisited.
An issue that was made apparent
to me was that I had not given enough support to a student with special
education needs (SEN). Within this lesson there is a learner who uses English
as a second language and although I had spoken to the learner to make sure they
understood and simplified the task to suite his needs, it was raised that the
learner could have done with extra support even though they had stated they
understood. Also, within this session there is a learning support assistant (LSA)
available for this specific student, and when planning future lessons for this
year group I think it would be beneficial for me and the SEN student to liaise
with the LSA by emailing her my lesson plan, discussing how I can incorporate
the student more into an activity and get a deeper understanding of the learner
and how I can make that individual feel comfortable and able to achieve.
From the observation a number of
actions points have been highlighted to me in order to improve the planning and
delivery of my lessons. The first one was my questioning skills and the
inclusion of all students when seeking responses. This was evident because when
allowing the learners to offer an answer, some learners were allowing the
others to take the lead and sit back, instead of being actively involved. I had
already highlighted after this session that my weaknesses fall in my
questioning and now have a focus to develop my skills and make sure that it is
not just an odd number of learners contributing. In order to progress from this
point I am going to explore different activities that are available to aid the
learners in searching for the questions and responses themselves. I want them
to analyse and evaluate their work through group discussions. This will
incorporate peer assessment but also gets the learners to think for themselves
instead of relying on me to guide them to what they think I want them to say.
Also, when considering questioning that isn’t necessarily for evaluation but
for reflection I can look into simple ways of randomly choosing who answers the
questions e.g. pick sticks. Incorporating this should allow a variety of
answers but also remove the chance for them to complain about giving responses.
Looking into this further I do have to consider any SEN students as it would
not be appropriate to make them feel uncomfortable during questioning and
discussions, by making them respond verbally in front of the other learners. To
make sure this doesn’t become an issue and all needs are met, I will make sure
all learner needs are considered when planning activities for questioning. I
also don’t want to isolate a learner by avoiding questioning them within a
lesson, therefore in order to progress I will research into questioning
activities that are inclusive and suitable for all learner needs.
Another point that was raised as
needing action was making sure that SEN learners had the sufficient support
they needed in all activities. Although I had thought about the needs of the
learners it was proven that more resources and further support was needed. From
this I need to focus on understanding in more detail the needs of the learners
and how I can facilitate the most effective way of aiding their learning. After
the session I had considered the techniques I had used to help SEN students
within my lesson and agreed that a considerable amount of development was
needed in order to provide sufficient support. In order to this I have
considered incorporating more images to the resources used, to add further
clarity to those with weak reading and literacy skills. This is a simple
adjustment but can make a huge effect for the learners, specifically in my
subject specialism, images can explain something that could be considered
complicated to others when written down. Further development for this will come
from creating and researching in more detail the characteristics of certain
disorders but also of the individual themselves. This will make it clearer to
me how I can provide resources and activities that will make sure all learners’
needs are met. Also, I believe that I can learn a large amount of knowledge
from the LSA within the classroom. She has a rapport with the learners and has
a deeper insight into techniques that are effective for learning.
From this I have created the
following targets:
·
By March I will have successfully incorporated
5 different activities into my lesson plans that aid inclusive questioning
within the group, by exploring Socratic questioning and other techniques.
·
After Christmas I will have created a variety
of four resources specifically aimed to support students with special
educational needs at level one.
·
By the end of the course I want to successfully
incorporate a routine with learners where they are using a questioning
technique that they can use between themselves.
In order to develop my skills so that I can
complete these targets set by myself I will explore specific practitioners both
from teaching techniques and drama techniques. These will be: Socratic
Questioning and Augusto Boals theory of forum theatre. I believe that
incorporate forum theatre into a session will provide the learners with
additional drama techniques but will also allow them to analyse and assess
their own work without realising it. The use of the joker will incorporate peer
led teaching styles and peer assessment.
In order to develop my skills
further I have highlighted that I should explore deeper into the theories of
Socratic Questioning. Exploring this deeper will educate me on how to
successfully develop active learners and effectively ask questions that will
probe thinking. By following this technique I will begin to introduce the
learners to the ideas of understanding for themselves, which allows me to
clearly establish the effectiveness of the lesson and also allows clarity to
the learners as to the purpose of activities and discussions. Incorporating
this technique into a session will also allow me to identify which learners
have gained a clear understanding of the content, which allows me to analyse my
lesson structure and highlight which activities the learners found most
effective in terms of retaining information. In order to develop this further
and challenge my students, making sure they are pushed to their best abilities,
I should consider more in depth about how Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning is
incorporated into my lessons. The Socratic Question will fall towards the end
of Bloom’s process with analysis and evaluation of the learners work. So by
clearly applying this structure I can make sure that as the lesson progresses
the learners are taking the knowledge, applying it and then eventually
analysing the purpose, in doing so the learners should then begin to use the
Socratic Questioning themselves.
Within my practice I feel that I
take some influence from the Sender Receiver Model (Shannon & Weaver,
1949), specifically, with starter activities or for revision. I find it very
effective to give the learners a stimuli at the start of a lesson, this could
be an image, a piece of text or a small video clip, which is based on the topic
of study. Pose a question to the group and allow them to explore and interpret
for themselves what this could depict. This can be an effective way of starting
a discussion based lesson and incorporates peer/self-teaching. Respond to this
by asking the learners questions about their choices and feedback, this then
allows the learners to peer/ self-assess.
 |
The example above demonstrates a
warm activity I have used in previous lessons. This would be the Stimuli and
the learners would have to decode why certain words have been placed within the
image. This technique is also a great way of differentiating between students,
as the more able students will choose the challenging words and pick out key
themes, whereas those less able may simply identify characters and emotions.
However, within the lesson
observation I felt that the learners were not of the right frame of mind for a
written or discussion based activity. I believe that this was due to the time
of day and the classroom situation that we were in. With us being in the hall
and not in the usual classroom environment I could identify that the learners
were excitable so therefore a practical based starter would work more
effectively. Also, due to the overrun of a year based assembly we had already
lost a considerable amount of time, therefore the pace of the starter needed to
be quick but still effective. I felt my decision to change starter activities
was successful as the energy levels of the students became controlled.
Within my role as a teacher I
feel it is very important to actively get involved in a lesson, especially with
the nature of my specialism. I feel that also with the nature of the topic they
are studying it is important to make the learners feel comfortable around you
in order to perform to their best abilities. With Pantomime the concept behind
it is humour and the ability to portray an extreme exaggeration of a character,
in doing so you must feel comfortable with acting silly and being able to laugh
at yourself. By joining in with group games and warm ups I believe it
encourages the learners to participate and lose their inhibitions that little
bit more. I believe that I have demonstrated to the learners that drama games
have a purpose and can be used effectively to enhance their performance. I
believe this is evident as the learners have begun to take charge in leading
the drama warm-ups and have taken it upon themselves to instantly begin the
lesson.
As the lesson went on it became
apparent that several students were growing in confidence and beginning to
demonstrate high standards of physicalisation that they may not have been able
to achieve without going through these activities. Specifically the activity
which focused on gesture (see lesson plan for details) demonstrated a high
level of development, which was commented on by my mentor. Hopefully, in doing
this activity the learners have realised and identified themselves the effect
of making the movements bigger and exploring the use of hand movements, and how
that can incorporate humour and characterisation into a performance. In doing
this I could also transfer the skills into the next session and see how that
has impacted their overall performance.
In relation to the scheme of work
this session falls in between a period of rehearsals. It was important now that
the learners had a structured piece and where confident in the movements, to
work on the characters they are playing and to incorporate the traditional
styles of characterisation found in pantomime. If this session had not taken
place the learners would have had limited knowledge and understanding in order
to develop and progress within the work. Now they have been given the
knowledge, I now have to look for how they take that knowledge and apply it.
The aims and objectives set for the learners were reached effectively, which
was demonstrated through their practical work. The learners had understood the
tasks and completed them to a high standard, and a level of understanding to
the purpose of activities was also displayed through verbal feedback and the
questioning. Assessing whether or not the learners were successful in reaching the
aims and objectives came from the next lesson after the observation as that was
when they applied what we had studied into their practical work. Taking this
into consideration I made sure the learners identified to themselves the
progress they had made by using feedback sheets to score themselves on each
element of the lesson. The next session I repeated this half way through the
session to see if they felt that they had improved, stayed the same or even
forgotten to incorporate the skills they had learnt. This way it demonstrated
to me where each learner was at but also confirmed for the learners there
progress.
Being observed during the lesson
I felt didn’t affect my performance to a considerable level. The only
difference that I could comment on was my time keeping. I felt that I was
definitely more aware of the time throughout the lesson, making sure I was able
to complete each activity effectively in the amount of time given. This worked
well on devising tasks as it can be easy to let activities over run if you
leave the learners to create by themselves. However, in doing so I was
conscious that I had to complete all the tasks and some activities were rushed
or concluded prematurely. From this I feel that I have a better understanding
of identifying which activities are central to meeting the aims and focus on
those tasks being as successful as necessary.
When planning the lesson I took
care to incorporate priority areas such as functional skills and equality and
diversity. With the content of the topic diversity was naturally occurring as
part of the curriculum is for learners to organise elements of the performance
such as costume, set and props. As the learners are performing Aladdin as a
pantomime, part of the text they are exploring and that I used as a stimulus
for activities explores the traditions of ancient china, a development from
this session they have also explored costumes that resemble tradition Chinese
dress. As well as this I got the learners to explore performing as the opposite
gender, which is a tradition of pantomime. This has developed from previous
lessons where learners have explored the origins of gender within performing
and the roles of men in the history of theatre.
Incorporating maths skills into a
lesson of my specialism I believed to be quite difficult so I introduced simple
elements such as time keeping and forming groups. What I had not considered at
the time but discovered as part of the reflection was the use of addition on
the feedback forms at the end of the lessons. The learners had to add up their
score to identify where they were in terms of progress. After further
discussion I have also discovered a variety of new ways to incorporate maths
into my sessions, specifically for reflection and feedback. This could be in
the form of a graph or tally chart. Literacy skills is another natural
occurrence within the lessons as the learners are reading scripts and looking
at punctuation of a text to decipher how they will deliver a line or monologue.
This was evident in my sessions in the use of instructions and extracts of
text. An issue that arises in terms of functional skills is the lack of I.C.T
facilities in the room we were in. Usually, in the classroom we have a
projector available however, for this lesson we were based in the main hall
where there is no technology available to use. This can be a regular issue but
can be overcome by encouraging the use of smart phones in a lesson. This
engages the learners and also reduces the distraction of the phones as I can
identify when the learners are working or not.
Overall, I felt that for a first
observation I demonstrated potential in all areas and have highlighted areas
that need clear development. I have understood the feedback given and
identified the reasons behind the comments. I have taken all elements for
development on board and in evaluating my performance I have identified where I
can research theories and techniques and also established activities that I can
incorporate.
