As we all know, lesson 2 was a disaster. It was not well done at all, and we made many mistakes. This is completely unacceptable, especially since we already made the same mistakes last week. This is the fault of the entire group, and definitely not of any individual. We all should have chipped in more extr effort and time to do up the lesson for the children. And I think we all owe Rattanin and apology for pushing all the work on art to him for the previous 2 lessons. I feel like crying, it's so sad, so tragic.
How now?
Well, we definitely have to pull up our socks and work harder. I think we have already scrutinised our lesson and found out its innumerable mistakes, so i will not go on the expound on them further. But looking ahead, I think the most important thing is to have sat down to have a rehearsal of our lesson, which we will do countless of for the next lesson to ensure that we have hope of doing better. I want everyone to know that we can do it, but many sacrifices have to be made.
I remember when I signed up for RESL, they asked us to explain what Service-Learning meant to us. And looking back, I now see how much sense this made, and that the more we serve, the more we learn. I think what we need to do now is to look ahead, at what we can and should do. What I mean by this is that we plan our next move. This is for the children, and their parents, and the kindergarden, and it is serious. We cannot afford to waste a minute of their time by having a lousy lesson, as this is would be instead, a disservice. This would in fact harm the young children, and they would then have been better of without us. Since we are already here, in RESL, why not give our best, our very best, our all.
And we must. If we do not perform well for the next lesson, we will have to evaluate ourselves, is there a heart issue that we have to do with? And are we ready for the responsibility and duty of teaching children? The burden is heavy; the price, costly. If not then, why continue this meaningless activity. I am sure Mrs. Lim will not hesitate to remove us from SL, fail us, and let us be retained for another year. Why waste the children's time, their parents' time, the school's time, and our own time? Why continue such a disservice?
There is work to be done...
Like the old saying, "don't cry over spilt milk", we cannot let our previous lesson crush us any longer. We must come out victorious. Do we cry when we can work on it? No, obviously. What failed, failed. Let us look ahead, and work. This is not about redemption, or trying to improvre, this is about doing what should have been from the start. Starting now.
I guess only the next lesson will show us whether we are ready. And if we are proven unsuited, then there is great still a price that we must pay.
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- Shaun (1)
Posted by
Shaun
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Posted by
Wikiholic
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I'll start with a very honest statement:lesson 2 was a disaster. And I certainly did little to help.
First, on the lesson. Only 10 of the 20 chirldren came probably because it was raining. We later learnt that most of the children had forgetten what we taught. What we taught wasnt very good either. Using complex words like 'background' to teach complex abstract ideas didn't work. The children simply didn't understand it. We also ended up dragging for 15 minutes. Well in plain words, the lessons were just too complicated as we are so used to interact with people of our intelectual capicity and overestimated the children. Well, we have to make the words simpler. First, we could trade our wordy ppt slides into ones that was filled with pictures as children can understand them. Secondly, i think that we could actually lower our expectations of the children or, in other words make: other lessons simpler. They take a much longer time than us to learn. We could focus our lessons on one point instead if teaching multiple things(teaching background trees........). Finally, we should either make our lessons shorter or ask for a longer time period.
Now, time to reflect on myself. I wasn't very helpful, lying down at the back of the class and doing almost nothing. I was stressed from the CTs, SYF and was sick..........but thats only part of the excuse. I simply wasn't bothered that day, maybe because only ten children came. But then, I should have know better to behave well and at least help the children by clarifying stuff with them. I also should be better behaved in public as I am wearing the shcool uniform. This shall not be repeated.
Enough bad things sad, so let me end on a lighter note:our group has adopted a better plan to make the lessons easier. I am opimistic that lessons will be better, with Ms See reminding the parents to send their children to lessons and us relising our mistakes.
がんばって!
Posted by
jonhann
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Hey everyone, I just sent out an email. Please take a look and change a bit if you think that there is a problem. The latest changes are removing of the osascomp and making the whole thing as simple as possible, so that they won't get confused like last week.But there are still a few other things that i think need to be done:1. please make a table containing descriptors for all 5 senses (i think that we should give this to them for reference, in case they are stuck).2. come up with things that they can possibly draw. 3. a worksheet that they can attempt in class, to try to use 5 senses to describe things.4. ways to make it more interactive so that it's not just all about us talking.5. letting them try out by themselves in between the power point presentation so that they won't be bored.Ping Chong, could you delegate the work. I may be a bit busy tomorrow, might not be able to do anything tomorrow until really really late at night. Thanks!Jon-Hann
Posted by
Name: Junior (Rattanin)
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I can't help keeping quiet anymore. I know the previous lesson's failures were largely my responsibility and I sincerely apologize for that. @Ping Chong : You said there wasn't enough preparation and it was late didn't you? If only you look back a little, you'll realize that the 2 art lessons were entirely on me alone. All planning and preparation were done my me with your help from time to time. No body bother to check or try to help in any ways with the actual preparation of the lesson and simply brush it off saying that you guys knew nothing about arts, and that I'm the only 'art guy'. To be saying that the instruction on the email I sent our were unclear when most of you didn't even bother to download the attached ppt is simplistic nonsense. I wouldn't go as far so as to humiliate you guys for this, but mere a point that I wish to raise about our teamwork.
At any case, as for the previous lesson itself, I'm pretty sure we more or less felt the same way about it and since Ping Chong and Jon-Hann have already pointed out all the shortcomings, I wouldn't have anymore to say regarding the issue.
As for the future preparation for the lessons, I proposed to have all the lesson tested out in advance, with every single members knowing exactly where the lesson is heading towards, the objectives for each and every activities planned and how to execute them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that lesson 3 & 4 focus largely on descriptions. If so, possible artistic aspect to incoperate is very restricted. In fact, it is only likely that we'll have descriptions <----> actual implication on objects. At any rate, inform me of the rough plan of actual lesson 3 and 4 and I'll see what I can do.
P.S. Don't jest around by sending me the lesson outline. お前を殺す （ ﾟ Дﾟ）•！
Posted by
PingChong
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Hey all,
Like Jon-Hann has mentioned, the second lesson was like a lost battle. I think the main problem was that we were not meticulous enough in our preparation. Even though we had our lesson plans done early, we did not start with our actual lesson preparation right after that. I think that led to the rather last minute preparation, which led to the disaster on Thursday. Also, we were not careful with our the how we wished to teach the children. We mainly had a rough idea of the things we wanted to teach, but we failed to anticipate the problems that we may face with conducting our lessons. We failed to analyse our own lesson from the perspective of the children and craft our lesson at a suitable difficulty level. Using words like 'landscape' and not being prepared to explain it to the children was a great setback already.
Thus, for our subsequent lessons, I think we really have to learn from our mistakes and to ensure that we do not repeat them anymore. I think this are the precautions we have to take:
1) Be done with preparation of lesson, like ppt, a week before the lesson.
2) Alter the ppt to ensure it is of suitable difficulty
3) Be prepared to explain every detail of the lesson
4) Have a dry run before the lesson
5) Anticipate problems and think of ways to counter them
6) Everyone to know what must be done as a group, and how to present ourselves in the lesson.
That being said, I really hope we are able to bring up the standards of our lessons and ensure that we do better next time. That being said, I need Shi Jian to stop lying around in the classroom during lessons, and we would also have to discuss about whether we want Shaun to be springing us with questions as if he were one of the children. Whatever it is that you wish to do during the lessons, please confirm it with the group before doing anything silly. I think Shi Jian can most definitely be helping the children and checking if they understand, during the lesson instead of just lying there. I think we should set some standards here as we are after all representing our school, and being role models to the children.
With so much to be done, I think we would first need to look at preparing for our subsequent lessons. Jon-Hann and Shaun, please work on the next lesson real quick. We definitely want to be over-prepared for our next lesson. Shi Jian, reflect upon your conduct for the last lesson. You ought to be ashamed. I need you to help the team look at how our lessons should continue to progress. Has our lessons been useful so far? How can we still lead up to our final activity of the story? Rattanin, please review our previous 2 lessons. I figured that you should add in artistic aspects for Shaun's next 2 lessons too, so that they would not be so boring. Please think of the things you want to do, and work with Shaun to add them in. Jon-Hann, I think we should also start preparing for your dramatization lesson. So, here is the structure breakdown of work:
Ping Chong: Review structure of lessons and altering future lesson plans. Work with Jon-Hann for the lesson preparation of Lesson 5.
Jon-Hann: Help Shaun with preparation of Lesson 3 & 4. Start preparing for Lesson 5 with Ping Chong
Shuan: Prepare for Lesson 3 & 4
Rattanin: Review previous 2 lessons and work with Shaun to add in artistic aspects for Lesson 3 & 4
Shi Jian: Reflection on personal conduct (In form of blog post or send me an email or letter). Review structure of lessons and altering future lesson plans.
For the coming week, myself and Shi Jian would be missing out on RE period due to SYF. Do finalize the lesson plan during that period (Which means you would have to be prepared with the ppt before meeting on Wednesday). Hope we can all do our part for our RESL and make it a success!
Ping Chong
Posted by
jonhann
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On the previous week when we went down to Taman Jurong for our first session with the kids, I remember that we were, by large, quite prepared for the lesson. We were kind of nervous at first, and for me, I just wasn't sure whether our lessons would be good enough, interesting enough, or simply good enough. The first lesson is certainly very important as we are not only getting to know the children whom we will be working with, familiarize ourselves with the surroundings and to test the water, to see whether we have set the lessons at the right pace, or not. I could see that all of us were trying our best to create the best lesson we possibly could, and to kick-start our RESL with a bang.
I found that the kids were quite receptive to our teachings; they were largely attentive and were surprisingly enthusiastic about our lesson. However, there were a few things that we might have unwittingly cast aside.
1. No matter what we do, we still have to keep in mind that we are dealing with young children here. Even if we want to teach them challenging things, we have to bear in mind our methods of teaching (less theory, more practical), our method of explanation (short but to the point) and other little details.
2. We had to better manage our time. 1 hour is certainly not a lot, and we had to maximize the time that we spent i.e. we should cut down time on explanation and give them more time to try it out
3. Logistics were not well planned. We were kind of haphazard at time, and more often or not, we began asking each other, so how now...
But all in all, I believe that last week's lesson was a SUCCESS! We did manage to warm up with the children, understand the shortcomings of our lesson plan and knew how we had to make the appropriate amendments so that we can fine-tune the next one to perfection. It was relatively well executed and I believed that they managed to take something away with them after our lesson.
Or so it seemed...
To begin off, we had left the school a little late, partially because I was released late from class and delayed everyone and had to get some food to ta-pau (sorry team) for lunch. That already put us in quite a frazzled state. Furthermore, we had difficulties trying to find a taxi and once we did, all 5 of us squeezed into that single taxi before setting off. Throughout the journey, we were all relatively quiet, immersed in our own thoughts, trying to catch a short breather and to compose ourselves before lesson.
When we got there and scrambled to set up while the children started streaming in, we realized that there were many things that we did not consider properly, like the seating arrangement etc. It was quite messy.
Throughout the lesson I realized a lot of things. Firstly, many of them did not appear and the dismal number of children was quite disappointing. Secondly, the children completely forgot and wiped clean what we taught them in the previous lessons. Thirdly, our lesson crafted was way too advanced for them, and many of them had difficulties understanding. Fourthly, we did not prepare ourselves in advance. Our explanations were haphazard and confusing, our teaching was draggy and boring for the children and our whole lessons didn't seem anything like what we would have hoped for it to be. At one point, we looked at each other. "How should we explain ah?"
That was a question we should have asked each other long ago.
After we finished our lesson, I personally felt as if it we were fighting a losing battle. I felt quite inadequate actually. Apart from not learning from our previous mistakes, we added to the long list of shortcomings.
Frankly, I have to admit, I did not look through the PPT slides that Rat sent to all of us last night, even though Ping Chong did remind me. And for that, I am sincerely sorry. If I had looked at it, I might have realized some of the things that we could change to make some last minute amendments to improve it. Also, I feel a bit guilty, I feel that I have not been putting enough effort to this project. I will strive to increase my contributions next time.
So the mistakes that we discussed we made on the way back were:
1. Poor time-management
2. Poor co-ordination
3. Too high a level of difficulty for material taught
4. Students unable to remember stuff taught
5. Did not dissect and reinforce properly
6. Draggy lessons, too much teaching, too little practical
So yeah, with that, I really think that we (myself included) should strive to put in more effort, to make our next lesson a greater success than the first! :)
Posted by
Name: Junior (Rattanin)
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It was a mixed feeling after the lesson was done.
Most of the students were indeed, bright and were able to understand our lesson with ease. I cannot helped but grinned at their cheerful faces and the heartwarming response we received from them.
Nevertheless, the lesson itself hardly fulfilled any objective. It was a mistake on my part to misjudge the suitable learning method and approached the students through Ppt slides in attempt to appeal to the students. Without much first hand-experience learning to the students then, they were not able to meet the expection in the given task, albeit they largely understood the fundamental concept taught. I reckon I have to understand a little more about their behaviour before making any baseless assumption.
Though the lesson was not very fruitful, I was very glad that we as a team had cooperated very well. Everyone was in action, covering for each other shortcomings. With more careful planning of the lesson, I believe we can achieve much more progress as well as ensuring that every students enjoy our lesson and at the same time, find it enriching and practically useful.
Posted by
Shaun
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Shapes! That was first word on Rattanin's powerpoint slides on the 1st lesson at RESL. When we went down to Little Wings Taman Jurong on the 7th of April 2011 at 3.00pm for our 1 hour lesson from 1500-1600, we were anxiously anticipating meeting the children and teachers at the Little Wings kindergarden.
Now that it is over, I can definitely say that it was, overall, a great lesson for all 5 of us, and i sure hope for the children as well! I felt that the all the children were very different and unique individuals. Some were very chatty and friendly while others were more reserved and preferred to talk among their friends. However, everyone was eager to draw and share! One thing that struck me especially what reiterated by Mrs Lim was that our team was very eager to help one another. We were all trying to add on to what each other we saying as we all wanted to make sure they understood what we were trying to teach them. I definitely helped that the children were extremely cooperative and attentive, as we feared that we would not be able to hold their attention. This enabled us to get alot of teaching done, but this is also partially because Rattanin's slides were very cute and colourful. It was so great to see the children with such big smiles and such laughter as they went through our lesson.
There are many ways for us to improve and I hope that we will be able to have an even more fruitful lesson on the 2nd lesson on the 14th of April. What I will be striving for in the next lesson is to be able to remember the names of the children so that much more meaningful interaction with them. As of now, I'm contented with running through in my mind the sweet memories of what I learnt more about...Shapes!
Posted by
PingChong
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Today was our first lesson with the children at Little Wings! Before mentioning anything else, I'll like to applaud all the members for your effort today, and I think despite facing a few unexpected situations, the lesson went on quite well. Here are some things which I think we did well today:
1. Teamwork, helping each other out both in teaching and facilitating.
2. Powerpoint presentation was well done. Effort goes to Rattanin for preparing the slides, Jon-Hann for his projector and Shi Jian for his notebook.
3. Demonstrations of the task, everone took initiative to help demonstrate and explain.
However, there were also a few areas in which we could have improved on:
1. Our presentation may have been to draggy. Should teach more through facilitation of their task.
2. Logistically unprepared. This however, was due to our unfamiliarity with the lesson venue itself. Groupings however, should be made from the next lesson onwards.
3. Unsuitable use of words: firstly, some of the words used were a little to advanced for their level. Secondly, please mind whatever you say as they would be observed by the children and even imitated by them.
4. Time. We are a little rushed for time as we spend too much time on the ice-breakers and introduction.
5. Carelessness. I, myself, am guilty for forgetting to bring the activity sheets along and I sincerely apologize. Hope that we can all be a little more careful next time.
Even though it was only the first lesson, I think we all learnt a lot from it, and I believe that with this new knowledge, we would be able to pull off greater lessons in the following weeks. Let's work towards that!
Ping Chong