, Question 1
1.1 Shulman (2005:504) described classroom teaching as “perhaps the most
complex, most challenging and most demanding and frightening activity our
species has ever invented”. Do you agree or disagree with the statement? List
5 reasons and give practical examples to illustrate your answer on each
statement.
I must say that I disagree with this statement. A person who enrols to become a
teacher is one who already has a passion or drive to teach students and therefore
will not be afraid of any challenges that might appear.
1. Teachers need to be well prepared for lessons in order to effectively and
easily maintain the order in the class and the flow of the activities. For
example if a teacher teaching English comes into the class and first has to try
figure out what todays lesson needs to be about the students will become
distracted and start making a noise, once she has determined they need to do
a listening comprehension she now tries to find the piece to read to the
children, eventually 20min has passed and there are now only 20 min
remaining of the lesson, this is too little time to do a comprehension test in so
the lesson time is lost. The teacher needs to already have planned the lesson
and have all resources sorted in a file for the day thereby allowing her to open
the file, see the work to be taught and immediately start with the lesson so
that all teaching time is utilised.
2. The best teachers and most respected or admired teachers in the eyes of
students are those that make the lessons fascination and enjoyable for the
students. By constantly researching and updating resources used to teach
the children the children’s attention will be hooked on the lesson as it is new
and exciting. If a teacher still pulls out the overhead projector with boring
black and white slides with old diagrams children will lose interest, in today’s
digital age we need to play to children’s interest so rather get exciting
YouTube videos with relevant information or bring in 3D displays about topics
being dealt with for example if a teacher is teaching Geography about the
planets and solar system, if the teacher was on top of new developments, she
would have seen the free link to watch the latest space docking from NASA
and could have played this for the students to watch as they could see space
in real time and it would also appeal to the digital interest of the children.
3. If a teacher is clear at the start of the lesson about what the student need to
be able to apply or understand by the end then the students will know what
is expected of them and pay attention to the lesson. The teacher will also not
be frightened as they will also know what is expected of them and will be able
to apply this. For example if it is a Math lesson, the teacher will explain to the
students at the start of the lesson that they are going to start with 3D shapes
today, they will learn the basic names of the shapes as well as the makeup of
each shape (face, vertex, base) so that the next lesson they will be able to
draw or build the shapes in class time to test their knowledge.
4. Most humans are social, outgoing and interactive, a smart teacher will utilise
this and make use of group work but still have a learner-centred approach.
For example if the subject is History and you are covering the renascence
period, have the students split up into groups of 4, have them do a group
project where they need to do a PowerPoint display on the types of artists,
3
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