Micro Teaching Reflection

Throughout the micro teaching lesson, there were some ups and downs. Being the first of the group, emotions ran high but I was able to keep calm and get through the lesson. I had met my lesson objectives and engaged the learners in the lesson.

I encountered technical difficulties and ran out of time. The technical issues came in the form of my screen freezing constantly and the presentation being disrupted on screen. To combat this issue, I put learners into breakout groups to complete a task whilst I figured out how to sort out my laptop. Even though I ran out of time, my lesson objectives were met early in the lesson and the rest of the lesson was more consolidation and reinforcement of applicability. Learners did not get to play the game and experience the ICT tool that I had created.  

My lesson did meet the objectives. Learners gained the understanding of how the synonyms and antonyms changed the meaning of sentences and were able to apply this understanding in a sentence by choosing the most appropriate synonym and substantiating why they chose the synonym or antonym.

I chose appropriate ICT tools such as the synonym and antonym demonstrating site “Wordhippo.” The game that I had created was perfect and it was sure to work. I had triple checked the link to the game through different devices using QR codes and the game link making sure that it worked. The issue was that I ran out of time and so learners did not get a chance to experience that ICT tool.

I should always think about the possibilities that may occur and develop back up plans. It is necessary to pay attention to time management. Had I npt faced technical difficulties, I probably would have been able to get through the entire lesson that I planned within the allotted time. Therefore I should have adapted my lesson for learners to use the ICT tool, thus taking away from this experience that teachers need to be adaptable.

My peers have mentioned that I should get familiar with the platform such as black board collaborate. I have been trying to upskill myself within this field by watching videos about how to effectively present. Granted, I should have done this before, however, it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Peers also mentioned that time management should be a focus. I have revised my lesson process to ensure that I get to the ICT portion. Instead of giving many examples within the lesson, I could give fewer examples to save time, and get learners to engage with content independently to apply and check their own understanding against memos and answer sheets. 

My peers have also highlighted that my main struggle was technical difficulties. To combat this I will put in back up plans such as communicating with the learners that there are issues being faced and having tasks for them to do, either independently or in groups so that they are not disengaged whilst the issue is being resolved.  I will plan so should I face an issue, there will be other tasks for learners to focus on which meet the objectives. I realised that when presenting my presentation, my slides were disrupted when uploaded through the platform. Next time I could rather just share my screen instead of uploading the content on the platform as sharing the screen allows for the presentation to come across clearly.