Online Teaching Practice - First Week Report

..A new beginning in the Digital Era..

As part of B.Ed curriculum, we have teaching practice. Due to corona we were asked to conduct in through online resources. Our college provided us opportunity to have online teaching practice and I was assigned to teach students of Christ Nagar Senior School, Thiruvallam.

 The first week of online teaching practice was from 23 November 2020 to 27 November 2020. I was assigned to take classes fro 8th, 7th and 6th standard students. We prepared all the 10 lesson plans and digital resources before the teaching practice itself. The first class was for 8th standard. I was nervous as it was first experience to teach through G- Suit. The took class on the chapter Princess September. It went well.

Then the chapter for 7th standard was "Quality". It was an interesting class, as they were enthusiastic to learn everything. They finished all activities and was very attentive.

For 6th standard I taught the lesson "Fair Play". This class was very energetic and active. When ever I asked some questions, there response were quick. But they were also very active in interacting and talking through out the class with me. So it was slightly difficult to control them. But I really enjoyed the class with them.

The first week went well as we planned. I am very happy with my teaching and I improved a lot. The peer teaching was very helpful for me as I was able to implement many strategies and techniques, I learnt form there.

VENTEL Programme

 Vocational Education Nai Talim- Experiential Learning (VENTAL ACTION PLAN) on 24/08/2020. Certified by Department of Higher Education, MHRD, Government of India.

We were informed about the VENTEL programme and was prepared for the meeting with authorities. We were never at the beginning,. But as ma`am explained it to us it turned out to be fine and we discussed in our group and decided to prepare masks and pickles.

A session was conducted on 22 November 2020, by Mahatma Gandhi National Council of Rural Education, Hyderabad to initiate the VENTEL programme. According to their instruction, we were divided into groups and was given a list of vocational programmes for us to take initiative and implement.

Anu ma`am was the one who took class for us. But more than a simple class, it was really interactive session and she made us understand the importance of the VENTEL programme and it was an amazing session for us.

Report of last week of Peer teaching

When I first joined this new group for next week peer teaching, I was not that happy. The group included Fathima, Ancy, Divya, Hersha and me. But as the days passed, it was a good combination of members. The group was a perfect set of all sort of students. None of us were perfect, but we found joy in sharing, teaching, learning together. 

After the first class, I was not that happy, because none of them provided feedback. So I asked them to give proper negative and positive feedback after class. So they began to change their ways. And I found Fathima`s presentations very interesting and vice versa. So we began to discuss about presentation templates and downloaded many new slide templates from slide corner.  

Fathima was a teacher who was pleasant through out her class. She has a sweet voice while speaking or reading. But she had certain pronunciation mistakes which I was able to point out as I got feedback to improve my pronunciation during the first week of peer teaching. Fathima included new strategies like word puzzle in the PPT for entry activity. I thought that its not possible to include puzzles in PPT, but by seeing her, I was able to do it. I found many new ideas like word web, spider web, etc.

Ancy also showed improvements in the way she explained the content, the interaction, etc.

Hersha was not good at making presentation, as she never included enough glossary references or images. We provided negative feedback and the improvement was very clear during the journey of teaching. Her presentation became far far better than before, which even the tecaher noticed. It made us all happy.

Divya was good at explaining, but presentation needed improvement. We asked her to include appropriate images and to reduce the brightness of background images to make texts more clear. The improvement was drastic, as she improved her presentation, pronunciation, reading with correct stress, intonation, pitch and pronunciation.

As opposite to my expectation, this grpoup was also good. Each one of us had different talents which we shared with others for a common improvement. It was a nice experience for me.

Last Day of Peer teaching

 Today was the last day of peer teaching. I took the grammar portion "Affirmative and Negative sentences". I am happy with my class. But need to improve many things as i could n`t summarize the whole content at the end due to time limit. But everyone including my teacher was happy with the class. 

Ninth Day of Peer Teaching

 As I finished my poem, there was certain grammar portions in the activity to be discussed. So I decided to take a class on "Types of Sentences". I was nervous as it was the first time to teach grammar portions after a long time. But I prepared well enough to teach it. 

After the class, everyone was so happy hat my class was very effective and the teacher appreciated me. I feel like it was one of the best class i ever took. But I had one mistake in my PPT as I forget to include one word. This will never happen again and I will make my class more good and effective. I can see that, after each day of teaching practice there is a large progress in my preparation and teaching. 

Video presented at the end.

Eighth Day of Peer Teaching

 It was the day to finish my poem. I was little nervous. First I beginned the class by showing them how a seed sprout and them turns into a plant. They were enthusiastic and I felt happy. Today was the end of the poem where I taught about how the twigs enjoys the breezy air and everything around us is enjoying their life happily. But humans are moving away from the nature and they are going into their own destruction as well as others. I explained them how man destroys man itself and all other creatures. And they interacted well to share their concerns and knowledge. 

The video showed at the beginning

Video that shows the impact of humans on earth. 

National Education Day

 Our college decided to conduct a short programme related to National Education Day on November 11.  Ms. Sheeba presented a wonderful session for us to learn more about the day. It was a nice session. 

Every year since 2008, November 11 is celebrated as education day to commemorate the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Azad was independent India's first education minister. He was a key educationist who played an important role in developing the education system in independent India. Ministry of Human Resource Development on September 11, 2008, decided to mark the birth anniversary of Maulana Azad by celebrating National Education Day on November 11, every year. “The Ministry has decided to commemorate the birthday of this great son of India by recalling his contribution to the cause of education in India,” reads the HRD Ministry announcement.

Some of the important boards/commission set up by the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad during his tenure are:

1.University Grants commission

2.All India council for Technical education

3.Kharagpur Institute of higher education

4.The University education commission

5.The Secondary education commission

Seventh Day of Peer teaching

 Today, I took the next two stanza of the poem and I got the feedback that It was better than the first class of poem. I felt really happy. I was really nervous to take poem as I am not a fan of it. But i made improvements, so its really good for me. Each day is a new experience. 

Video showed at the beginning to make them enjoy the sounds in nature. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQGuVKHtrxc

Sixth day of Peer Teaching Practice

 We were divided into next 4 groups with 5 members each. My group included Fathima, Hersha , Divya and Ancy. On the sixth day, I decided to take a poem to teach. I chose " Lines Written in the early Spring" written by William Words worth. The poem was very interesting as it described the beauty of nature, how man destroys it while other living and non-living beings like birds, flowers, twigs enjoy the resources of nature and live in harmony. 

The experience of teaching poetry was interesting, but I was not satisfied with my performance, as I am a person who love stories more than poems. But I tried my best to teach it interestingly. But I need to improve my ability to manage time and need to improve reciting. But it`s difficult to recite this poem as it has no rhythmic touch. But I need to work more on it. 

                                        

The Report on One Week Peer Teaching

 The one week Peer teaching from November 2 to November 6 was a new experience for me. We beginned the section with great tension and stress. We decided the portions, prepared the lessonplans for each day after dividing each lesson into meaningful sections. Then we prepared PPT and found videos appropriate for each lesson. 

Even if it was little bit hectic, we enjoyed doing it. The group included Athira Sreekumar, Aawani, Balu , Ancy and me. The five day class was really memorable. We could see the change that came to our way of teaching. Each day we began to improve ourselves. I remember that, on the first day I done well, but I had many grammatical errors and pronunciation mistakes. My peer members pointed out each and every day I showed improvement. I am a person who is good at making PPT, so each day they expected new templates from me, so I focused on attracting their attention with attractive presentation.

In case of Balu, we were able to see a drastic change. From the first day to the fifth day, he was growing as he improved a lot in the way he teach. He prepares well, but his presentation, way of reading etc was not so good. Each day he began to show improvement in presentation as he included images, videos, etc to draw our attention. But he was friendly teacher and was speaking with a soft voice. 

In case of Athira Sreekumar, she prepares well with images, videos and all. The way she speaks is very good as it had no grammatical error or pronunciation mistakes. She was a driving force for me to focus more on my pronunciation. But in certain days, she made small mistakes which we pointed out and she was ready to improve.

In case of Aawani, she was not concerned about her time management. As she began to teach, she forgets about time. So we keep on asking for improvement which made a slight change in time management. But her presentations were good.

Ancy was a person who was not able to prepare a presentation. But as it was a necessity, with the help of us she learned it. But it was difficult to help her understand how to include images and videos in PPT as we were communicating through phone. But she learnt how to include images in her PPT and it was a great joy for all of us. She taught well. But needed lot of improvement fro which we helped her.

When the peer teaching is ending now, we feel like a major part of our life is lost. My be because, this group means more than just a group for us. The bond became strong and we all improved a lot. None of us was worried about being criticized or exposing our negatives or others. We did well as a team. And I am extremely happy that, we hot such a great opportunity.

Fifth Day of Peer Teaching Practice

 Today was the last day of peer teaching practice with my favourite group. I loved this group, because they always provide me the right feedback. They give me both positive as well as negative feedback so that i can improve more. The class went well, but as it was the last class in the group teacher asked me to finish the lesson. So it exceeded 5 minutes to finish the lesson properly. The session was good and I will miss this group and their feedback.

Fourth day of peer teaching

 In this class, I took the next six to seven paragraph of Rosa Parks sat still. It was a little lengthy portions fro the prescribed time. But to give a meaningful understanding it was necessary to choose it. So I exceeded the time from 25 to 27 minutes. But it was a nice class and nice experience for me. 

Third day of Peer teaching

Today was a great day. It was the third day of peer teaching. Time management was perfect. I completed all activities and class was smooth as planned. yesterday there was pronunciation error, so today I was careful not to make any and I succeeded to overcome that issue. I am happy with it. But still I had some grammar mistakes which I will correct in the coming days.

Second day of Peer teaching

Today was our first individual peer teaching class. I chose the lesson "Rosa Parks Sat Still" from Standard VIII. It is one of my favourite story as I am so much interested to learn about people who protested against unjust rule. So I was really happy to take the lesson in my class. For the first class, I decided to teach first six small paragraphs. I beginned the class by asking them to identify people like Gandhiji, Nelson Mandela and Sree Narayana Guru who protested against injustice like racism. Then I showed them video of Gandhiji who was thrown out of train for travelling in the first class compartment. Then explained about Rosa Parks and then followed all the steps of lesson plan and finished the class within 25 minutes given to me. 

After the class, my peer gave me feedback that are both positive as well as negative. I believe that, positive feedback can motivate us while negative feedback can help us grow into a better person and here a better teacher. 

I think, my class was better than yesterday. I had certain mistakes like grammar mistakes while asking questions and mispronounced certain words. But from their feedback I understood that, I was pleasant through out the class yet tension was visible on my face. I always ensured that, they were listening carefully by calling their names. According to them , my explanation and reading was good but used do and did vise versa. I think that, it may be  because I was nervous. But I am happy that I improved myself and will keep improving.

First Session ONLINE Peer teaching Practice

.. A new beginning..

Today on 2 November 2020, we beginned our online peer teaching practice using Google platforms. We were asked to choose one poem and prose and divided it into meaningful passages or stanza to prepare lesson plans.  We submitted our lesson plans before hand and after corrections proceeded to prepare PPT , videos and images to make classes more interesting. 

We were divided into 4 groups with five members. The first class was shared class with three members from a each group. My group included Athira Sreekumar, Aawani, Balu and Ancy. Fo rour shared class, me, Athira and Ancy chose the lesson "Taj Mahal" and prepared lesson plan including PPT, video and images. Then we divided the portions into three. I was assigned to take the introduction portion of the class till Entry activity and profile of author. Then Athira was assigned to take the eleven lines of the poem. Then Ancy was assigned to take the rest of the portion till follow up activity. We were assigned with 30 minutes to take the class and each one of us got 10 minutes. We finished at the exact time. The class was a new and nice experience as it was the first experience too take class for students through online platform using online resources. 

PPT prepared to take introduction session of the lesson "Taj Mahal" for shared class