Name: Salma Varachhia Hosein

Date: 22nd January 2016

Field Day Journal Entry 7 Penal Secondary School Second Teaching Field
Day

Today I visited Penal Secondary School, my first south field day teaching practice.
It was an early start since I wanted sufficient time to prepare and observe the
layout of the room. It was a very stressful week and I was extremely tired. As
usual, a bunch of us car pooled and made our way to the school. As we arrived,
we informed Zalisha, our host that we were here. She met us in the car park and
asked us if we wanted to have breakfast. I said I wanted to see the room and
setup.

Shereen, Ian and I then went to test the equipment to ensure that

everything was ready. After testing the equipment and setting up for the class,
we then decided to have breakfast. Zalisha escorted us to one of the rooms
where there were beverages and breakfast available. We quickly ate something
as it was approaching the time to begin the lesson. We then hurried down to
start the teaching day. By this time the rest of the group were there and the class
had just finished being seated and organised.
Thirty students were present and I quickly arranged them to sit in groups of five.
This was my second mixed school that I was teaching and I noticed that this
class had more girls to boys. This weeks theme was on affective objectives, and
the second lesson, Physical Security Issues was taught to form one students. It
would mainly focus on data security with physical safeguards. I had the privilege
of teaching the first lesson of field days teaching practice. I started my set
induction with acting a short play of having a tablet being stolen. I coerced Ian to
play the role of the bandit to steal my tablet. I pretended to step outside to grab
a cup of coffee and upon returning I realised that my tablet was missing. I then
engaged the students in a discussion as to what had happened and what I did
wrong. I held back a laugh when I asked the question of what happened to the
laptop and a student told me Ian took it, off course she did not mention his name
but said the guy at the back.
I built from this induction, and recapped the difference between data and
information. The words data integrity and data security was then introduced. I
continued to encourage dialogue amongst the students by asking questions. I
then related the importance of data protection by using such examples such as
SpongeBobs secret formula to the crabby patty as well as KFCs secret

ingredients. While making mention of KFC, I was surprised at Kimberlys

response to have the chicken tested in the lab, an out of the box thinking for
form one. I realised that she was definitely a smart child since as the lesson
continued her hand will always be up with an answer. The next activity I showed
a Go animate presentation where students viewed it and then answered
questions based on the scenario of Larry and what he did wrong. This was a
group activity. I walked around and observed the groups and tried my best to get
all students involved. At the end of the time, random groups were selected and
feedback was given. It was now time for the final activity which targeted the
kinaesthetic part of VARK. It involved all groups getting up and physically
conducting an assessment of their surroundings using a checklist. As I observed
the groups I realised that many of them did not know the function of the laptop
cabinet since all the groups asked me what was that black cabinet for. As they
continued to explore, I also observed that they were filling the checklist wrong as
they were ticking both Y and N so I told the groups that was doing that simply
put an X in the N column. It was now time to make three recommendations to
improve the physical security of the lab. As I was listened to responses, I was
checked off my affective checklist of what I had observed among the groups.
Feedback for this activity was given. The topic was reinforced and lesson was
wrapped up. Students were asked to submit the activity and checklist sheet. A
students handout was given. Kimberly stayed back to have a discussion with me
about programming while I collected the activity sheets.
As my lesson was completed I assisted Ian and Shereen in setting up for their
lessons respectively. As Ian and Shereen taught, I observed their style and
method of teaching. Ian style of teaching was very practical and I liked that he
was able to do a show and tell approach especially in teaching hardware
specifications to form three students. This involved passing around hardware, so
students can observe and feel it. He spent a little too much time in certain areas
which resulted in students not being able to correct their activities. This lost time
was recovered by him at the end of class by distributing the answer sheet and
students compared what they got right with each other. The next teacher to
teach was Shereen from north group. She used gamification in the teaching of a
concept lesson to form twos on spreadsheet. This was done using a groups and
point system after which the winning group got a prize. This was very effective
method as it created a very competitive atmosphere. I found that the sums in
the beginning were a bit too difficult for all students to add quickly. These two
activities took up a lot of time as groups had to recalculate after getting it wrong.

After all of us presented our lessons, we were treated to a wonderful lunch which
included a prayers food with the star attraction of curry duck. The food was quite
tasty and we ate with one of Zalishas colleague. During our lunch we were
greeted by the acting principal. I was surprised by a cake since we were
celebrating a belated birthday of mine with the south group. I was touched and
quickly cut and shared the cake with my fellow Dip. Ed family.
It was now time for evaluation. Dr. Kamalodeen went through the rubric which
will be used to assess us from now on. We all were commended by her on the
different lessons taught and asked what we thought about it ourselves. We were
placed in groups and this time we had to evaluate ourselves based on the rubric
and input from our group members. Meera and Shazir from my group found that
the lesson was engaging and students got feedback from the activities. My peers
gave me a very generous score, but I was a lot harder on myself in the scoring.
Dr. Kamalodeen pointed out that she likes the fact that I was very organised but I
did have to work hard in getting the students to warm up.
I was happy with how I taught the lesson overall. I tried my best to get all
students involved but most importantly ensuring that it was a fun lesson. I also
believe that by having a kinaesthetic part of a lesson, I was able to get all
students involved in some way or the other. I also realised that students have a
better idea on how to secure their environment to protect data. I really enjoyed
teaching the class and found them to be well disciplined and receptive. We then
helped Zalisha clean up and said our goodbyes. We made our way back to the
car and prepared for the journey home.