Student: Michael McMahon

Classes Observed: 1st Year Woodwork

Date: 26/03/2021

CRITICAL REFLECTION ON INDEPENDENT/TEAM-TEACHING

In this reflection I will be discussing two key learning from my independent/team-teaching experience. These two key learning will be planning
and online classroom management. Before that, getting my first experience was not ideal to start online and would have preferred to be in the
classroom. I feel it put me at a slight disadvantage as this would put many problems my way such as interaction from students and the
punctuation. It wasn’t all disadvantages though; it was still a great experience to teaching online. It was great to explore and use different
resources to keep the students interested and attentive to the class.

Planning
I’ve learnt that planning for a class is a vital learning from my experience “Teachers and classrooms rarely function effectively without some kind
of planning” (Yinger, 1980). At the beginning, I was unaware of how important and time-consuming planning a lesson is. At the beginning I
thought it would be easy but my first lesson I was proven wrong. Planning wasn’t just about lessons. I feel it also was the planning of equipment I
was using and testing them to make sure they work correctly. Creating the lesson plans in the beginning was a real struggle and I didn’t really
understand why they were so important but looking back, it’s clear these lesson plans helped me stick to the lesson and be good a time keeping.
Planning PowerPoints, assessments and forums Was also difficult, and planning made it easier to use and create as well as learn how to make it
more appealing to students. Problems did arise when using these resources due to a lack of planning. This happened when I was creating a quiz
forum for the students. It was rushed but the questions were of good quality. The lack of planning showed when not knowing how to upload
properly and the result of the quiz were unable to be seen. A discussion with my co-operate teacher ended with the question, will we abandon
the quiz and look for another form of assessment or will I try fix it for the next class? To fix this I gave myself a week to work on the quiz and
figure the problem, which I was successful in doing. I then planned to repeat the quiz during my next class and had the quiz posted as planned
for that time. This experience thought me that when creating a lesson or assessment, A lot of time is needed to be put into the preparation of it
as well as being able to correctly use the resource at hand. I believe I will remember this for my future teaching days and will always give
enough time to planning for a class. Speaking with my tutor, I was happy to hear than my lesson plans all seemed to go to plan when it was
reflected on my own reflections of my teaching.
Online Classroom Management
“Classroom management is consistently identified as an important factor in student learning” (Garrett, 2014). I believe that this quote
is accurate. Classroom management is one of the most important learning for a teacher in order for them to be able to have a
successful class with interruptions as possible and a well-behaved class of students. But it is difficult I feel, students could lose focus
and begin disruptions for the whole class. “beginning teachers, and even those who are more experienced, often struggle with
creating and maintaining a well-managed classroom where students can learn” (Garrett, 2014). I feel if I were in the classroom it
would have been easier to achieve classroom management but that was not the situation. Online classroom management proved to
be a big struggle. At the beginning, I had a chat with my co-operate teacher and he explained how not everyone turns up to the call
and its hard to get them to respond as well, he explained how some could be in the call but be afk (away from keyboard). I took all
this information into my first class and it was clear straight away that he was correct, roughly ten people showed up with little
interaction. Also, students tended to join the class up to 15 minutes late which was not ideal for the lesson as, students didn’t
understand what was happening. I found this a struggle for a bit but to try fix it I would put up an announcement in the morning to
remind students to join on time. This proved to work, and all would have joined the class within the first five minutes. I was pleased
with this as the class could run smoothly. I still had a problem with responses but calling them by name and letting that awkward
silence happen, pushed the students to interact more and this really pleased me and gave me a sense that I was getting a hang of
the classroom management “Learning requires talking, sharing, discovering, experimenting, and questioning, all of which can create
noise” (Garrett, 2014). I feel that classroom management is not all about being able to have the students in good manner and having
an effective lesson for students to stay engaged, but also for myself to be able to navigate through the class without myself disrupting
it. I had problems sharing my screen, swapping from one window to another and playing videos. To solve this, I created my own
team on the same platform and practiced in a meeting on my own which was great and really educated me on the platform they were
using. I was pleased in the end, to that I capable of achieving classroom management when its online and look forward to
experiencing it in the classroom.

I really enjoyed my teaching experience more than expected and feel more comfortable standing in front of a class of students and opening their
minds to new knowledge of graphics and woodwork.

References
Garrett, T. (2014). Effective Classroom Management-- the Essentials, Teachers College Press. New York: Effective Classroom Management-- the
Essentials, Teachers College Press.

Yinger, R. J. (1980). A study of teacher planning. The elementary school journal.