Guest Speaker Reflection 1

Guest Speaker Reflection 1

The conversation with Jaime was as informative as I expected it to be. This is my second

time having him as a guest speaker, and all I can say is that he is a very well rounded teacher

who from what I can see has so much experience from what he called (during our meeting) trial

and error. Speaking of which, while the concept of trial and error has always been on my mind, I

would not be telling the truth if I said that it has not been a constant worry in the back of my

mind. I have always been worried about making mistakes or errors in front of my students in fear

of them losing confidence in me. Of course, it can be common sense that since we are all

humans, it is impossible for us not to make mistakes. However, the fear has always been there.

When Jaime spoke about it (even though for a short while when giving an example), I felt that

this concept is very common, and students are probably used to classes and lessons not being

perfect after all. As long as we educators learn from it and improve on it, everything will be good

in the end.

I also liked his first activity with the pictures. It acts as a way of sensing the mood of the

students and the classroom environment in general. For example, if many students chose the

sleeping cat or tired panda pictures, it means that the class might not be as active as we expect

them to be. With that knowledge in mind, we can adapt to our classroom or create some activities

that can lift up the mood of our students and make them more present than they were at the

beginning of the classroom.

What I liked the most about the conversation with professor Jaime was the fact that he

asked us to reflect on each activity we did right after finishing it. Doing so made me realize that

everything we do in the classroom should have a purpose, and not just an activity that we do to

fill up the time. He gave us scenarios about having a big group of students versus smaller ones,
Guest Speaker Reflection 2

how the activity can be done successfully with or without the use of technology, and more. I also

believe that the students should have an idea about the purpose of each activity beforehand. We

can explain to them that we are doing this in the hope of achieving this specific goal by the end

of it. Doing so, in my opinion, will give our students more motivation and that extra push to

achieve what is expected of them instead of them doing activities in the classroom without

realizing the end goal or just because the teacher asked them to do them.

All in all, hearing from someone who has graduated from our program and achieved the

success and the experience that Jaime achieved in the short period of working in the field worked

as an extra motivation for me and I believe my peers as well. It gave us a glimpse of what we can

expect in the future and what we can become if we worked hard enough for it.