Life of a Teacher

Throughout the duration of my final teaching practical, I had the privilege of completing three 'Day in the life of a teacher' days. On these three set out days, I was tasked with the challenge of teaching all of the lessons set out by the teacher on the specific days, as well as completing any administration tasks and duties of my mentor teacher.

After completing a self-reflection, I think that I was able to successfully cope on these three days, through the use of my classroom management tool, as I was able to complete all task and teach all the lessons set out for the specific days. Once marking the learners books (all the work that they completed throughout the day), I was able to see that the learners understood all the content and new knowledge taught, through the learners being able to successfully complete the work given.

Comparing my reflections from the first block to the second block of my teaching experience, I noticed that I was more confident and comfortable teaching in the second block, as I was able to form a stronger relationship with the learners and learn their classroom processes at a better rate, meaning that I felt more confident in my teaching abilities to this particular class.

Throughout this experience, I found the extra lessons to be the most challenging component as the learners whom attended struggled with many concepts of Mathematics. For this reason, I had to overcome this challenge through the use of physical clocks (concrete resource), and revise the concept of how to tell the time and then progress onto figuring out elapsed time. In this experience, I learnt the skill of thinking on the spot and simplifying content to bring it down to the level at which the learner is at.

Upon referring back to the survey on teacher competency that I completed at the beginning of the year, I have identified that I have a higher level of subject knowledge than what I originally thought, which I identified through teaching various content on the spot. I was also able to successfully use the results of assessments (or worksheets) to assess the level of understanding that the learners have, and then use this to assess if the content needs to be relooked at, to ensure that the learners advance to have a sound understanding of the content. I improved on these above-mentioned competencies through self-evaluation at the end of the day in the life days, as I was able to see my process of teaching and revisiting work after identifying that the learners were struggling with the concept of elapsed time.

Through observing the results on my exit level outcomes that my mentor teacher marked, I am able to identify that I am more competent to be a teacher than what I evaluated myself to be through self-doubt. This feedback from my mentor teacher provides me with more confidence in going into the teaching world and having my own class and effectively communicating content and knowledge to the learners within my classroom.