Professional Practice 4: Lesson Preparation

Description

Some teaching resources and materials are given by the government such as A4 papers, storybooks (Peter and Jane), picture cards, textbooks, and workbooks. Most teaching resources such as worksheets or materials needed for lessons are created by teachers themselves. They will also search for online resources and use it in their lessons. Sometimes, teachers will choose some related worksheets from the internet and modify that existing worksheets.

 

 

Feelings and Evaluation

I believe that a textbook is an important resource for the teachers. This is so that they are able to follow the logical sequence of the book content then teach accordingly. It enables the students to see the meaningful connections of what they have learnt and what they are learning. With that, they will be able to make sense of their own learning. However, textbooks are too inflexible to be used directly as instructional materials (Allwright,1990). I think the teachers should not rely heavily on the textbook as their teaching resources. This is because referring to solely one teaching resource will limits teachers' creativity in designing their lessons. Thus, I think teachers can obtain more resources from the internet. It gives them more teaching ideas and inspirations in creating lessons that can stimulate student interest and passion.

 

Besides that, due to the circumstances, I understand that it is difficult for the teachers to use e-learning in the classroom because there is a limited access to technology in the school. This results in being unable to utilise electronic devices in the teaching and learning process. In fact, online resources such as online educational games can effectively help to engage students because it fulfills the learning needs of 21st century learners. It can also sustain students' interests and involvements in the activities. Despite that, the classrooms are still not ready for 21st century learning yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Analysis

I find it necessary to have a positive teacher-teacher relationship in schools. Sharing and exchanging their teaching resources help teachers to integrate a variety of effective teaching resources in the classroom. It is understood that teachers also have a choice to prepare the materials by themselves. However, I believe that the lessons will be carried out more productively if teachers always provide support and advices to one another. In order to create meaningful learning experiences for the students, teachers should work together in selecting and evaluating the appropriateness of their teaching materials for their individual classrooms. With an effective community of sharing, teachers will then be able to deal with the lack of teaching resources. Also, an effective community of sharing will affect students positively. This is because when a teacher values collaboration and peer-oriented learning, he will then create a similar community in his classroom. Thus, a community of sharing within the classroom enables students to be more open to sharing ideas, concerns, and successes with peers.

 

In addition, teachers should create their teaching materials based on Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) the revised taxonomy of six cognitive levels. This is so that the materials prepared can be used effectively to assess whether students have achieved the lesson objectives. From here, it shows the interdependence and connections among all the lesson components included in a lesson plan. 

 

 

Conclusion

Instructional materials should be viewed as important tools that can help students to learn best. They serve as teaching aids to facilitate teachers in conducting their lessons more effectively. Hence, teachers should always keep in mind that teaching resources are not for the convenience of themselves but to make student learning more enjoyable and meaningful. 

 

 

References

Allwright, R. L. (1990). What do we want teaching materials for? In R. Rossner and R. Bolitho, (Eds.), Currents in language teaching. Oxford University Press

 

K. Wong, H. (2003, August 1). Collaborating with Colleagues to Improve Student Learning. Retrieved November 19, 2015, from http://newteacher.com/pdf/CollaboratingWithColleaguesToImproveStudentLearning.pdf