Teaching Blog (Lara Elizabeth Kotze - ST10088771)

How has service-learning changed you personally? Service-learning taught me that schools are not simply there for teaching learners content, but to also teach learners skills that they can use in the future. It changed me personally, as I felt I am really making a change in learners’ lives as bullying is a massive issue in all schools. I will definitely try and get more involved at my school where I end up as I could really see the impact of service learning and how it affects the school environment. It also motivated me to become more involved in volunteer work in my community. How has service-learning developed you professionally? What new knowledge, skills and/or attitudes have you gained? I believe service-learning taught me that community involvement is a key aspect which is needed in schools. During my service-learning, I wanted to include the parents of the learners in my social action project. I did this through sending them a QR-code they had to scan. While I was creatin...

What went well during your online microteaching lesson? The learners were really engaged during the introduction activity where they had to type their responses of the differences between picture 1 being a house in a wealthy community and picture 2 being a home in a poor community. The learners did not struggle as I showed them how the whiteboard tool on Blackboard works. What challenges or obstacles did you encounter, and how did you address them? I feel like my lesson went very well without any connection problems and was able to navigate between the slides smoothly. The lesson went as planned, but I noticed that I would still have time left to teach so after I finished with my Introduction I just carried on with the teaching and learning phase. Luckily, my whole lesson was loaded on Blackboard, so I was able to carry on and stopped before teaching the causes of socio-economic imbalances. Did your lesson meet the learning objectives you set out to achieve? As the microteach...

How did you cope/manage completing the three days of “Life of a Teacher”? As I discussed it with my mentor teacher and decided on the specific dates, I had enough time to plan. Yes, I was stressed, because I would have to take over the teacher’s whole day, but I cope with stressful times through being organized. So, after I did my planning, I was ready to go. I conducted my planning, through looking at the timetable and planning according to it. I made my own roster through adding the teacher’s responsibilities such as soccer practice and lunch duty so that I knew where I had to be and when. How did you feel taking on all the responsibilities of a teacher in Block 1 compared to Block 2? During Block 2, I was much more relaxed through taking on the teacher’s responsibilities. As I already new how it had to be done, but also by this time, I new the learner’s names. Through knowing the learners’ names, I could much easily manage the classroom, when telling a learner to listen or loo...