First Lesson

It may have been a couple of weeks ago now but I do remember my first lesson very well (or first starter more like it!).

I was teaching year 7s for the first half an hour before my mentor took over the dex. The lesson was concerned with safety when using Internet chatrooms and with the assumption that a few of the half-a-billion Facebook users in the world must surely be sat in front of my right now, I decided to kick off with a discussion about the social-networking site and how the pupils use it to communicate with their friends.

Having questioned the kids about the methods of communication on Facebook such as IM (instant messaging), private messages and comments, I then questioned the class briefly about the precautions they should take when using such online applications, focusing particularly on the amount of personal information the pupils give out online. The purpose of this example was to give the pupils ideas about how to complete two sheets I gave them where they had to write down eight rules they should follow in order to make safe use of the Internet.

As it was still early high school days for this particularl class, I got them working in pairs for five minutes on each worksheet and got them to read rules out loud to the class in order to encourage peer-to-peer help, to inspire confidence and give them the minor opportunities to demonstate and improve their literacy skills. I also awarded one girl with what we like to call a 'merit sticker' (still need to find out if they get a reward from these though!) for constantly putting her hand up and making a very positive contribution to the lesson. I see a lot of these given out in lessons but it's one of those things I try and make quite elusive and something only the best can get as I feel this way they learn how hard they have to work to earn it.

After five minutes on each sheet, I had a five minute discussion with the classroom, finding out what answers the pupils had come up with. I definately learned a lot about my teaching in these periods as ironically, I didn't use a lot of ICT when going through the Internet safety rules (the school I'm at has no computer management software) and instead I had the pupils turn their monitors off and we talked about the work instead. I feel that I could've made the lesson that more exciting and engaging had I used a presentation or Word document with some example Internet safety rules. Some pupils also didn't complete the rules worksheet and I wasted some time stating the rules we'd discussed when I could've had them written down ready somewhere for them to copy (the big whiteboard behind me maybe!). If I wrote these answers down during the lesson, this would've wasted more time and I would've taken my eyes off the pupils, so more homework and planning for me before my next lesson that's for sure - being a good role model for the kids that is! 

There were a couple of pupils near the back of the classroom who kept talking as well and my mentor recommended that I'd be more firm and change my tone of voice with such... pests (there's another word for them, but I'll keep my cool!) and possibly rearrange the seating plan if necessary.

Although I came out of it looking like a Dragon's Den reject, I really enjoyed the lesson and am looking forward to teaching for longer durations throughout this part of the term. My mentor commented on me demonstrating a good subject knowledge and I got the high school newbies working well as a team but should make more use of ICT in future lessons by preperaing more lesson material using the Office software and also having the lesson and learning objectives on board (Ofsted will always catch you out on this my fellow ICT trainees so if your projector ain't working, get them written on a piece of paper and blue tak it to the wall - or walls if it's a big classroom, as just talking to the pupils won't be enough!)

Good luck with your lessons and have fun!