How Ms. Ting starts and ends a lesson

Ms. Ting's guide being written on board,
she would write out the Learning
Intentions too.

Just like what I stated before in Ms. Ting's teaching strategies, she uses various methods in gaining a student's attention. Before starting a lesson or introducing a topic, one must gain the audience's attention. It may be considered as a theme in all international schools, the teachers mostly used auditory and visual based methods in gaining their class' attention such as clapping, verbal cues ("Eyes on me") and of course sudden imoending silence from the teachers. According to Ms. Ting, once getting their attention, she would then give them instructions, visuals or rhetorical questions for them to get a rough idea on what they would be doing for the next 30 to 40 minutes of their lesson. Occasionally, she would even write down the instructions or examples for the students in case if they are left out.

The volunteers' enthusiasm is showing

It was an effective way of gaining their attention. Once she starts her lesson, the students would immediately stop and listen to her teaching. At times, we would see her asking students to answer her question and even without asking for volunteers, hands would be seen raised up in a speed of light. There were also others who began to write down the title for their topic on their respective books. From this I believe that she has set up a solid rule or foundation in the students' mind that lessons should be paid heed to regardless of what they are currently doing.

From what I could see from her teaching. The start of the class was a reminiscent of a student- centered or at least a more modern way of gaining the students' attention as well as starting a lesson. Just like what she mentioned before. She would show them pictures and questioning the students' knowledge which was indeed a stark contrast to a local national school where the teachers (in my experience) would verbally instruct and introduce us to a new lesson either through textbook or any method that was deemed old-fashioned (giving out worksheets, no asking students questions, writtings & etc.) However, when she starts teaching, it was more slanted towards a verbal teaching as the main source of delivering her lesson. In all honesty, I wasn't really certain whether her teaching method is teacher-centered or it could be a mix as in Nexus, the teachers also verbally introduce their lessons to their students too, thus when it comes to the meaning of teacher or student centered learning, I am quite deluded by them.

From what I have been taught so far, starting as well as ending a lesson should be as meaningful to the students as possible. Based on the lesson plans I did previously, starting lessons or introducing new topics require to consider on their prior knowledge. To solidify their understanding, gaining their feedbacks either using pop quizzes or questions directly from them, we will be able to know whether they are able to keep up with the lesson. If they require extra help, this will be crucial when planning for the next lesson. From this, I believe that Ms. Ting has also take the students' prior knowledge in consideration as she starts and ends the lessons. As the students were able to fulfill the Learning Intention in class. Most of the classes were brief and fast, yet it was easy for the students to cope with the speed. This is to ensure that none of the students would miss out anything or packed with too much information. Another thing to note on her was that she did a step-by-step way of teaching a new topic. This is to ensure that they would understand a lesson.

As far as I know, Ms. Ting did a somewhat traditional way of ending a class. There were no recapping or assessments on the students, perhaps it was due to the fact that they were still in the process of teaching a topic. Usually, she would announce that time is up and 6O would start finishing with their work, some would start packing and get ready for the next lesson, in certain cases, she would remind students that unfinished work will be considered as homework before lining them up to a next class or starting off with a new class after waiting for them to prepare.

From this experience, there are certain steps I would like to follow, that is to gain their attention before I start. That way, they will be able to understand the basis of time. The same goes for ending a lesson. I hope that I will be able to understand the students' knowledge in consideration to planning for the next lesson. There are at times where we do not have to follow a particular style as there are no right and wrong style of teaching (in terms of whether it should be student or teacher centered). Our main purpose is to ensure the students to be success, and they leave the school learning something as these are the basics to assisting them in the future as they advance to higher educations. From this, I believe that Essentialism is important in this stage of education. Having to learn the basics gives the students a "demo" on how or what they would like to do or study in the future. And from this, I am starting to view learning all subjects to be important. The process of starting and ending a lesson is also important. Just like first and last impressions, they give you an everlasting memory on something. And I hope I would be able to improve or experiment on the ways of starting and ending a class. However, I believe that this experience has proven to me that using ways to attract the students' attention is the most significant part when we start a lesson.

1.