Big Bang Theory Live Blogging

First Week

I have been teaching my 6th hour life science for about a week. It was difficult for me to stand in front of the students on the first day. I realized that I have been thinking about the lesson in almost all day. I want them to learn. That is all I'm thinking about. I read the text and other resources... I know what I need to teach. But the next question is.... how?

I collected the students' worksheets to assess their content knowledge. I asked them questions in the classroom and I thought that they understood.

I have learned two things from my teaching placement.
1) I need to assess the students with some documents if I want to assess each student in the classroom.

I checked their assignments and I noticed that some students could not understand the text.

2) I need to pass back their assignments in timely manner.

I graded their assignments on the day I collected. Then, I have turned them in by next day. I was be able to check their content knowledge right away and it helped me to check their misconceptions. I explained the misconceptions that they had. I only do not want them to learn the next step without know the previous materials.

I teach them... but I also learn from them.

Virtual Lesson

We had discussion about virtual lesson in our class. Even thought I was not good at using computer and applying technology, it was attractive and I thought I would like to apply it. I didn't take online courses before. I went to class and I asked teachers/professors directly because I thought the online courses would not help me much to learn. 

However, the discussion had remind me of one class that I took in college. I took government when I was in undergraduate. I initially did not have confident to be in the classroom because the director covered a lot of things in a day and then I could not really paid attention to the director's words. I was busy to take notes. However, even if I took the notes, I could not understand why I wrote down.

We did not have the virtual lessons. But, he recorded his voice and his powerpoint during lectures. I went home and reviewed his powerpoint at home. It helped me a lot to cover the materials and then I get interested in learning. I could see everything that I have missed during lectures. The director had marked with a red pen (underlined, circled...etc). 

It was easy for me to learn in that way and I was glad to see things that I could not catch during lectures. 

Therefore, I thought it would be great if I can have use the technology in my classroom for those who have been absent/need extra help. 

Be Healthy

I realized the importance of keep in healthy. In the meantime after I suffered from flu, I realized that it is impotant to be healthy.

I was thinking about this... "what if this happen to me when I'm teaching..." This will be bad and I do not want my students lose the opportunities to learn because of my health condition.

I learned responsibilities... responsibility to teach... responsibility to take care of myself.

Be healthy = Another teacher's role.

First Time Teaching

I taught 4-5 groups of students in our class couple weeks ago. I talked about this with my mentor teacher from a long time ago. I wanted to teach the relevant materials. Students came school to learn and practice their knolwedge, therefore, it was more than just completing my assignments and practice how to teach students. I wanted them to learn and review the material at least.

My mentor recommended me to teach half-life which they have not learned yet. My mentor provided me some worksheets that I could use, and suggested couple of activities that I can choose from.

After that, I read textbook/materials over and over even though I knew the concepts. However, I didn't want to make mistakes and hope to do well since it was my first time to teach. I carefully decided activities and prepared/checked.

I made extra copies and also made the back-up plans. I thought everything would go well as I plan.

However, I actually could not even finish my activity and the students had difficult times to follow my direction because I could not give a sufficient information to follow. I asked myself, "why....".

After the first hour, I kept thinking about what I did wrong and where I needed to work on. I talked with my mentor about it and tried to find the way to get right.

Then, I reduced reviewing time... and not tried to do so many things at a time. Then, I consicely moved onto next activity.

yeah~~~!! things were worked out well. It was not the best but I could finish the activity and had chances to talk about it with the students.

I learned so many things from here. Teaching wasn't easy. It was not only about what to teach...BUT, HOW to teach! I found where I need to work on.