Yesterday was my first ever lesson with the Primary 3s. It didn’t go as well as I had planned.
First off, my class management skills were ‘meh’. I guess it was due in part to me not knowing the class well enough as well as me not setting expectations. My CT was in the class and I assumed (erroneously of course) that the students will behave. They most certainly did not.
Second, I had four periods to fill. Four 30 min periods. Two hours. 120 mins! So what did I do? I filled it with activities! (Kind of.) It didn’t work. I wanted to do too many things. I wanted to teach adverbs as well as to get students to read as well as get students to complete two worksheets as well as teach students to annotate the text they were supposed to read as well as get them to actually annotate the text as well as… Yep. Too many things. For a Primary 3 class.
Third, I realised on looking back, I was engaging only with the higher ability pupils and neglecting the lower ability ones. I did realise it mid-way through the lesson and I did try slow down to allow the slightly weaker students to catch up. However, in doing so, I forgot about engaging the higher ability students and they became bored and distracted. And then they started distracting the other students. Silly mistake for someone who’ve been in the classroom for a while now.
Tomorrow, I will be teaching my second lesson. Thank God tomorrow’s lesson is only one period. Now, reflection is one thing. Knowing my issues is a third of the battle won. Let’s see if I can implement it properly.