After reading scenario one carefully, these are my thoughts. First of all, I strongly feel that they way Mrs Xing had managed her students were extremely poor. She had no control over them and did not set any rules for them. As a result, the students did not seem to show any concern over her. On top of that, it was stated that Mrs Xing had little experience with ICT. It was a good effort that she took initiative to enquire more about using technology in teaching from the other teachers in the school, however, I felt that she was a little over-ambitious, trying to complete two rounds of editing by the end of the lesson.
Relating to what Vanise had to say in her post, I too strongly feel that a set of clear instructions and rules has to be set at the beginning of the lesson or the school term. As for instructions, Mrs Xing should inform them that she is going to bring them to the computer lab that week to use the wordtrack changes software for editing their essays and that they are not allowed to start up their respective computers once they have been seated. Mrs Xing could have demonstrated to the class how the software works and then allow students to switch on their computers and try out the softwares. During the explanation, Mrs Xing could have asked all her students to come to the front to listen to her first before returning back to their places to try the software. By doing this, she would be able to keep track of everyone's attentions and so that no one would be 'blocked' by the computer screens.
Mrs Xing did quite an 'alright' job to pair up the 2 students with other students to work. However, she has to ensure that they do not start to chat. Alternatively, she could have allowed the students to use the staff computer available in the lab or she could have simply checked whether all the computers were in proper working conditions even before embarking on a lesson involving IT.
Mrs Xing should have set realistic goals. As the students progress at different speeds, she cannot expect everyone to finish 2 drafts by the end of the lesson. She could have assigned those who have finished to help out those who were in need of help, while she edited those works which have been submitted. In this way, she wouldn't have been the 'bottleneck' and the students get to learn from each other as well. Also, I felt that Mrs Xing should have walked around and guided the students as this was their first time editing their essays through the computer. By doing this, I believe that the essays wouldn't have lacked coherency.
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I think there might be a problem if Mrs Xing were to ask all her students to come to the front to listen to her because I think the space may be an issue and also by moving all students to the front may be chaotic and more time is needed to settle them down again. Maybe we can ask them to turn off their monitor screen and look up to the projector when she is explaining.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, assigning afew students who have done their work to help the others is a good idea, maybe one helper to 1 or 2 rows, not too many so as to prevent too many people walking around the class.
Thats true but i think asking them to just look up from their screens may not be very effective as they still might be distracted and some may not bother to listen. The problem of those being blocked by the computer screen is still not resolved then.
ReplyDeleteMrs Xing was obviously inexperienced in conducting such a lesson. Naturally, she would have commited the mistakes she made because of her inexperience. However, do you think she could have taken any steps to avoid such occurences or even draw up a contingency plan if things go terribly wrong during her lesson?
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