Week 2 Reflections (Jopescu)

This week, I got to focus on how my CT carried out her lessons, in terms of the different lesson segments, as well as how she motivated her students during class and encouraged active participation.

In terms of lesson enactment, my CT often started her lessons by discussing the homework given in the previous lesson. In our conversation, I learnt that my CT felt that going through previously assigned homework was important as it not only acknowledges the student’s effort in doing their work, which also plays a motivational role in getting them to continue doing work, but it also provides an opportunity for recap and clarification. My CT would rely on different ways to go through the homework depending on the nature of the assignment. One example I got to observe was in Religion class, where the students were previously asked to write a reflective piece on happiness. My CT got the students to share about their written work in groups of 4, based on their seating arrangement, and after this, she then asked for volunteers to share with the class. In this case, as the assignment was a personal written piece, it was important that the sharing was done in smaller groups, which was a more comfortable setting for the students to share personal stories. In addition, as class sharing was purely voluntary, students would only share their own written piece if they were comfortable with doing so. This example can then be compared to another piece of homework, this time a grammar exercise for German class. In this case, every student had to answer one question of the exercise each, as my CT went around the class to get every student to share. By engaging with the homework, my CT can also check whether the class did the work assigned. In addition, this constant practice of going through homework enforces the importance of homework and compels students to complete their work so that they can participate in class when called upon.

One key point that came up during my conversation with my CT was the importance of varying classroom activities and lesson segments. This can ensure that students with diverse learning needs have their needs met as well as prevent a level of monotony from setting in during lessons, which would then undermine student interest and participation. Some examples I observed during the week include the incorporation of games in German class, that gave the students an opportunity to do something fun and different while internalising the German language use more effectively. The use of a German counting game during tenth-grade German class helped students to better remember German numerical terms through a fun (and competitive) activity.

Also, with the good weather we experienced, there were times when my CT decided to do an outdoor activity during lesson time, letting the students be active in the school courtyard. This was also due to the restlessness of the students that affected their concentration in class.

A principle that my CT follows during lesson time is to ensure that every student says something, to ensure that every student participates in class. This is achieved through different ways as well, depending on the class profile. With more active classes, where students would proactively attempt to answer, my CT will ensure that different students are called. However, in classes that are less active, my CT will then either call on students to answer or get the whole class to take turns answering. The latter method is often used in German class, to ensure that the students follow the class.

To encourage participation, my CT shared that it was important to build good class relations, be it between student and teacher or between students. One way my CT achieves this is through fortnightly seating arrangement changes to allow students to work with different classmates. In addition, my CT emphasised creating a safe space in the classroom so that the students would feel comfortable to share their ideas and questions. These ensure that a supportive and conducive class environment is created, which in turn ensures that students are not afraid to speak up.

Also, based on my understanding after speaking to my CT, the students are largely motivated and interested in learning, which aids greatly in the maintaining of student interest and participation in class. Nonetheless, with the approaching summer break and the different holidays, the students are restless and tend to lose concentration, which in turn necessitates the use of varied activities to sustain their interest as discussed previously.

Week 1 Reflections (Jopescu)

My CT is the contact teacher of an eighth-grade class, 8C, so in the conversation we had, we mainly focused on that class for discussion. In terms of the class profile, there are 17 girls and 11 boys in the class. They are all Norwegians and Christians, hence in terms of the racial/religious make-up of the class, it is largely homogenous. Also, the class is made up of mixed-ability learners, with students of different characters and needs, as academic banding and streaming are not done in the Norwegian school system. Hence, the teacher will need to ensure that activities in class will cater to the varied needs of students.

During lesson time, I observed how my CT varied her activities and strategies throughout the lesson, considering the different learner needs present in the class. In eighth-grade German, my CT started off the class by going through a grammar practice that was given as their homework and getting students to volunteer their answers. Following that, my CT provided an opportunity, as it was the last lesson for the chapter, for the students to air their concerns and clarifications, which she then took the time to go through in class. To cater to the different learner types in the class, the teacher used visualisation to go through the topic of Time, using the classroom clock and getting students to say the time in German. I feel that this gave the students an opportunity to apply their knowledge in a real-life scenario and helped them to see a need for language learning.

As a final activity, my CT used a quiz game, where a student would take on a famous figure and the class had to ask questions (in German) to guess his or her identity. This provided a variation in classroom activities for the students and allowed students, especially the kinesthetic learners, to learn through an activity that catered to their needs. By using the game, my CT introduced a fun element to language learning. As German is a language that is first offered in eighth grade, the students would have had little to no experience with German prior, and as this was the initial stage of language learning, fun activities such as role-playing will help to encourage students to participate actively in the learning process.

Also, through my lesson observations, I noticed that my CT was able to manage lesson time well, even when unexpected events happened in the class. During my conversation, my CT shared the importance of planning lesson activities, but more importantly, the awareness that a teacher will need to be flexible and adapt to changes in class during lessons. My CT also shared that her personal practice is to rank the different activities based on importance, as well as to ensure that there was a good variety of activity types to cater to the diverse learner needs in the class. Based on the progress of the lesson, she would then adjust the activities accordingly, removing those that would take up too much time or not be as effective in execution based on her real-time assessment of the class.

In addition, it is also notable how the instructional materials such as the textbooks and the workbooks, in the case of English, had differentiated tasks and instructions, classified as Basic, Challenging, and Demanding tasks. My CT explained that when assigning work from the workbooks, she would provide one task from each category for the students to choose to work on. This provides the students with the autonomy to assess their own ability levels and choose the task most appropriate for themselves. This can also be attributed to the motivation and interest of the students to learn, thus providing autonomy can be useful to allow the students to take greater ownership of their learning.

Introduction

Hi! We are a group of 4 student-teachers who got the incredible opportunity to do our 5-week International Practicum stint in Stavanger from 14 May to 15 June! We will be penning down some of our thoughts and reflections over the past five weeks in this blog, as well as to share some of the fun experiences we had during our stay in Stavanger.

First off, we will like to introduce the sunny city of Stavanger! (Disclaimer: we were fortunate enough to experience an 'unnatural' month-long good weather during our stay there! Typical Stavanger weather is often rainy or cloudy!) Located in the southwestern part of Norway, Stavanger is the third largest city and is often referred to as the "Oil Capital of Norway", a moniker reflecting its ties today to the oil and petroleum industry. The coastal city has had several other significant industries throughout its history, ranging from shipping, shipbuilding to fish canning. Today, these industries still remain a part of Stavanger's visible history and heritage, from the dedicated museums to the different landmarks all around the city.

Moving on to the education system, the school year is from mid-August to late-June, divided by a short vacation period during December. One key difference we noticed was the lack of streaming from grades 1-10, which meant that class allocation was often done at random, resulting in classes with a variety of learner types. Schools also play a huge part in community building, with students going to elementary and middle schools that are situated in the neighbourhood. Not only do students come from the same neighbourhood, but they also get to mingle and form bonds with their classmates. This is further strengthened by how students, as we observed in the middle schools we were in, stayed in the same class throughout their 3 years in middle school.

The four of us were posted to two different middle schools in Stavanger, with Rina and Jopescu going to Kannik Skole, while Audrey and Shu Han went to St. Svithun Skole.

Kannik Skole is one of the largest middle schools in Norway, with an estimated student population of around 600. It is situated in a largely affluent neighbourhood, which might have also influenced the relatively homogenous nature of the students. The vast majority of students at Kannik are Norwegian, with a few students coming from a different ethnic background.

St. Svithun Skole is one of the older schools in Stavanger, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. It has approximately 300 students and enjoys a greater level of diversity in the student population. While the majority remains largely Norwegian, there are more students from different backgrounds, family and ethnicity, which has added to the diversity of the population.