Pedagogical artifacts and Reflections

Pedagogical Artifacts and Reflections of the Semester

Observation Stage

This pedagogical artifact that I'm going to narrate is the beginning of the process of practicum in which I particularly paid attention to the pedagogical way of teaching of one my guide teachers. 

The first week in the school, I observed that the students were from high risk homes and that they were not too interested in studying. 

When I was sitting at the back of the room, I observed that students liked participating in class and repeating words in English also asking and answering questions. The teacher used the data for teaching; he projected the book so every student could participate even if they did not bring the book to the school.

I chose this pedagogical artifact because I think those tools were very useful in order to prepare activities and develop a way of teaching according to the students’ needs and ways of learning in that classroom. I also found interesting that the teacher used the devices and materials available in the school for doing his classes and that is something that not every teacher does.

The experience made realize that I could take all these methods of teaching not only from my teachers from this school but also from the previous VISEs and my teachers at my own school in Limache and get a benefit from them in order to play a better role as an educator.

On the other hand, I would like to talk about what were my feelings and thoughts in this stage because I think that while you are reading this you can get a better appreciation of what I learned though the semester.

When I first got to the classroom I felt really nervous and I thought that I could never do classes since I had never done it before. I asked things in my mind like… How am I supposed to do classes if I still get nervous only watching? ... How should I treat my students when they do something inappropriate? … How you use the class book? Meaning the book when you put the grades and I was very stressed with the idea of how to get my students attention and get the ability of controlling them.

I started asking my classmates how should I do with this problems and they recommend me many things but nothing that I really could use because of my style of teaching.

I asked the teachers and they told me that only time will teach me how to do it and also that you need to develop your own ways of controlling them, sometimes tips are helpful but I also needed my “personal mark” and for that I had to trust myself what I was doing and that was what I started to do*.

* (In order to place you in the process of the practicum and make the story more interesting I decided to continue this reflection according with the times that happened so you can continue reading in the next two stages.)

Team-teaching stage

 In this stage I chose a particular artifact. When I was team-teaching my guide teacher asked me to help him conducting some parts or stages of the class. For example, students were working with the book and the teacher asked me to conduct one of the activities of the book so I could get use to teaching them. Every class, I did some exercises with and without the help of the teacher.

The experience helped me a lot in order to learn how to teach and use the students’ book. It also helped me in how to identify the kinds of students in the classroom and how to improve the way I teach the exercises and the contents.

I chose this pedagogical artifact because I really think that it was a great idea for helping me and introducing me to the students, so when I start teaching the students were related to my style, voice and personality in the classroom. He also taught me how to say hello to the class and I used that when I worked in another school in Belloto. I think that I will use this “hello” moment in my future classes in other schools.

On the other hand, continue with my reflections about the practicum in terms of my feelings and appreciations of the process.

I was still worried about the way in which I was going to teach but the helped of the teacher was very important, fundamental for me to trust myself that I could face students and classes. I started planning and preparing material and with the corrections, tips and advices I felt ready to begin although still a little frighten.   

Teaching Stage

This artifact I am going to tell happened during my teaching stage. The teachers always were with me in the classroom, giving support and advising when it was necessary but one day one of the teachers was not able to be with me and I had to do the class alone. For that reason I planned some activities and a power point presentation. I arrived to classroom and nothing worked as I expected. First my computer collapsed and I could not show the power point presentations and the audio that I was supposed to play for one activity with the book could not be listened to by the students because I could not get some speakers. So I change activity and I used the book for doing some activities with the students, thing that also did not work out, they did not pay any attention and I had a classroom out of control! We were studying a unit about nature so the only thing that I could do was asking them to draw something and do a poster defending nature and the causes of Greenpeace. I asked them to send a message to their classmates in the school in order to be worried about the classroom and school environment. They draw and try to write something but only a few of them did it seriously. The rest only talked and talked and talked.

This experience made me think about what was wrong with me and what could I do if this situation repeats some time ahead and I was not incorrect, later on, I had to stay with the students alone again, but this time it was different because I new what I had to do and how to face this situation, I prepared more activities in case one or two of them did not work out and I prepare some strategies to “punish” bad behavior in the classroom. I only threaten to stay more time in the classroom with them and some took it seriously and begin to work. I think the previous “bad” class was very important, it taught me an aspect that I could not get with the company of the teachers and always you can get good things out of bad situations.

On the other hand, I continue with my narration of my insights reflections in order to the reader gets a better appreciation of what happened in this process.

While days went by, I start doing my best teaching, there were times that I did not wanted to continue because I had other issues that made me feel really sad but I continue giving by 200% I was not going to surrender!

The teacher always gave advice in the process but suddenly I noticed that they were decreasing the quantity of interventions during my teaching. I also got confidence in myself and what I was doing and now I was nor afraid of teaching neither the students. When the guide teachers evaluate my classes the comments were positive and that influenced me to keep going till finally I felt my style of teaching coming I really believed in me and that is because of the good disposition of the guide teachers, I will be forever grateful with them.