Life of a teacher: Lebone Nake

The experience of a student teacher.

How I managed completing the three days of "Life of a Teacher":

Completing the three days of the "Life of a Teacher" required a lot of energy, motivation and support from my mentor teachers and myself. I realised how planning a lesson and actually carrying it out in the classroom is different. Most of the lessons that were planned did not go accordingly, there were times during the lesson where I had to change parts of the lesson becuase sometimes learners would understand a topic easily and sometimes they would take longer to understand the topic. This meant I had to go into lesson with extra work before hand so that learners can still work if they finish earlier than expected or be prepared to re-teach the lesson if learners do not understand. This required me to have patience and understand that things do not go according to plan.

I was able to finish the three days of "Life of a Teacher" because I was and still am determined to become the best teacher that I never had, which meant I had to be willing to learn even in circumstances that were not ideal.

Taking over the responsibilities in block 1 and in bloack 2 of "Life of a Teacher":

Block 1: taking over from the teacher in block 1 was hard. The admin, teaching, extra-classes, and the duties the teacher has to carry out on a daily are much harder and lot more that expected. The learners expected the teacher to know everything and it was hard to live up to their expectations of what a perfect is like. I had to learn to find my feet and try new strategies with the learners and see what works for me and what does not work for me. I also had to realise that learners from different grades (grade 4, 5, 6, and 7) are different and their maturity levels are different, so I cannot use the same strategy for the grade 7 with the grade 4 class.

Block 2: this block was different as I had already found my feet and knew what trategies to use with the learners. I was also very comfortable with the duties that were expected from me and knew the learners from the last block. This block was where I found strategies that made my work easier by taking advice from my mentor teachers on how to handle duties and how to conduct myself with learners. I enjoyed "Life of a Teacher" block 2 since I was more organized and knew what was expected of me, which made my expereince even more amazing and allowed me to learn even more.

Activities that were more challenges:

The most challenging activities were:

Accommodating learners different learning styles: This required me to not only consider the learning styles of the majority of the classroom, but to also consider the minority. This meant using different ways to explain a concept to ensure that all learners can master it at the end of the lesson.

Classroom management: Keeping the classroom in check during the day was an issue since learners were tried to take advantage of the fact that I was a new teacher. I had to find classroom management strategies that worked for each class. The classroom management tool helped with creating order in the classroom and let learners know of the appropriate behaviours in the classroom.

Lack of effective communication: using effective communication in the classroom to teache learners was important to ensure that all learners grasped the content they were tuaght and to cater for learners educational needs depending on the needs, struggles, and triumphs.

I had to consider learners levels (grade 4, and 7) and consider how I can communicate with them in a way that they would understand. This meant bringing meself down to their level to allow me to know what they are thinking and how to cater for their needs. for example, grade 4 learners enjoyed when I used slides that have pictures, and grade 7 learners enjoyed ducational games, such as kahoot and quizizz.

Navigating loadshedding schedules: knowing when loadhsedding was gonna happen during the day allowed me to prepare for unexpected changes. this meant I had to have backup as to how the lesson will still continue after loadshedding has stuck.

Having the schools areas loashedding schedule allowed me to know when loadshedding was gonna happen which meant I could make prinouts worksheets before hand, use educational games that be drawn on the whiteboard and use resources that do not require electricity to ensure that learners are still enjoying the process of learning.

Self-evaluation survey and improvement of teaching competencies:

The following mentioned below is a self-evaluation of the teaching competencies and how they have emproves during the teaching expereince.

I rated myself competent with subject knowledge before teaching expereince since I believed I was competent in teaching all subjects. I discovered there were some things I did not know and had to improve on the subject knowledge in order to be proficient in teaching. I still would rate myself competent after teaching experience and believe I can improve with further support and hard work.

I believe that I have improved in this area of the teaching competencies. I believe I can select the relevant teaching resources and go at a pace that learners can understand during a lesson to ensure that they master the content.

I believe I am more proficient than competent in this area. I believe I have worked on improving on how to know learners needs and planning lessons that will cater for their needs. I also believe learners do master the contetn that I teach and can answer any worksheets that are to do with the topics I tuaght.

I still would rate myself on as a competent teacher in this area. I believe there is still much to learn in order to get to the proficient level. Communicating effectively has been a challenge for me as a teacher and I believe that although I did improve on my effective communication, there is still room for further improvement to make me distinguished as a teacher.

I believe I have improved in this area. I would rate myself as competent as I have learnt new technological skills that will allow me to create lessons that are purely based on technology without needing assisstance.

I know that with hard work and constant practice will get me to the distinguished level I want to be at.

I believe I have become proficient in this area. I believe I am able to unpack the school curriculum and create lessons that are based and go beyond what the school curriculum suggests.

I believe I am distinguished in this area, meaning there has been major improvement. I believe I can create assessments that will provide feedback on learners level of understandin for a topic while also suggesting ways they can imorove. I also believe the assessments that I use to assess learners do improve their understanding of a topic and challenge their higher order thinking. These assessments also allow me to improve on my side by informing on which type of assessments are suitable for learners and which types are not.

I still believe I am competent in this area. I beleive I will improve in this area with further support and learning on my side as I walk into the teaching space.

I believe I have improved in this area and have become distinguished. I believe I can reflect from the lesson that were tuaght and offer ways to improve them in the future while also identifying the challenges that caused issues during the lessons.

Exit level outcomes and and final comment from mentor teacher:

I agree with my mentor teachers comment and exit levels. I do believe I have some areas to improve on and I am going to work those as my teaching career continues.