Reports and Observations
Page overview:
This page includes excerpts from observation reports written by my Mentoring School Teacher (MST), and Mentoring College Teacher (MCT) based on my performance during teaching practice.
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Click to view the full reports:
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Commitment to Profession
Mentoring School Teacher (MST)
Description
Throughout the practicum, I tried my best to take initiative, offer help, and discuss different matters with my mentor. I took measures whenever an issue arised, and I would take over the class whenever needed.
Mentoring College Teacher (MCT)
Rationale
Other than being involved in the classroom, I would also partake in activities outside the classroom, such as various events and exam sessions.
Teachers must have the ability to interact with the school community, and the community in general. Our role is to work toward the success of not only students, but society as a whole (Hamzah, Mohamed, Abdullah and Baki, 2008). Thus, in my view, a teacher's role is not limited to the classroom, but also anything outside the class that is directly related to the profession.
Description
Planning for Learning
Mentoring School Teacher (MST)
Description
When it comes to planning, it is crucial to think of the delivery process and how to best help students grasp new concepts. My MST explained that I was able to do this well by sequencing the activities in an engaging manner.
Description
One of my Professional Development Plan (PDP) goals relates to the competency "Planning for Learning" as I planned for challenging activities for the low achievers in order to stretch their abilities. My MST gave me feedback about how she noticed that learners from the low ability group were participating well and engaging with the activities.
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Link to goal:
Mentoring College Teacher (MCT)
Description
My MCT commented on my ability to use testable learning objectives as my lessons highly concentrated on using verbs from Bloom's taxonomy to ensure that learners achieve the outcomes by the end of the lesson.
Managing Learning
Rationale
As I participated in planning for activities for students throughout my practices, I learned that each learner is different and that we must plan for activities based on various factors such as learning styles, readiness, and students' profiles. Keeping this in mind helped me plan accordingly. The ministry of education in the United Arab Emirates ensures the use of a differentiated curriculum to cater to the gifted learners, as well as the ones who need scaffolding (Ministry of Education, n.d.). After implementing two of my PDP goals, one to challenge low achievers and one to challenge high achievers, I have learned to stretch all levels of learners in the classroom.
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Planning for learning is a competency which relates to my teaching philosophy as I believe planning is a crucial aspect for the success of content delivery.
Mentoring School Teacher (MST)
Description
After struggling with students who don't participate and those who don't put their hands up when answering, causing interruptions, I established a set of participation rules and continued to reinforce them. Thus, my MST believed that I did well in managing the classroom environment using routines.
Mentoring College Teacher (MCT)
Description
Implementing Learning
Aside from behavior management, my MCT mentioned that I gave learners constant and immediate feedback on their performance. I found that there is a lot of value in positive reinforcement as it encourages learners to participate more and it gives them more confidence in themselves.
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Rationale
In the past, managing learners' behavior was a hard task for me and I set various strategies and goals in order to achieve this goal and be competent at it. After using various resources (traffic lights, stamps, stickers, rules) and experimenting with them, I have grown to find the strategies that work best for me and I can now reinforce rules and provide positive reinforcement to learners at the appropriate times. It is also important to create a positive learning environment that fosters good behavior (Stronge, Tucker, and Hindman, 2004).
Mentoring School Teacher (MST)
Description
My MST shared that due to my activities, learners were encouraged to be independent and work efficiently.
Description
To achieve one of my PDP goals, which was to reduce teacher talking time, I used the learning platform Nearpod to keep learners active. My MST commended me on my choice of learning experiences and she observed that I was successful in engaging learners to be more active.
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Link to goal:
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Mentoring College Teacher (MCT)
Assessment
Description
Based on my MCT's feedback, she observed that learners were engaged, participating, and motived throughout the lesson, which was due to my using various strategies and online tools to engage them.
Rationale
Giving students more opportunities to talk and lead the lesson results in enhanced language skills and the acquisition of language in a language learning classroom (Haliti, 2019). When implementing learning in the past, I used to do a lot of the talking. However, I have learned to let students be the leaders, and step back as a teacher at times.
Mentoring School Teacher (MST)
Description
When assessing learners, I used various strategies from formative assessments to self-assessments. In addition my MST highlighted my effective use of constructive feedback.
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I am a strong believer in the use of feedback to show students that their performance is being monitored and this is displayed in my teaching philosophy.
Mentoring College Teacher (MCT)
Reflection on Practice
Description
Rationale
My MCT viewed that my assessment was done in a way where I used it to inform planning and instruction, which I believe is very important. We need to make meaningful use of assessment data.
Formative assessments are valuable tool to test students’ learning throughout the lesson, in order to build on their skills. Moreover, depending on summative assessments as the only tool does not give significant insight into students' learning, nor does it help plan for future adjustments in teaching (Ridge, Kippels. Farah, 2017). Therefore, I find that I can now use formative assessments in an advantageous way and plan to help learners in need.
Mentoring School Teacher (MST)
Description
In general, my MST has highlighted my use of recommendations that she gives me and how I put it into practice in order to improve my teaching.​
Description
One of my PDP goals relates to the competency "reflection on practice" as one of my goals was to improve my reflective writing to produce productive reflections. My MST reviewed my reflections and shared that I did well in analyzing my practices and findings solutions to issues.
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Link to goal:
Mentoring College Teacher (MCT)
Description
My MCT believed that I reflected intensively by using Gibb's reflective cycle which is a positive sign that shows that my reflections have become more specific and productive.
Rationale
Overall, while in the past I would mostly focus on describing events, I believe that I am more able to focus on producing reflections that offer insight into the things I have learned from different situations and how I plan to deal with them. Theorist John Dewey emphasizes the use of reflections over experiences to find solutions to problems (Warwick, 2007).