Critical Incident Reflections

Critical Incident Reflection Week 1:

Description:
First week and its been such an eye opener. I was quite fascinated by this
style of teaching and learning that the school goes by and honestly I had
never heard of it. Its called Kagan Australia, its quite big in America here and
the general goals of the concept are based around cooperative learning.
There are a lot of team building activities and classes are structured around
these guidelines. Students are built up rather than down and there is a lot of
focus on positive behaviours rather than negatives. I couldnt believe when I
walked into the classroom how friendly and accepting the students were of
each other. There was no discrimination or exclusion of particular students
and the teachers make it their goal to try and eliminate this from classrooms.
Interpretation:
This was quite an eye opening experience as mentioned above. It was
seriously amazing to see a classroom with such an encouraging and willing
atmosphere, due to this Cooperative learning structure. The level of respect
for one another, regardless of quirkiness or learning abilities was so
fascinating and encouraging to see. I find this quite relevant as I would love to
have these sorts of dynamics in my classrooms in the future. Meeting a
student who was very outside the square as such and seeing him
confidently being himself in the classroom with no criticism or bullying from his
classmates was exactly the refreshing thing I needed to see. Its so great
seeing what the next generation is shaping to be. This particular style of
learning, the Kagan cooperative learning structure, encourages students to
develop their self-esteem, increase their level of thinking and overall help the
level of academic achievement expereicned by individual students. While still
creating an invaluable class climate. (Kagan Australia, 2015)
Outcome:
I feel as though I have learnt many different things from this new way. I
cannot wait to explore this further and learn s much as I can in the next four
weeks. My goal for this event is to try and ask as many questions/get involved
in as many ways as I can within the class. I want to learn as much as I can
and see if I can demonstrate these skills by the end of my placement.
References:

Kaganaustralia.com.au,. (2015). Home Page. Retrieved 30 November

2015, from http://www.kaganaustralia.com.au

Critical Incident Reflections

Critical Incident Reflection Week 2:
Description:
During this week I was able to teach quite consistently throughout the days.
There was one lesson in particular on the Friday, where it all went a little bit
south. The group of students are from each of the four Year 2/3 classes, they
are at the lower end of the scale with regards to their ability and mathematics.
There are a couple students with different disorders within the class and many
struggle with taking in new information and retaining it. The class consisted of
learning about the calendar and how to interpret it. Previous knowledge of the
topic included some of the students being able to list the names of the
months. All could order the days of the weeks.
Interpretation:
I guess this event was critical for me as I learnt about the different levels of
students and how it is this effects their learning. For instance, I completely lost
them in the initial introduction. They were restless, fiddling and not taking in
the new knowledge. However a class consisting of students towards the
higher end of the scale had more stamina with regards to tuning in and
absorbing knowledge. According to Steinbrenner and Watson (2015) student
engagement is a critical factor in learning and moving up academically both
with and without disabilities. It is suggested that engagement also has to do
with teacher behaviours. For instance I gave them quite a boring task to do, I
first modeled how to read a calendar on the whiteboard and then we sat in a
circle as a group and went through a worksheet together. This is where I lost
them because I spent way too much time introducing a topic and gave them
materials to play with.
Outcome:
I very quickly learnt (with the help of my AT) the importance of keeping things
short and effective with this particular group of students. She also suggested
giving them hands on activities during classes to help the concepts stick. If
particular students are known to have trouble I should ask them to come and
sit next to me in the group circle so that I can monitor their learning. I can also
play a quick game in between topics/activities to help them stay engaged.
These games are obviously related to what it is we are learning. My goal is to
try and break lessons up in chunks to allow students with small breaks from
constant learning. I need to remember to allow time to recap my lesson at the
end to ensure they have at least retained some of the new content.
References:

Dykstra Steinbrenner, J., & Watson, L. (2015). Student Engagement in

the Classroom: The Impact of Classroom, Teacher, and Student
Factors. J Autism Dev Disord, 45(8), 2392-2410.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-015-2406-9

Critical Incident Reflections

Critical Reflection Week 3:

Description:
During this week I was teaching full time. The first two days were
absolutely exhausting and quite overwhelming to be honest. Majority of
the classes were smooth and flowed really well however there was one
class (maths) that I really struggled with. The students are at the lower
end of the scale ability wise (with regards to maths) and have quite low
attention spans. They really struggle with concentrating for long periods
and this is exactly where it went wrong for the first lesson. I
unfortunately let the students stay at one task for two long, which
caused them to be quite disengaged and restless. As we were working
on money there was quite a difference in understandings within the
class and I needed more of a range of activities/adaptations to help all
students be engaged and on topic.
Interpretation:
Due to the lack of appropriate materials on hand to help activities be
adapted to suit all needs I found a lot of the students didnt get the most
out of their lesson. I had one large group on the floor with me and we
were working with toy money. This was actually more of a distraction
than benefit on the day as students were more fascinated with the
money rather than using it to work with. In the following lesson we had a
lot of activities to try and change it up for them. They worked a lot better
and were very engaged. We set them a lot of goals and time limits and
it really helped them stay on task, plus the activities were fun.
Outcome:
After this lesson I ended up having a really good discussion with my AT
who informed me to ensure that students are not at particular activities
for two long. She really let me develop my own understanding of how
the students worked best and then stepped in and provided the
necessary guidance. The following lesson was better planned and
thought out with regular activities to get the students up and involved
and learning in different ways. All students were engaged and learning
and we ended up having a really fun lesson playing shops and buying
items from classmates, they were all dealing with money, values,
counting in 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s and $1/$2 and adding both like and
different amounts.