MY REFLECTION ON MICROTEACHING

WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS TO RECEIVING AND GIVING FEEDBACKS?

       It was awesome to know not only what I did well but also what I did bad because that’s the way I will learn how to improve my skills. It is very important to listen to people when they give you a piece of advice because they do it with the best intentions; as a result, you can check and improve your weaknesses. 

        When you give feedback, you realize that you can learn from others because they also have weaknesses and strengths; as a result, when you are seeing them, you think and say: ‘’umm.. I also made those mistakes’’ or ‘’I also need to improve those aspects’’. Finally, I took many things that my colleagues did and I tried to grab their reviews in order to overcome my strengths.

WHAT THEMES EMERGED IN THE FEEDBACK ABOUT YOUR TEACHING? ANYTHING SURPRISING? WHAT WERE YOUR STRENGTHS? HOW CAN YOU BUILD UPON THEM?

             I am aware that I have to improve my pronunciation and that is something a colleague said. It was not a surprise for me; the matter is when I feel nervous I forget to care about my pronunciation. Then, I start talking and talking and forget many things. I am aware the posters had not so much color too.

          I started motivated because I like when students feel motivated too and I also like to move and ask students about the topic. I know that I need to improve many skills and feel more confident when I am teaching because students feel the energy of the teacher and if they feel that I am not motivated I might lose their attention.

3th Entry

1.    In what ways have you experienced “suffering” as a student teacher?

Has your suffering had any redemptive quality to it; that is, has it made you heart larger?

What would help you deepen the redemptive quality of the suffering your experience in your work?

        I have experienced some sufferings which make me feel down in the dumps. For example I sometimes feel disappointed not only because the lack of time but also because the lack of knowledge. Besides, If you feel that there is a lack of knowledge, you might feel that you are not in the right academic  way; however, I need to pull out all the stops and to break my back to continue with this major because this is the major that I like the most. I think every single thing we do has not only difficulties, but also rewards. At the beginning of this chapter I can see something that catches my attention: (page 62) ''I may be mistaken for someone who excuses poor technique, arguing teachers just to ''be themselves''; who believes there are no standards for truth, just ''whatever you think it is''; who doesn't care about the content of your thoughts, just as long as you ''share what you feel.'' 
 That's why I don't feel comfortable when I think I have that lack of knowledge, besides I have had some teachers who have lost that passion for teaching because their lack of knowledge.

I know that this suffering will make me push myself to the limit.

 

2.    Name some of your key gifts or strengths as a teacher. Now name a struggle or difficulty you commonly have in teaching.  How do you understand the relation between your profile of giftedness and the kind of trouble you typically get into in the classroom?

When I get excited about the topic, I like to help students understand it and the students also feel animated, motivated and interested in the class. I truly believe that we as teachers must demonstrate that we like to teach, even when we feel depressed about anything. I think my own energy to teach is one of my strengths. However, I sometimes feel disappointed because students learn in a slow way, but I guess I have to be patient. I really think that we as teachers must know every student and listen to them carefully in order to help everyone. As it says in page 69: ‘’An aptitude for asking good questions and listening carefully to my students’ responses – not only to what they say but also to what they leave unsaid.’’

3.    Describe a moment in teaching when things went so well you knew you were “born to teach” and compare it to a moment in which things went so poorly you wished you had never been born! Name the gifts that made this good moment possible—not the techniques you used or the moves you made, but your qualities.

I remember an experience in which the class was really boring, and then I stopped giving the class. Students were in a black mood, then I wrote many different questions on the board and started asking questions everyone, and all of a sudden everyone got ants in his pants. I think I took the bull by the horns and the class became interesting again. What Palmer says is true: becoming aware of our gifts can help us teach more consistently from our identity and integrity. (Page 69)

4.   Palmer discusses six paradoxes of pedagogical design (pp.73-83). Choose one to focus on.  Share examples of teaching environments you have experienced where this paradox is honored.  Have you ever been in a classroom where only half of the paradox was honored while the other half was ignored? Describe what that classroom was like.

No 4: The space should not honor the ‘’little’’ stories of the individual and the ‘’big’’ stories of the disciplines and tradition.

I remember a teacher who always was telling us stories about his life, but he never taught us about the lesson. In this paradox () is necessary to perform a balance between the topic of the lesson and the individual stories in order to maintain the flow of the lesson. We as students could feel good; nevertheless, we didn’t learn so much in that year.

5.   What questions are you living at this stage of your life—from “How can I get up in the morning? To “How can I become a good teacher? Are the questions you are now living the ones you want to live? If not, what questions would you like to be living? How might you hold these questions at the center of your attention?

When I get up everyday I ask myself:  Will it be worth it? 
Then I remember the things I learn

everyday; and as I see it, it will be worth it. 


I also ask myself: how can I become a teacher? And the answer is to practice all the time. As far as I am concerned, I agree with Palmer: ‘’…the point is to live everything. Live the contradictions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the paradox.’’  (Page 86)

2nd Entry

I.               What are some of your fears in the classroom?
 How have you dealt with them? What
Have you learned about yourself and about fear as a result?

I think we don’t take in account what Palmer says about the student’s fears (page 37) because we are thinking too much in ourselves and we don’t realize that students might also feel afraid of failing, not understanding and look foolish in front of their peers. We must overcome our fears and we must be sure that our students feel comfortable without fear of participating or giving their opinions, otherwise the education will be paralyzed as Palmer says.

Another thing is that fear is not always something bad because we sometimes can feel some kind of fear that makes us challenge our worries. (Page 39) If we are afraid of making a mistake in class, giving a poor class or not having the required skills to do the job, we will study hard, we will prepare ourselves better and we are going to make sure that we are skillful teachers because of the fear that we feel.

The book also tells us that there is a reason for our blindness to our students and it is because the  fear that we feel in our selves. (page 47)

 

When I came to the classroom the first time I didn’t know what to do because I was afraid to be too rude or to be too friendly with students and what consequences could bring to me.

Now one of my fears is to lose the control of the class, because sometimes students start doing a mess in the classroom.  I truly believe that we as teachers must maintain the control of the class without showing us as too boring, rude or rigid. Moreover we must be friendly but respecting the line between students and teacher, otherwise students could think that they don’t need to show us respect.  

I have dealt with my fears through the time I have been teaching. One of my fears is when they ask something and I could not have the answer that is something that we must avoid because they will think we don’t have the skills to teach them. I learnt how to deal with this fear by studying a lot, being prepared for the class and the words they could ask in that class. I learnt too much from students but also from myself. I learnt that is not the time that tells us how to teach but our devotion and dedication. 

II.              Palmer writes, “Good teaching is an act of hospitality toward the young, and
hospitality is always an act that benefits the host even more than the guest”
(p. 50). In what specific ways do you think a teacher has to be hospitable to
students? In what ways do they treat them as unwelcome guests? How do teachers benefit from practicing hospitality toward students?

When the teacher creates a good environment, he allows students to feel comfortable in the class; this makes students want to get involved in the class. 

A teacher must be hospitable with students first;  letting them feel that they are in a safe place in which they can have the opportunity to participate without receiving a disgusting signal from the teacher every time they give their opinions.

It is an act that benefits the teacher because is easier for the teacher to work with happy students who have a good image of the teacher than students who hate a teacher. In addition hospitable doesn’t mean that you are going to let them do what they want because they are going to do a mess. The benefit of being hospitable with students is that if we respect students, they will respect us; if we make them feel comfortable with our class and our treat to them, they will response of the same way. Finally in a way what we want is to have a good atmosphere in which students and teacher can work together. 

III.          Write about a fear, not necessarily related to teaching that once controlled you, but no longer does. What caused you to confront that fear? What helped you
get loose from it? What were the results? What did you learn?

Being around a crowd of people have been always my fear, I struggled with that fear and now I feel more confident. But that doesn’t mean that the problem is covered, what comes to my mind is; what people are thinking while I am talking? Am I saying the things right? It is a despair, now I am aware of that everybody makes mistakes and I try to overcome it

IV.       Evelyn Fox Keller says of Nobel Prize—winner Barbara McClintock that her knowing came from “the highest form of love, love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of difference” (pp. 55).  Does this kind of love have a place in education? If not, why not? If so, how might it be taught? How might it make a difference if we could teach students to love the world in this way?

That quote is really true because love is a powerful feeling that connects us to each other and makes us understand what other people think. May be when we love we have an idea of what are the people’s needs and what they are looking for in life, in our case if we love our students and we realize that they are real people like us, we can understand what are their needs. Even if we set the line between them and us, we can try to go deeply in their minds and their hearts to discover what they want of the class, of us and of life. We could change their minds in order to make them reach their goals in life if they feel like fish out of water in life. 

Love is an important part of our lives. We are humans and need to feel wanted that somebody worries about us, about our feelings and our needs. when we meet someone who doesn't care about us, we feel listless with that person. We don't want that our students feel listless with us. we want that every student behave of a good manner with us so that we need to show them that we care about them.