Wednesday August 8^th 2012

Day Twenty Three at Mountain Creek State High School

Today was awesome!! Session 2 was my first time with my year 12 REC class. My lesson plan was for them to get through some basic Oz Tag drills and lead up to game play. We combined with another class making it a total of about 25 students. I learned from my mistakes when I taught my first lesson on the oval with my year 8 students. I used those mistakes and corrected them this time around. I had a better sense of space, equipment, and how to get the drills ready for the students. This really made a huge difference with my confidence in the lesson. Once I started off strong giving them my signal for attention and expectations, they all seemed to be very respectful! We got through the warm up and practice drills quickly and efficiently. I was so happy and so was my teacher. She was so proud with how much I had improved! This is one of the reasons I just love criticism; I like to take what I was told and correct it. If I can’t correct it, then I know it is something I really need to focus on. Because the students knew to ‘stop, look, and listen’ at my whistle it helped me in moving from drill to drill faster. Once we got into game play, I was able to stop them throughout and pin-point on students to teach them all a new rule of Oz Tag. It worked so smooth and the students caught on quick. I felt prepared and well organized which made me at ease throughout my lesson. During session 4 I was a bit nervous to talk about STIs in front of 13 year old students, however I got through it. I wanted them to pay close attention so I created a worksheet that went along with each slide right in order. This was a good idea because it kept the students taking notes, but they were structured notes so that they can now study from them. Their reactions were what I expected, a lot of ‘ews’ and ‘oh my gods’. This is usually a chatty class and I was so proud of them for being great listeners during the forty five minute lecture. The last bit of class we had some fun learning all the steps on how to properly put on a condom and take one off. I was surprised how detailed I has to be with the students, but I know it is actually a really good idea to ensure safe sex. All the students were handed condoms and we pretty much just let them play with them. There were three fake penis’ and they were passed around. It was really great to notice that most of these students had trouble even just opening the package, meaning very inexperienced! Because we had already gone over this when the school Nurse came in, my teacher and I wanted to let them chat and have fun while doing this activity after being such great listeners. Some of the girls actually blew the condoms up bigger than the size of two watermelons! It was a good learning experience because I then stopped the class and showed them that no matter what a man says, a condom can stretch VERY far and they will almost always fit! I am starting to really enjoy being up in front of a classroom. Sometimes I like being with the older students and it is almost an easier job. But sometimes I find myself really enjoying these younger students and wondering if I could be happy in a classroom of a primary school. It’s crazy how student teaching makes you question everything you’ve thought for so long. I wonder where I will end up!