Teaching Essay

1.1 How teaching assistant can support the teacher in planning, teaching and evaluation of learning activities. Prior to the lesson I requested a copy of the teachers’ plans and after discussions we were able to agree using a variety of lesson plans, teaching methods, and implement targets to provide the most effective support to pupils and their needs, this gave me a clearer understanding of the learning that was going to take place and allow me time to familiarising myself with the subject matter, learning objectives and outcomes, this would also assist me to prepare any resources required for the planned lesson ahead. After agreeing the objectives of the lesson ‘Drip Drop’, were to explore some of the properties of water, to explore absorbent and non-absorbent materials and to find out how water drops behave on different surfaces. By asking for copies of the teacher’s long, medium, short-term planning, this helped me to provide extra support in the classroom by developing my understanding of the weeks and daily planning process and to set learning objectives, preparing, assessing and recording pupils’ participation and progression allow the teacher to see how effective my teaching is and whether the pupils are making progress in their learning. The role of the teacher is to supply a safe and supervised classroom for the pupils to learn in, encourage pupil learning by planning, preparing and delivering lessons in relation to the National Curriculum and meet school target whilst maintain its policies. The teacher assesses records and report on pupil’s progress and achievements and liaise with parents, sometimes attending meetings or responsible for literacy or science. Preparing the classroom for the lesson, checking the correct materials available to carry out the activity helps the teacher. Observation and monitoring of pupils work during the task helps me to make assessments to see if the learning has been successful and give feedback to the pupil and teacher on individuals performance or responses, if they have any problems, by doing this it helps me to make well-informed judgements about a pupils learning and progress and make any changes necessary to the activity. 1.2 Information the teaching assistant would require before supporting learning activities From the daily lesson plan I am able to identify the materials required for the lesson to complete the task. After reading the pupil’s records and initial assessment a decision was made to put the more experienced pupils with the ones who were not as confident to enable them to assist, encourage, help and work together to complete the task successfully. A class discussion was held to see if the pupils could think of the materials which would be required to complete the task I then wrote the answers on the whiteboard. The materials were absorbent and non-absorbent materials like plastic, paper and cardboard etc and things with which to make water drops for example, straws, plastic pipettes, and clean eye droppers, as water was going to be used a non toxic coloured paint was required to put in the water to make it easier to see, because I used the last of the cardboard I wrote this down on the reorder list. I emphasised everyone needed to act sensibly because sharp items were going to be used. I showed the class how to make drops with the different kinds of objects and gave them time to practice making water drops and try to make drops of different sizes. When they had mastered this I asked the pupils to drip onto samples of different materials. I asked them to see what happened when two, or more, drops meet, on a hard and non-absorbent surface. Later I separate the pupils into pairs and asked them: Can they race their drop with a friend? 1.3 The sorts of problems that may occur when supporting learning activities Informing the teacher before removing unwanted chairs made sure there was sufficient space for the pupils and equipment to work safely prior to the learning activity and by placing four pupils on each table gave better access to the water tubs and avoiding pupils pushing each other. The pipettes and resources were placed safely in the middle of each table. Before the lesson it was explained to suck the water up the straw was dangerous and requested the pupils to just dip the straw in the water, I asked if they knew why and explained about choking and emphasised about being sensible, the pupils’ then put on their aprons to protect their clothing. The pupils who found listening difficult, I put the questions onto laminated cards for easy reference explaining that I was going to ask those questions about the information later. I also wrote down the key questions on the whiteboard. Can you make different size drop? What happens to the drops when you drip them onto different surfaces? Can you make two drops join? What Happens? Whilst monitoring I removed a pupil from the activity for putting the pipette in his ear. The child was placed away from the activity, asking the pupil if he understood why he had been separated it was explained if he wanted to rejoin the activity he would need to act sensibly, after 10 minutes the pupil calmed down, and was asked to rejoined the group, giving the pupil encouragement and praise for better behaviour enabled the pupil to complete the task successfully. When the activity had finished I discussed with the pupil his behaviour and found he was upset because his hamster had died, I later discussed this with the teacher. After shutting the windows I relocated a pupil to a quieter part of the classroom as the noise of grass cutting was causing a distraction. The hot weather made the room too warm, two pupils started to flick each other with water I opened the classroom door to reduce the temperature and with a direct look and raised eyebrow showed displeasure at the pupils then separated them. Noticing one of the cheerful pupils was rather withdrawn and after talking they revealed that their Nan had died that morning I reassured the pupil and asked if they would like to read a poem about water, I then informed the teacher. Encouragement by praising their progress was given to the pupils with low confidence and pupils who finished their task early were asked to write a poem about their observations or about the drop race. After the activity was complete we had a class discussion asking pupils, how do you think it went? What would you do differently? I then asked the pupils to write down their observations in their books with correct date. 1.4 Strategies a teaching assistant may use to support pupils learning By using questions ‘What we think will happen’?, and writing down all the key points this confirmed the pupils understood the instructions prior to the activity and helped the class know what was expected of them. Placing the low confident pupils at the front of the class and rephrasing questions enabled them to understand the instructions more clearly. After discussion with another teaching assistant it was decided to enlarge the worksheet to A3 size to make it easier for the pupils who were struggling, encouraging them to write down their ideas then stick them onto the worksheet later and giving praise when the task was completed. Separating pupils into groups allowed the development of peer support activities and cooperative learning, allowing the pupils to benefit by learning and supporting each other. The pupils with confidence worked on their own initiative were able to write their own ideas directly onto the worksheet. Bandura, Skinner, Piaget and Vygotsky discuss that cognitive development occurs at an individual rate and cultures teaches a person what to think as well as how to think. I agree that children are not just passive discovers, they are constantly trying to make sense of the information they see, hear, feel and discover enabling some children to develop quicker than others. At the end of the activity reward stickers were given for using the correctly vocabulary in their poems and a discussion was held by using open-ended questions of (how, what, why?) this provided me with more information to enable me to assess the pupils’ learning and understanding and provide me with the information required to feedback later to the teacher 1.5 Providing feedback on learning activities to the teacher Both during and after supporting the learning activity, I recorded the pupils’ participation and progression and met later with the teacher, to give feedback regarding the issues encountered during the activity, I discussed the pupil who’s relative died and about the pupil behaving inappropriately during the session and being separated from the group. I informed the teacher why the worksheet was enlarged and why the laminated card was useful. I also explained I gave out some stickers for correct spelling and punctuation.