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Year 11 GCSE Coursework Lessons

By Observations, PGCE, POT 2, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Working with year 11 Course work

I have been team teaching year 11 coursework lessons that are a completely different approach to normal guided teaching. The first thing is that they are all working away on their own documents and so they are all at different levels this means that you have to initially be familiar with the actual coursework requirements and structure. I have been spending the time reading through the Candidate booklet and familiarizing myself with what exactly the pupils have to do.

The pupils here are KES are doing the AQA syllabus and have to create two tasks

1) Set up a website for the driving school.

2) Set up a system to manage driving lessons and provide a link to it on the website.

So currently as they are on the old spec they are allowed to have a pre made template with headings and guidelines. They then have to do the following to create the project and then write it up in this format.

There is an analysis section that applies to both (10 marks)

Then they have to do a write up on each of these areas below

Design (20 Marks)

Implementation (40 Marks)

Testing (10 Marks)

Self Evaluation (8 Marks)

Report (6 Marks)

Evaluation of others use of ICT (6)

Total (100)

Currently the pupils I have joined are at a stage where they should have completed a preliminary stage of each of these areas some of them are at varying levels and have created a comprehensive report and others are quite far behind for example one pupil has almost finished with a 250 page report and another has still not completed making his website.

They key to helping out in a course work lesson is to be able answer questions that arise swiftly in a ‘get in get out fashion’. The way to be able to offer this assistance is to have a solid understanding of the exam board and the mark scheme so that you know exactly what is required.

I have already been looking through some of their work that they have been handing in at intervals and I have made corrections to the work. This is another way of getting to grips with the mark scheme and what they have to do to achieve the higher grades. This interval hand is a big demand on the teacher but is vital to offer

Here at KES there is a high demand to do well with most pupils aiming at the A-A* grade which means that you have to be really stringent when it comes to the actual mark scheme. This is obviously way above the national average that most state schools would achieve but is a good standard to reach and push to if I was to work in a State School.

11/03/2011

Copyright – Year 9MQB4 – OCR Nationals

By Observations, PGCE, Reflection, TeachingNo Comments

Formal Lesson observation

This was my first formal lesson observation from my university tutor. I was quite nervous about it as I really wanted to impress. I found myself planning all evening and tried my best to make sure that all my resources and activities were just right. 

The actual lesson went well with no major issues. I was happy with what I delivered and though they could have achieved a bit more written work I think they would have enjoyed it and I could tell they had learned something. It was an ambitious lesson to try and I feel that I managed it well.

I tried to use some post it notes to get the kids thinking about how all they have to do is write something down to copyright it and so i aske them to do this. I then had some great advice which was to extend this by saying how would you feel if i went and sold each one of these to pay for my next holiday to Kenya. This would have been a great way to get the higher level of blooms taxonomy.

I found that my feed back from my tutor was far but quite hypercritical which was hard to swallow at first as I really did try my best. I think I am still having to come to terms with the fact that I am not going to perfect yet and actually teaching is always about seeing how you can do things better next time. So the advice was great and I can see why they push us and try and find areas of weakness. 

  • I need to concentrate on listening more to the responses from the pupils during questioning time and then if they
    are good expanding on this and asking other pupils to engage with it.
  • Identifying the areas of strength and spikes in learning and praising that highly.
  • I need to really make sure that they get on task quicker and give them options if they are not starting the work
    and making clear the expectation on them to work or get a sanction.
  • Continued work on low level disruption.

All in all I think that it’s necessary to be humble and then strive to be the best.

 Please take a look at the following to get an idea of how the lesson worked and what resources i used followed by my observation report. 

Lesson observation report = http://bit.ly/gZBzno 

Copyright PowerPoint =  http://bit.ly/e9SdK4 

 Lesson Plan and Evaluation of lesson = http://bit.ly/i04wPg

25/11/2010

Diploma Year 10 Observation

By Observations, PGCE, TeachingNo Comments

Key Points

  • Use of questions when going through a PowerPoint that could be really boring is a good way to bring the learning to life and to get the pupils thinking about the key concepts.
  • It is important to question and asses if the pupils know what key terms mean.
  • Use of iPlayer and apprentice to make its fun and relevant. This really motivated the pupils as the actually enjoyed the clip
  • When using a video it’s important that you get them to think of some key points and make notes on those key areas.
  • Really good technique is to use RM tutor to pop up questions on their screens to answer whilst watching the video.

 

04/11/2010
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