MY FINAL REFLECTION- NIVEL SECUNDARIO

Description:

My teaching practice this year was quite peculiar. Due to the pandemic and the strict confinement of schools, we had to resort to virtuality and its numerous tools and hence be more creative in our planning.

It was very rewarding to plan my classes in this way as I learned substantially about technology and its countless resources. I have not been an expert in computer science so although sometimes it costed me considerably, it was also very significant since I learned a lot as a student and teacher at the same time.

I am very grateful to my tutor who always gave us all her support and  the opportunity to learn about new virtual ways of teaching and learning, as well as constant and excellent guidance in our practices.

Feelings:

From the beginning I felt that it was going to be a very challenging practice since it is not easy to motivate teenage high school students. You have to be very up to date on the topics that interest them and have appropriate contexts according to their personalities and feelings. However, the fact of not having face-to-face classes relaxed me a little more and I began to gain confidence in the preparation of the classes and see the themes that best suited their psychology. The tutor helped us a lot in this sense since she proposed some topics very much in line with the tastes of adolescents.

I believe that the practicum was very demanding and it is therefore stressful and exhausting to have to work on complete teaching units. However, I felt very comfortable finishing them and it was absolutely worthy and meaningful with the tutor's feedback and support.

 

Evaluation

Since the most difficult part for me was creating funny and meaningful activities for teenagers at the same time, I focused a lot on trying to catch their attention with appealing warm ups activities so that they will be interested from the start. I tried to find suitable contexts and use a variety of learning strategies so that they would move as smoothly as possible from one activity to another. Maybe what I needed to work a little more was the use of ICT tools in the creation of activities and games according to the proposed objectives of the lesson.

The topics that I chose for my practice were mainly the life experiences of some people that influence modern life in some way and also the topic of entertainment. I believe that these are topics that are of great interest to today's youth who are constantly looking for models (good or bad) to follow and that’s why it is good for them to reflect a little on the extent to which such experiences are convenient for one as a young person. As Covington (1998) states: " to emphasize the importance of the beliefs learners hold about themselves, and therefore their level of aspiration and the kinds of strategies they operate or can be taught to adopt, in order to achieve what they want for themselves”.

Analysis:

Undoubtedly, this last teaching practicum has been very challenging for me, not only because of the modality to which we were forced, but also because of how difficult it has been for me to be up to date with the use of technological tools and to realize how they are powerfully influencing the education today and the minds of students.

the practicum period together with the subject Didactic III gave me the convenience to exercise my critical thinking and to prove my expertise as a teacher to the maximum. With them I had the opportunity to further explore teaching and learning strategies, use the best bibliography given in these years of study and also try to find the best methodologies on how to reach students and better prepare my lesson plans.

 

Conclusion:

To conclude, I could say that although my secondary practicum period was one of the most difficult for me, it was also the one in which I learned the most from the pedagogical point of view, either in the knowledge of new teaching tools or in discovering the importance that the student has and how to reach him/her.

 I also learned that there are many factors that influence a good class. It is not just being in front of a group of students and giving a specific content. I learned about the importance of motivating students, having clearer objectives not only about the language to be learned, but also about what I want students to achieve, and how to handle this process in an adequate sequence of activities. All this work would be impossible without the appropriate feedback and assessment that my tutor gave me and that constantly motivated me to do it better each time.

Action plan:

I think there are always aspects to improve in a lesson plan. It is an integral part of the teacher training process. In my specific case, I would work more on the social problems of different cultures with ICT tools and make the students more participative in the construction of the activities to be given in a class. I think they are points that create a good bond with the students and of the students with the knowledge of the language.

Gustavo Rendon