7th June 2009 (Sunday)
It is hard to start with my third journal actually. I have been too lazy to start it over since I am done with the macro teaching and I know exactly the reason of being failed to get a good score. I feel like I lost all the courage and I am just too disappointed with myself for taking it too easy and eventually I failed to convey my lesson as what I had planned. I thought I could bring the lesson to an inquiry lesson but after all, it was just more to an explanation lesson. My course mates noticed me that I was just too serious and thought that I can do better than what I have done.
During the lesson, I saw one of my course mates pointing something and I was pretty sure that he was smiling and noticed about me being nervous in front of them. They could see the plastic bag that I was holding during the demonstration was shaking and every time I remember the incident, I just laughed at it and accept it because it is too hard to control my shaking hand when I feel nervous. I noticed that every time I do something despite I don’t feel I am nervous, yet my hands are still shaking and maybe it was because of my nervous system is too active (I am totally laugh at myself when I think of this but sometime it can let me down seriously). One of the reasons that resist me from doing a better presentation was because I was overwhelmed with the nervous problem.
But the major problem was I did not possess the necessary skill to conduct an inquiry lesson. I failed to probe further after one of my course mates stated the answer to the central guiding question that I had asked them to find out during the demonstration. I did not realized until Dr. Nurul mentioned about it during the commentary session. I think the lesson must be interesting if I had asked them further on how he knew about the ‘liquid being transferred equally to every part of the liquid and to the plastic wall’.
It is hard for me to apply questioning skill in my lesson since I am lack of this skill. But I believe that this is the challenge that I have to take in order to improve my teaching performance. In fact, I have seen Dr. Nurul implementing this skill during lectures and it was really helpful in eliciting student’s ideas and as an effective way to identify our misconception in Physics.
According to Dr. Nurul, in order to master this skill, we have to train ourselves by applying it in teaching or even in everyday life. Maybe I have to practice by questioning myself and probe it further until I satisfy with the answer or maybe I can also apply it to other people. In this case, I have to be persistent in learning and practicing it until me able to convey an inquiry lesson and hopefully able to ask an appropriate question or probe further spontaneously.
According to the journal that I have read about questioning skill, teacher must be a good listener as they have to listen to student’s ideas without judgmental and help them to reconstruct their idea by probing further until all students get the main idea of the concept.
To practice listening to understand according to the information that I read from internet, I should practice this; Quietening our mind. Give 100% of attention, being non-judgmental and paraphrasing-repeat what the person had said in my own words to demonstrate that I have understood the discussion and I have been actively listening.
I think I need to train myself to become a good listener as it is important to develop questioning skill. Besides that, I need to be knowledgeable with the topic that I am discussing with students because students may have a various answers and I have to be prepared to guide them to get them to the main point of the discussion.
In the information that I read on the internet, probing questions are questions that do not introduce a new topic but allow us to probe further to find out more information. For example; could you tell me more?”, “Could you give me an example?”, “Why was that?”, “Could you expand?” or “how does..?”, “how did you know?”, or a ‘why’ question. All these type of questions can be practiced but the central guiding question must be a question that does not merely solicit a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. I need to learn to create a central guiding question that stimulate students to think, means it requires teacher to build a question with a higher level of thinking such as analyzing, synthesizing, and it should promote student to think and answer scientifically.
Karron G. Lewis says in “Developing questioning skills”, Questions should play a central role in the learning process. Because of this, teachers need to plan questions carefully. This doesn't mean script writing; that would negate creative teaching. However, it does mean teachers need to carefully plan questions by thinking through possible questions which would guide the students toward further investigation and a deeper understanding of the concepts being stressed.
I am aware that it is important to have the skill of questioning and answering because I believe that this is the central to learning. Teacher as a ‘sage on stage’ are no longer an effective method of teaching and learning. I have to make sure that my students learn and gain an appropriate knowledge and skill in my lesson. Therefore, I will make sure that I always be well prepared in conducting my class.
I will make sure that my questions must be guided by definite aims. I should ask student a question to test their preparation in my lesson, build questions that arouse interest whereby bring them into the lesson by motivating them and to develop insights in such a way that cause them to see new relationships of concept in Physics. I will also emphasize in developing ideals, attitudes and appreciations by asking questions that cause students to get more than knowledge in the classroom.
In order to strengthen learning, I will always review and summarize what is taught and stimulate student’s critical thinking by develop a questioning attitude. I will also need to learn to create a question to test achievement of objectives whereby checking to see if what has been taught is "sank in".
I know that it is not easy to master any pedagogy skills but through perseverance and persistence in learning, I can improve my teaching skill. I have to take this as a challenge and always strive to become an inspiring teacher for others especially to my future students.
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