Microteaching: Feedback and Reflection
Microteaching: Feedback and Reflection
Despite the various technical difficulties, everyone enjoyed the topic of the session—a different way of seeing text— and it progressed mostly as expected. The way I had done this session IRL didn’t really work online, and it would have been better to do this in a simpler way. Next time I will label the different parts of the text (A,B,C, etc.) and get everyone to insert those figures into their own drawing on the plan. Then during the discussion people can show this drawing to the camera— this worked really well in Ruth’s session.
However, the collaborative drawing we did produce in the session, while being slightly chaotic, was an interesting palimpsest that definitely spatialised the language we were working with. On reflection, the most interesting thing about the task was that different people imagined different parts of the building to structure their paragraph. While I had originally envisaged the staircase being the ‘link’ part of the PEEL paragraph structure, most people in the group thought the stair would be the ‘evidence’ part because this is usually the spine of the essay. Ruth’s session was about how everyone sees the same thing differently, and I think this is particularly apparent here. In the future I would like to run different tests of the session to observe whether there is a consensus about how students imagine language as space and whether there needs to a consensus for spatial writing to be an effective teaching tool.
Feedback and Notes for the other Participants
Affan Hameed
Feedback
The session looked at how Market capitalisation works and the task was to research this in real time and see how it impacts the worth of a company. While this is something I didn’t have much knowledge of I enjoyed the session and using immediate online resources was engaging. However, there was lots of text on each slide and it difficult to digest that while listening to Affan. This could have been helped by describing the aims of the session at the start and a clear definition of Market Capitalisation so I knew what to look for. I think some more diagrams would have helped with understanding the content, much like Stine’s greek temple example that was used to explain differences in sustainability definition.
Stine Hedegaard
Session Notes
Sustainability and companies. What is the definition of sustainability?
Thinking of it as a house is really good and clear!!!
Why is one company more sustainable that another? There is usually a problem with definition.
Shirt from Celine and H&M — which is the most sustainable?
Lainy thinks Celine because it’s made from cotton, though H&M has an organic range.
Celine = Materials? Smaller brand so more suitable.
H&M = bigger so can be more sustainable
It is opinion and depends on what definition is used. How can such a large company be sustainable?
How can you predict how long people will use something for?
Final example: fur coat controversial because we are killing animals. However, you could see it as sustainable because people use them for so long and pass them on from generation to generation.
There can’t be a universal concept of sustainability
Good that there wasn’t a right answer and you made this clear from beginning. This made the discussion element very important from the beginning. This is good for tackling student confusion and making them comfortable with not knowing.
Feedback
This was a really fun and engaging task and the core ideas were explained in an accessible way. It was concerned with how the definition of sustainable varies a lot and so it’s hard to say which companies are sustainable. It was good that there wasn’t a ‘right’ answer to the core question and this was made clear from beginning. This made the discussion element very important from the beginning. This is good for tackling student confusion and making them comfortable with not knowing.
Ruth Lang
Session Notes
How do we see?
How do we all draw the same thing? Something about our own background determines what we see and how we capture it.
What is the image? Ask your why three time?
How little you can know by looking at something…
Do we look at what the image is or what it is made from?
How you present information to students and how they all see it differently. Presenting information is never neutral.
What did the words capture and what did the drawing capture?
Seeing is not a fact, but there ambiguity in the reading — a fiction
What should we do now to help us? The importance of discussion and play in approaching concrete meaning?
Twin the presentation with a discussion to show the difference. Which one works best?
The drawing was simpler than the words.
Feedback
As I mentioned above this session was about how students can see the exact same thing different. At one point there was a comparison between visual perception and written perception of an image. The written element was trickier for people to understanding and it was suggested that there could be a comparison between two different types of drawing instead; one could be a personal drawing and the other a collective creation to show a more direction comparison. If everyone sees the same image different what can we do as teachers to ameliorate this problem?
Lainy Malkani
Session Notes
Convergent media from radio to podcast
Imagine the object as sound
A short story board of sound to create a story
Think in four different sounds? A listener gets a more physical reaction from sound.
What are my horrible sounds? They are:
Blackboard
Mud
Mice
What are the sounds around me? They are:
Cars
Trees
Hum from computer
This made me feel confused that they are sometimes quite similar.
Does silence have a sound? Yes!
Voice is also a sound, not just a content provider.
Is the sound of someone opening a door the same as someone closing it?
Make your own sound sequence:
Knock knock. Silence. The sound of footsteps getting quieter.
Individual sounds don’t make the full picture.
Really great! Made me think about how sound impacts my understanding of the world.
Feedback
This was a really interesting session about something I’ve not really considered. It also started with a question that wasn’t answered until the end—definitely keeping me hooked throughout. At one point we were asked to make our own sound sequence and it may have been easier to have a prompt for this, maybe it could have been interesting to see how people applied different sounds to the same visual sequence or story prompt.