Reflective writing is important in effective teaching as it helps the teacher reflect and analyse lesson. This is important for the lecturer to gain more confidence in their abilities and to improve upon the areas that they are not confident in to help them gain more confidence and improve upon them.
It also helps the lecturer discover new teaching strategies to use in the session by thinking about what they did and how it could have been improved. They can select what to use next time to make it a more effective lecture.
By reflecting and trying different teaching strategies the teacher is not stuck in the type of learning that they like but they are using it to help them to improve as an effective teacher. Also, they can discover what type of learners their students are and use that when planning the lecture to cover all bases of learning so that each student understands what the lecturer is teaching within that lecture.
By recording it through programs on ICT or doing a reflective blog, it enables you to be clearer with the information where if you write it on paper it might get lost or you might not understand what you have written. I think using this blog to reflect on the lessons we’ve had on the programs and also how we would use technology in our teaching is a really effective way to communicate.
Sunday, 17 January 2016
Me and Microsoft
My experience with Microsoft has been a good one. Whilst I have not used all the programs on Microsoft, I have used several different programs these include: Word, PowerPoint, Publisher and Outlook. I have had good experiences with all of these programs.
Microsoft Word.
I use Microsoft word regularly, for essays, lesson planning, and lesson handouts. Word is a very simple and easy program to use by splitting things up into sections you can find what you want easily. Word is a program that even I would use Word to create lesson handouts which would aid my students in the area we were looking at in acting.
PowerPoint.
I don’t use PowerPoint as much as Word but I find it fairly easy to use, I would only use PowerPoint in my teaching if I felt it necessary and as I do acting it is not always appropriate to use. I might use it if I have to introduce a new practitioner and method and style of acting. The only negative to using PowerPoint is that it can be time-consuming to create but once you have created the PowerPoint then you have the resource to reuse and update for future classes. It can also be presented as a handout for students to use as reference point and to make notes on.
Publisher.
I have used Publisher to create posters for shows that I have done. One module on the BTEC course is “Marketing for the Performing Arts”. This often means that students need to design and produce posters to advertise their final performance. The students are assessed on the quality of their advertising and by default their ability to use ICT. As a lecturer, I have also used Publisher to create templates which I have used to support students who find this aspect of the course difficult.
Outlook.
I have used Outlook for the last 3 years as it is what we use for our student email. I find it very good as it has storage so you no longer have to send yourself your work, you can just save it onto your drive and pick it up from there.
Ed Excel
I can see the uses of Excel but I found it really hard to work as I didn’t fully understand it. The programme was really technical to use and I would have to take a lot of time to learn how to use it. I see that it would be good to use for keeping a register and knowing how much absence a student has had. It is essentially an efficient way of keeping records and monitoring students which I need to develop my skills in.
These are the main Microsoft office programs I use or have looked at during the I.C.T module. This part of the course has enabled me to see how certain programs have new applications, for example, using Word to reference texts.
Microsoft Word.
I use Microsoft word regularly, for essays, lesson planning, and lesson handouts. Word is a very simple and easy program to use by splitting things up into sections you can find what you want easily. Word is a program that even I would use Word to create lesson handouts which would aid my students in the area we were looking at in acting.
PowerPoint.
I don’t use PowerPoint as much as Word but I find it fairly easy to use, I would only use PowerPoint in my teaching if I felt it necessary and as I do acting it is not always appropriate to use. I might use it if I have to introduce a new practitioner and method and style of acting. The only negative to using PowerPoint is that it can be time-consuming to create but once you have created the PowerPoint then you have the resource to reuse and update for future classes. It can also be presented as a handout for students to use as reference point and to make notes on.
Publisher.
I have used Publisher to create posters for shows that I have done. One module on the BTEC course is “Marketing for the Performing Arts”. This often means that students need to design and produce posters to advertise their final performance. The students are assessed on the quality of their advertising and by default their ability to use ICT. As a lecturer, I have also used Publisher to create templates which I have used to support students who find this aspect of the course difficult.
Outlook.
I have used Outlook for the last 3 years as it is what we use for our student email. I find it very good as it has storage so you no longer have to send yourself your work, you can just save it onto your drive and pick it up from there.
Ed Excel
I can see the uses of Excel but I found it really hard to work as I didn’t fully understand it. The programme was really technical to use and I would have to take a lot of time to learn how to use it. I see that it would be good to use for keeping a register and knowing how much absence a student has had. It is essentially an efficient way of keeping records and monitoring students which I need to develop my skills in.
These are the main Microsoft office programs I use or have looked at during the I.C.T module. This part of the course has enabled me to see how certain programs have new applications, for example, using Word to reference texts.
Padlet
This online program is great for students to look at other people’s ideas and use them as a springboard. It is interactive and would be good for students to interact without having the problem of the students talking over each other and everyone being able to express themselves in a controlled manner. If there were resources within the teaching space I would use this program for students to express their opinions, thoughts and feelings about the area within the subject that they would be looking at in class.
Kahoot
I liked the program Kahoot when we first got shown it but I don’t think I would be able to use it within my subject area as it is an assessment program. It would not suit the type of assessment that my students would do. As the assessments my students normally do are performance and presentation assessments.
Socrative
I liked Socrative because of how simple and easy it was to use and I would love to find a way to use it in my classes. Unfortunately just like Kahoot it would not be an appropriate assessment strategy. Like Kahoot it is a quiz assessment program, I would maybe be able to use it if I had just taught a class on a practitioner and I had the facilities but I would not use it as a formative assessment strategy. The assessments my students have to do are practical and performance.
Nearpod
I also liked Nearpod as it is an interactive program and I think it would work really well in one of my lectures that I teach “Marketing for the Performing arts.” As the students don’t like the fact that the lessons are not always interactive, I would use this as a tool to make the lesson interactive for the student and get them involved in the session. The students can view the presentation on their phones or tablets which helps in classes like mine where you can’t always get computers in the room. Nearpod also lets you add in questions in the presentations for the students to do so you know where your students are and what they have learnt.
Prezi
I found Prezi hard to get to grips with at first but after some time of trial and error with the program, I got used to using it and feel like it is a really creative way of making a presentation without using PowerPoint. With Prezi, the design of the slides is already done as they have basic format backgrounds or you can create your own. If I had the correct resources in my classroom I would use this program the same as I would with PowerPoint for giving facts on a practitioner their method and how they came up with their method.
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