Online Microteaching Blog

REFLECTIONS ON MY MICROTEACHING COMPONENT:

Within my online microteaching, I was blessed enough to be put into such an interactive and lively group, as well as present my online teaching component in the best manner I knew how.

When it comes to the online teaching space itself, I enjoyed the feel of teaching online when it comes to the slides and different methods to display information, instead of standing in front of a class and having them focus their attention solely on the teacher alone. I can see how it could get frustrating however, as it can be difficult to see if learners understand the content or if they are just saying that due to their peers saying they understand. I prefer to see facial expressions within the classroom setting, but there is much fun to have in an online teaching session as well. This online microteaching taught me some new skills on how to present to my peers in an online space, how to manage and work on blackboard collaborate, as well as how to take my lessons up a step by making them for the online space. I also increased my knowledge of how to make my slides more engaging and creative, which will benefit me within the classroom setting.

When going through my padlet comments from my fellow peers, and looking back at my overall online teaching, I can say that I do feel like I got the message across that I wanted to within my lesson, however, there are always components I can improve on.

Starting from the beginning, I think my rationale component before my lesson commenced was well explained and detailed enough to get my entire lesson's thoughts and ideas across to those listening to me, however, as one of my peers did bring to my attention in her comments, I do feel that I could have made an actual presentation for my rationale component instead of just speaking over the mic on the collaborate session. This would have allowed my peers and moderator to follow along while I was speaking, to benefit them more.

Moving onto my actual lesson, I do feel like I thoroughly prepared and practiced my lesson as a whole, ensuring it was structured well and I had the needed knowledge to answer questions without hesitation. My way of speaking to my peers (as learners) was clear and informative, all while interacting and getting them involved throughout the entirety of the Space Lesson. I enjoyed how I was able to bring into context the whole of space, and then narrow it down to stars and planets to explain in more detail how certain things occur and what makes them unique. Both of my peers did bring to my attention the fact that I might have learners in my classroom who would be too shy to step forward and answer a question if called on directly, and I do agree with this. I also feel like within an online space they could be a bit more hesitant due to the uncomfortable space they have to work on, but I do believe that within my classroom I will know the learners I can call on directly, and those I'll need to push a little out of their comfort zone to answer direct questions. I enjoyed presenting my lesson, and I do feel that next time I do an online lesson I would like to look more into the different online tools and find one a bit more complex and fun, other than Kahoot. For this lesson in itself, I feel like Kahoot was a good online tool to test my peer's knowledge of what I taught, but I do think that there are equally - if not better, online tools that could do the same thing.

Overall I do thing this online teaching component has set me up in becoming a better, more knowledgeable teacher. It has shown me ways in which I can interact and involve my learners in my lessons, but it has also given me the knowledge on how to deal with the situation if it ever happened again where schooling went purely online for the time being like in COVID. I learned a lot throughout this experience, and honestly, I would choose to do it again and learn even more from not only my skills but also from that of my peers. I saw so many new techniques used by my peers within my group, which I will most definitely take with me into my classroom (and online spaces) in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to read through my reflection, please take a moment to leave a comment or any advice you would give me going further into my teaching journey 🤍