Reflection on the Simulated Teaching

Well, we are glad that our simulated teaching was conducted successfully. Getting to work as a big group was indeed a fruitful yet challenging experience for us.

We had chosen year 3 'multiplication within the times table of 6,7,8,9' as our topic. Therefore, in order to ensure full participation from the pupils, we had come out with a series of activities that we deemed were captivating and able to allure the pupils' interest.

The lesson kicked off when Asmah and Nurhayati introduced the topic of the day. We had hidden a few papers (with multiplication questions) under some pupils' chairs and those pupils had to answer the questions written on the papers. We considered it as a good way to begin a lesson as it will keep pupils attentive throughout the lesson. However, we were reminded by Mr Shahul that we should arrange the questions according to the level of difficulties (from easy to difficult). Therefore, our questions should be arranged like this:

1) 8+8 = 16 ---> 8x2=16

2) 7+7+7+7 = 28 ---> 7x4= 28

3) 6+6+6+6+6= 30 ---> 6x5=30

Our lesson then moved on with a singing session. We perceived it as a good way to draw pupils' attention. We had modified the 'old macdonald song' to 'multiplication song'. Overall, we felt that this session was quite effective as it helped pupils to memorize the times table in an easier and less stressful manner.

Next, we had also incorporated the element of cooperative learning in our lesson. Most of our activities centered around group work whereby pupils have to work in their own group and compete with other groups. We deemed that it was a good way to reinforce the spirit of team learning. When pupils work as group, they are able to help one another and this will definitely improve their learning. Overall, we noticed that pupils' responses were very encouraging. However, towards the end of the lesson, the class was rather chaotic as pupils went to the front to play the "Penguin Cone" game. We had instructed the pupils to queue up and answer the questions on the monitor. We could see that pupils were really excited and they were able to answer the questions within the allocated time. However, we had failed to notice that we had actually neglected the other groups while this group was answering the questions. Therefore, instead of letting the other pupils sit in their own places, we should have given them some tasks to do. These are certain aspects that we should take note.

Although it was merely a half-an-hour lesson, we had really learnt a lot from this session. Therefore, we hope that we can apply what we've learnt from this session in the future. We hope the same goes to the other groups as well! We should also keep this saying in our mind 'those who dare to teach must never cease to learn"!

All the best!