2008-02-07 15:50:00
Oh. My. God. I was so nervous this morning, it's unbelievable!
This morning I headed over to the Cals College in IJsselstein, to teach a class for the first time ever-ever. Before that, I had an appointment with the school's student care coordinator, to discuss another school assignment. Fifteen minutes before my class, I was in pretty bad shape though. Crampy stomach, cold and clammy: also known as "nervous".
The same went for the first two minutes of my teaching: I had a shaky voice and kept losing track of my story. After that though, things were fine :)
The students in my classroom were nothing short of awesome. Just like my classmate had predicted, they were very kind ^_^ They were very attentive and they were fast on the uptake. They all managed to finish the whole stencil of assignments, with only a few making minor mistakes. I couldn't have wished for a better class.
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Klas 1DLW, heel erg bedankt voor vandaag! Ik ben heel erg blij met hoe het is gegaan en had geen betere klas kunnen vragen voor mijn eerste les. Heel veel succes nog met school en misschien tot ziens :)
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One point of important feedback that Gineke gave me: at this level of education, the questions I ask to verify the students' learning process are too open. Instead of asking if everyone gets it, I should ask more closed questions to see if people give the correct answers. Were this VWO instead of VMO (uni-prep as opposed to vocational school), -then- I could've asked open questions.
Of course, there was more feedback, but I'll put that in my report for school. This will be published in the School section in a few days.
Here's a snippet from the videotape I made for my portfolio.
kilala.nl tags: teaching, school, awesome,
View or add comments (curr. 9)
Posted by Thomas
Thanks Rene! Your encouragement means a lot :)
But, which part of college are you referring to? I hope not my final presentation before the board, because I thought that one went quite well. If you mean the "Beowulf Cluster" deal, then yeah... I understand :)
Say... When shall we do some coffee? I still have some of your books and you have a DVD we want to watch ;)
Posted by The Saint
Not your final presentation, but earlier ones....:) But it seems you're more relaxed standing there.
Coffee....yeah, well... you're the busy person, so tell me when it's suitable for you :)
Posted by Kuess (website)
haha good start :)
I know what she means with to open questions :) There is a thing called "individuele aanspreekbaarheid" wich means, the students have to know they can be asked everything anytime anyone. Wich you create if you simply ask one to give an example etc. Keeps the young ones awake ;)
Teaching is such fun sometimes I think its part of the "onderwijsleergesprek" technics. Page 243 in Lesgeven en zelfstandig leren from titus Geerlings.
Did you enjoy being infront of the class to?
Posted by Floor
really looking great :)
Good that you went through with it ^^
anyway, when are we gonna do the movie night.. we have been planning it for to long!!!???
Posted by Viviana
Wow, it's really nice to see that things are progressing very well! I think you will do more than fine as a teacher ^___^
Good luck with the rest :)
Posted by Thomas
Thanks to all three of you lovely ladies! :)
@ Kuess:
Oh, I'm on the up-and-up of "Individuele Aanspreekbaarheid". It's just that my questions were -too- open for the level at which I was teaching. They would've been fine at HAVO/VWO.
And yes, I enjoyed teaching tremendously :)
@ Floor & Vivi:
Thanks for the encouragement and for checking up on me :)
Floor, you're right! We're still supposed to have a girly-movie evening :)
Posted by Mistoffelees
Yea that was pretty awesome. Well done!
You were quite natural there in front of that class.
Posted by Thomas
Heh, you should've seen the first few minutes ;)
*shiver**quake**stammer* It wasn't pretty :p
All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Tess Sluijter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.
2008-02-07 17:01:00
Posted by The Saint
Hmmm.... you seem to be much more relaxed standing in front of other people then you were at college.
Nervous, yeh, well that's normal I think. And as long as it's not for more than a few minutes it's okay I think.
I think you're doing a great job so far!