Both mine and Caitlin’s notes on the strengths and weaknesses of the student teacher we observed were similar. We both agreed on that he was extremely confident within himself and that he took charge and everyone identified him as the teacher. Although something we both came across as a suggestion for improvement was that he should be more enthusiastic and be more playful with the kids. For example we both agreed that some teachers have a different persona while teaching as they change their voice and body language although we thought this student teacher spoke/acted the same way he would if he were to be talking with adults.

Nothing in particular stood out and surprised me although Caitlin pointed out the fact that she liked the way the student teacher videoed herself and that Caitlin herself would use this approach in the future. After discussing I agree and I think it’s a good approach to identify your own weaknesses as you can see if the students are engaged when your back is turned and this could help you identify what type of teacher you are/ what the children see you as. Therefore help take notes on anything you would do differently next time.

I didn’t find the tasks particularly hard because we worked together and shared ideas.
I am feeling excited and I think I’m ready for placement as I feel we have done so much theory on communication and feedback etc I want to go out and put my work practice. Although I am a little nervous for the amount of paperwork we need to fill out and trying to keep all my work up to a high standard.

For my independent study task I read a chapter about the skills of questioning.
The main aims of the chapter would be to deeper my understanding of different types of questions and the importance of questioning in different situations. Also comparing advantages and disadvantages of different types of questions. There were many themes throughout this chapter, some that I identified were; purpose of questioning, answers and responses, and how the wording of questions relate to the answer received.

While reading this chapter I identified some claims made- “researchers have found that the use of open-ended questions has indeed improved the accuracy levels in recall” and “Young children have a particular problem with the use of embedded questions such as ‘ can you tell me who was there’”
(Hardy and Van Leeuwen, 2004)
One argument that was present in the chapter would be Rhetorical questions confuse children and I agree with this statement.

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