Category Archives: 3.1 Teaching & Learning

Health and Wellbeing TDT

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In todays health and wellbeing session we explored why it was important to teach children about health and what it means to be healthy. Below is a lesson plan that I have created that is focused around our tutorial discussions. It is important that we start to teach children about sugar levels found in food. After watching the ‘sugar crash’ video I decided to plan a lesson around the amounts of sugar found in foods that children eat daily. Depending on their age, a child should consume between 5-7 teaspoons of sugar a day. Most children will be eating way above this.

Lesson Plan

Prepare power point showing how many different ways sugars are added to foods and the effects of having sugar could have on your body. Bring in many foods that the majority of children would bring for their snack or eat later on in the day and lay them out on a table. Have 5-7 teaspoons of sugar measured out in a bowl so they have a visual aid as to how much sugar it actually is. Then in another bowl, start measuring out the sugar that is found in the foods they eat. This will show them how easy it is to consume their daily sugar recommendation. This activity will be very eye opening for them and should hopefully make them think of healthier choices next time they chose to have a snack. Once this activity is finished, ask the children to create a leaflet or poster expressing the dangers of sugar and how it is hidden in everything we eat.

Maths Anxiety

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In the maths input given the other day I learnt about the effects maths anxiety has on people. Tara expressed how important it was to not pick on people during our math lessons as this can cause them to feel uncomfortable in front of their peers and cause them to develop maths anxiety. She suggested that we let them discuss their answers in pairs before sharing it with the class as this can give them more confidence. This is something I will bare in mind when on placement as I remember how it felt to have to say an answer out loud in class.

In maths it is also important not to repetitively tell a pupil that they are wrong. Instead, you should ask them to tell you step by step how they got to the answer. That way you can see what part of the problem needs work. Normally they get the majority of the work correct but make a silly mistake that is easily fixable. By doing this they can see that they almost got it right and should hopefully not feel anxious. Tara said that they can normally find the mistake themselves when breaking the problem down and that this is also a good learning opportunity for them.

I think the tone of your class environment is also very important when it comes to maths lessons. You want the pupils to feel comfortable expressing their concerns or difficulties without fear of embarrassment. This will take careful planning and techniques but is something that is important to get right.

Dance Workshop Reflection

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Today was my first dance workshop taken by Eilidh Slattery. Before going into the workshop I was anxious as I didn’t know what to expect and I can feel quite self conscious when it comes to presenting in front of my peers. I have no professional dance knowledge but I used to go along to fitness dance classes after school. Even though I was out of my comfort zone I was looking forward to Eilidh showing us how to use dance within the classroom.

One thing I took away from today was how many opportunities you can give the children to express themselves and be creative. When we were warming up we went around the room and took turns in doing movements for the class to copy. This will allow the children in the class to develop there creativity right from the start. We then moved on and went into partners. We had to work together to think of as many different ways we could travel from one side of the room to the other. Presenting these moves allowed us to see our peers ideas. We then went into groups of four and taught each other our movements and created a small routine to show the class. This was a nervous thought but when we actually had to do it, it was lots of fun and it allowed us to develop our team working skills. Doing this with a class will allow them to grow performance confidence as they should hopefully have fun and care less about what others think.

Eilidh also talked to us about showing the children different types of dances on you tube before they try dance themselves. This will allow them to pick parts of dances they like and try them out or recreate them in teams. She gave an example of a class she had taking it further and using IPads to film themselves and improve the dance by watching it back. This also helps teach them important skills such as self evaluation and shows them that we can always improve.

I now feel more confident in my ability to teach a dance class if it came up on my placement as we were given many ideas and I have something to refer back to. I will go into the lesson with more confidence and enthusiasm as the kids will be able to feed off the positive energy.