My 1E2 has been a very interesting class to teach so far. I have discovered that they are very competitive (and supportive of each other), very enthusiastic in showing their workings on the whiteboard and students being students, love having games. We have been learning about Real Numbers (chapter 2) for the past 3 weeks. I didn't want to rush teaching this topic as I didn't want them to learn wrongly (due to misconceptions not being uncovered at the earliest stage of learning) which could lead to mistakes being repeated over and over again at the higher levels. In order to make the learning of addition and subtraction of positive and negative integers we played a simple game which made the whole class alert. It's a very simple game that goes something like this. 'I am -16 . What is 5 subtracted from me?" And the person with the answer on their pieces of paper will stand up and read the next part of the clue. I had made sure that everyone is involved in this game as 41 clues were given out. The game turned out well and was enjoyed by everyone and most importantly, they learn better as I would write out the clue on the board as it was being read out by students(visual learning). Also these days (I think its because of the AFL sessions that we are having), I am more patient in waiting for students' answers after I have given them a question. I realised that nowadays I keep asking students to raise their hands in order to have a quick check on their learning. I also marked more consciously nowadays, and wrote down the names of students who have trouble in key questions and called them out when I gave their assignments back after marking.
This is my first Sec 1E class after many years of teaching upper sec students. I am very strict with them and I am glad that they are trying very hard to meet up with my expectations. I think after this topic I will teach them how to play NUMERO. This game helps in making students form an equation with the four operations and also squares, square roots and cube and cube roots.
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i like the idea of the game where each student is given one clue. think i might want to try something like that with my class, if you don't mind. :)
ReplyDeletehehe..sure no problem. that game was not originally mine to begin with.... I got the idea from Pei Yun's Algebra lesson conducted two years ago...
ReplyDeleteCool game, and great effort to check for understanding along the way. There is no worse nightmare than to reteach the basics several years down; or maybe there is: to unlearn the misconceptions that went uncorrected.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that you are more conscious in getting and giving informative assessment.