T2W7

Other classes which are struggling with learning include 2N, 3N & 4N1. I feel that whatever strategy that we can use, it still depends a lot on teacher-student relationship. Pupils must have the trust in the teacher that the teacher sincerely wants to help them and that the teacher is patient and approachable.

I am confident to say that I have won the trust of a few pupils who started off to be very disrupting but now they are more attentive and eager to answer questions I raised in class. These pupils may still be a little noisy at times but they will automatically stop or even apologise when I turn and stare at them. Guess they just want attention from the teacher. In fact, they were made to stay back during recess time to finish up their seatwork with me at their side guiding them to complete the work. After a few staying back sessions, they have actually managed to complete their work in class within lesson times and handed them up to me immediately.

Praises worked well with this group of pupils as well. When they tried to answer questions and got their answers correct, I praised them (some praises used are "Very smart!", "I know you are good!") and that made them very proud of themselves. And this could be one reason why they were always very eager to answer questions (to show off to the rest of the class).

Of course there is also a group of pupils who are not disrupting in class and rather attentive but due to their weaker ability in Mathematics, they are struggling with two mathematics subjects. However, my teaching policy is not to give up on them even though sometimes I feel that they just "cannot make it". This is due to one year when I was teaching the weakest class both E Math (half of the class) and A Math (whole class), a few pupils proved to me that I made a wrong judgement on them. I tried to persuade them to drop A Math and to concentrate on improving their E Math as they just passed E Math exams with C6 and failed A Math exams badly with a score of 30+. They objected and assured me that they would do their best to improve. Hence, they persevered and I tried my best to help them. Eventually they obtained B3 for both Math subjects in their O Level exams. Maybe if they had dropped A Math, they might be able to obtain an A grade for E Math. But no matter what it was a great achievement for them and a great relief for me too :)

T2W6 - 3E2 (cont'd)

Went through class test with pupils on Wed. Surprisingly, all pupils were very attentive as I went through their common errors that they had made in the test (even the very disrupting pupils). This showed that though some of them are very irritating, they still want to learn. Hence, I feel that there is still hope for this class. Only thing is that they will only mature when they are in Sec 4 when they will be more focussed as they will be taking their O's. Now, most of them are just playful and easily distracted.

After a short discussion with their E Math teacher, we agreed that it will be good to split this class into 2 groups so that more attentive can be given to the weaker pupils (quite a number of them). But this is possible if there is enough resources to split them into 2 groups just like the 4E1 this year. Hence, for next term, there is a plan for splitting them but only for E Math. The splitting will be based on their Mid Year Exam results and they will be banded then so that the better ones can be stretched and the weaker ones can build on their foundation.

T2W6-3E2

Just finished marking the class test on Partial fractions & Indices for this class. My Gosh! Only 11 pupils out of 28 passed the test with 6 gotten borderline fail and the rest failed terribly. Those who failed had no recollection of what the 3 cases in Partial fractions are as shown in their workings. They could not even write down the general form for each cases! Considering questions on Partial fractions are rather standard, obviously many of the pupils did not bother to study for the test at all. It was quite disheartening as I have spent so much time trying to ensure that pupils were able to follow what were being taught in class so much so that not enough time for me to do revision for mid year exams with them.

The 2nd question was crafted such that the general form was given to them and yet many can only do up to performing long division to convert the given algebraic fraction into the sum of a polynomial and a proper fraction and could not continue correctly from there. Problems that most pupils had were basically algebra. They could not express the fractional equations into polynomial identities, eg. "(x^2-8x+44)/[(x+2)(x+2)^2]=A/(x+2) + B/(x-2) + C/(x-2)^2" after simplifying became "x^2-8x+44=A(x+2)^2 + B(x-2) + C(x-2)^2" or x^2-8x+44) =A(x-2)(x-2)^2 + B(x+2)(x-2)^2 + C(x+2)(x-2)".

The 3rd and 4th questions were on Indices. These 2 questions showed that even some of the better pupils could not obtain the answers correctly. This showed that the class did not grasp the concept of Indices well. This is always the case. Pupils "hate" Indices as they can get confused easily. Need to target their foundation in E Math Indices then. I tried explaining again how the laws of Indices arrived and pupils were able to understand. What they lack of is how to apply the laws of Indices and especially when they are given more complicated expressions to simplify. Guess I will have to discuss with the Sec 3 Math teachers to think of a better way to help pupils master the skills required in Indices. Maybe drill & practice would still be a better strategy to train them in doing Indices?

T2W5 - 3E2

Mid year exams is drawing nearer and I have yet to finish the last topic for 3E2 A Math due to the amount of time spent on disciplining some of the pupils and slowing down the pace as most of the pupils in the class are rather weak. But due to the shortage of time, I am sad to speed up the teaching in class and targetting only the most basics that are required from them to be able to do the minimum in the exam papers.

Sad also that there are a few pupils who are quite good in their A Math, have to bear with the slowness and the nonsense created by some of their naughty classmates. So as not to short change them, I always tell this small group of pupils to do more questions or some of the challenging questions when they have finished their work much earlier than the rest. As usual, I will always extend my stay in the class into the recess to answer some of their questions if they have any.

This term the class seemed rowdier than last term as I had actually flared up one day in this week and stopped my teaching to the whole class and targetted only selected pupils. The next lesson on the following day, I was able to teach for the first time in this term without any disruption from any pupils at all. They were all angels that day :) But I hold back my praise for fear that they will revert to the old self again for subsequent lessons.

Well, the subsequent lessons were still manageable though I had to send two boys out of the classroom on one lesson. Though I feel bad about it after that but sometimes we just have to sacrifice one or two to silence the rest.

Lesson Reflections

To constantly reflect on own lesson should be part and parcel of a teacher so that he/she seeks to improve his/her teaching in class so as to reach out to all the pupils in the class and to help pupils to achieve the learning goals the teacher has planned.

To pen down the lesson reflections helps a teacher to keep track of what he/she has carried out that has gone well or not gone well as planned. It serves as a mirror to the teacher's own teaching in class. It helps to develop the teacher as well.

A good lesson reflection should not just consist of reciting what has happened in the class but should have some of the following questions answered as well:

• What has gone well in the lesson?
• What did not go as planned?
• What has occurred during the lesson that was not expected?
• Did I achieve the lesson objectives?
• If not, what were the obstacles faced?
• Were the materials used appropriate and help to achieve the lesson objectives?
• Were the pupils engaged in their learning?
• To what extend has my pupils learned?
• Were the objectives clear and specific?
• Were my instructions clear?
• What were some of the challenging classroom management aspects?
• What could I do to improve this lesson and my overall instructional practices?

Giving feedback to pupils

I have been trying to give feedback to pupils in the following ways:

1. while pupils are doing seatwork:

• I will go round to check on their work and give immediate notice to pupils as to whether they have done correctly or not;
• especially when they have done wrongly, I will point out their misconceptions or where they have gone wrong;
• normally I don't tell them the correct steps, instead, I will point to them where their mistakes are and ask them questions that will help them to identify their errors which most of the times pupils are able to realise where they have gone wrong (giving pupils the ownership of their own learning)

2. marking their homework or tests:

• as I mark pupils' work, I will be able to identify some common mistakes make by most of them which I will then address as a class when I return their books or tests back to them;
• individually I try to write some comments or questions next to their mistakes to help them understand why the particular part is wrong; e.g. if correct answer is "x^2-12x+5=0" and pupil wrote "x^2-12x+5", I will circle the whole answer, put "=0" at the end and write "you have written down an expression and not an equation".

The above methods are just some ways I am trying to make my feedback to pupils as effective and meaningful as possible. I am still thinking for some better ways of writing down my comments on pupils' work as it is not the usual habits for a math teacher to write comments in a math problem.

T2W2 - 5N1 (Integration)

I started Integration with this class this term. After practising some basic integration, I proceeded to solving integration problems that require some differentiation and then using integration as the reverse process of differentiation to solve the problems.

At this point, as pupils have been practising techniques of integration, when they had to do differentiation again, some of them got the rules of both process a little mixed up. Hence, I had to give a number of such problems to them to practice doing both differentiation and integration in the same problem. After quite a few practices, I was glad that majority of them were able to do the questions.

In subsequent lessons, I will have to make them recall how to differentiate before doing more integration of functions.