Week 10 has arrived and I have learnt a lot about the importance of classroom organisation and communication with students. Year 10 have a speech for their assessment task which is due this week and because I am not the person marking it, it has been difficult to give the students information about the due date. The teacher marking this assessment task has changed her mind on many occasions about when students are to present their speech which leaves the students confused and make me look like I am unsure. After providing students with a schedule period 6 on Friday week 9, the teacher marking the assessment task came into the class and said that they are to be handed in and presented on Monday week 10. This meant that the trust and rapport that I had built with the students had diminished and I was left looking like I had been lying to them.
What I learnt from this experience is that organisation is extremely important in the classroom. Students expect to know when things are due well in advance, this not only helps to build rapport and trust amongst the students but it also means that there is no excuses if students do not complete the task adequately or on time. This ties on with element 4 of the Professional Teaching Standards 4.1.1 which states that teachers "communicate clear directions to students about their learning goals" in that while the goal in clearly set out in the assessment task, the time period to achieve this goal is not. This, in my opinion, is not fair on the students as they have no certainty and no opportunity to ask for additional help.
From this I have also learnt that sometimes in the classroom, things happen that are beyond your control. For example; during week 8, all of year 8 were out of class for an integrated learning program. This was a great experience for them however, it meant that we only had 4 weeks of 3 lessons a week to get through a film unit. I had to adjust the lessons I had planned and had to cut out some things that I was really looking forward to. I hope that the last few days go smoothly and my classes go well in their assessment tasks.
Lyndal
