Week 14...

This was our final session before the Christmas break and also the final microteach of our group. Jackie, with whom I had delivered the group presentation, presented a session on Steganography which I had not heard of perviously.

It was a fascinating presentation about hiding coded messages within images. Jackie had designed a website which we all accessed from our computers and used an online system to hide our own coded message in the form of a spam email. Jackie hit the delicate balance of presenting a complex subject whist keeping it simple and engaging.

Finally this session we were given our final deadline to hand our work in which will be 12th January 2015, which due to the busy Christmas period I expect to find extremely challenging!

Week 13...

It was my turn to present my microteach this week. I did my very best to ensure I went last and I was entirely successful in this endeavour. In hindsight this may have come with its draw-backs as I think by this point everyone was a bit tired.

The session has started earlier than usual to try and fit everyone's sessions in and because of the time I finish work this meant I arrived half-way through the first session, presented by Chantal. Her microteach was centred around beauty therapy and involved the group being able to make their own body scrub from baby oil, salt and scented oils. It gave everyone a nice practical activity to take part in, as well as having a memento to take away at the end of the session. This is something I had incorporated into my own session and reinforced my belief that it was a good approach.

Joe delivered a presentation on cinematography which, as a cinephile myself, I found fascinating. There wasn't anything physical to take away, but Joe had designed a quiz / assessment based on the content of his presentation which was a great way to assess the group's knowledge and also to introduce a bit of friendly competition- a nice touch!

Juanita, who works as a chef, delivered a presentation based on the health and safety considerations of using different coloured chopping boards for different produce and was very adept at answering the questions the learners had.

Finally I delivered my microteach session on juggling. I will cover this in more detail in the written report, but for now I am happy to say that I believe it went well.

I had learned from the lack of preparation in my group presentation for Unit 1 and taken the time to rehearse my microteach session, timing how long each section would take and adding or removing parts which detracted from its effectiveness. I managed to have a practice run using my long-suffering girlfriend as my learner and found that I was able to keep the session within the 20 minute time whilst still covering everything that I wanted to.

I started by addressing the possible health and safety risks in the practical section of the presentation, before providing a brief history of juggling throughout that ages. This was delivered lecture-style, though in my assessment feedback the tutor quite rightly pointed out this could have been made more interactive and engaging as a Q&A.

Next was a video which I had sourced from YouTube showing different types of juggling, which even before the presentation I had my concerns that it might be too long at around two minutes. Feedback from my peer assessments confirmed this and tutor feedback that I could have asked the learners to take mental notes of details of the video makes perfect sense.

The practical part of the session, where I gave a brief demonstration of juggling three balls before asking the group to open the parcels I had placed under their chairs before the session. Parcels contained three juggling balls, a foam red clown nose and a set of printed instructions I had prepared beforehand.

My intent was that, to cover differentiation within the group, learners could choose to follow the printed instructions (which were also displayed on the big screen) or they could follow my own instruction and demonstration as I moved within the group providing one-to-one coaching. However, on reflection I feel that providing the printed instructions was unnecessary and only confused things for the learners. Certainly they were good to takeaway, but needn't have been included in the session.

I was also surprised that there were some learners who were reluctant to take part in the practical exercise and felt a little dejected by this. I made an effort to get everyone involved with varying degrees of success.

My peer feedback was extremely positive and didn't really criticise anything I didn't already feel could have been better or had doubts about going in. In particular, comments about the pace, presentation and delivery echoed those made about my part of the group presentation, which I feel reflects my experience as a trainer.

I feel I have learned a lot from this unit, particularly in regards to the design and planning of a teaching session, of which I have had very limited experience previously. I believe this is something I will find very helpful in future.

Week 12...

This was the first week I got to view some of my peers microteach sessions. The variety of subjects presented was amazing and the effort Karen had gone to in setting up the learning space for her napkin folding presentation was fantastic. Everybody had the opportunity to try some napkin folding and had something to take away.

Afeefa had also brought an amazing collection of models and provided a very interactive session. I think that for some in the group this proved to be a little over-stimulating as there was a couple of times where Afeefa lost control of the group, with some learners (quite rudely, in my opinion) holding their own conversations while Afeefa was attempting to address the group.

I recognise this could be a challenge in my own session, which is scheduled in for next week. And I still have so much preparation to do!

Being able to review and assess the work of my peers is providing me with an amazing opportunity to fine-tune my own microteach session; ideas and approaches I hadn't considered and things that could go wrong.