Microteaching for the immature

This week I did my first “stand up and teach” experience in front of staff and peers at the uni. Just a small group of Computing PGDE(S) students and three staff, but it’s enough to give you the willies. Especially when you realise how long it takes to prepare a lesson on only one key syllabus point, plus Powerpoint slides and worksheets.

For reasons known best to two brain cells that can no longer be found (I think they ran off once they realised what they’d done), I picked “Repetition” as my topic of choice. For the geekier amongst you, this includes such educational joys as FOR .. NEXT loops. For the brighter students, they even get to learn about REPEAT .. UNTIL. Whoop!

Yeah, well I find it interesting. However, my target class was aged 13. And despite looking like they varied from 23 to… erm… older (politeness gene kicks in) they certainly behaved like a class who’d recently discovered the suffix “teen” at the end of their ages.

The point of the exercise, on reflection, was not so much to do the preparation but to find a way to engage a class of – in this case – utter reprobates. The thing is, the staff members were the worst! You know who are…

After the first few minutes of the first presentation (poor Siobhan), the rest of the class really got into it. Paper planes everywhere. Phones being used for texting. Spinning in seats. Messing with computers. Notes being passed around. One small fight broke out. Cheeky questions. Crawling under desks.

As we were told afterwards, nothing happened that hadn’t been seen by the staff in real life classes. Usually not all at the same time, admittedly. Still, it was a real wake-up call. While fun when you were one of the ones throwing balls of paper into someone’s hoodie, it was very different trying to get across the subject you’d toiled over for a couple of evenings with everyone else kicking off.

Somehow I got to roughly where I’d planned/hoped/guessed by the end of my 15 minutes. During that time I’d confiscated one set of headphones and thrown Andy’s apple into the bin (well, he was eating during class). My “three strikes and you’re out” (of the classroom) policy seemed to be working, too. I’m still wondering if that’s a good idea – lets kids think they can get away with two “strikes” – or go for a yellow/red card system. We shall see.

I guess I was lucky that Jack hadn’t actually started lying on the floor at that stage. And that Joy was actually asking sensible questions instead of daft ones.

Regardless, as I said, a very good exercise. Certainly something you’re better learning to deal with with your peers than in an actual class environment with real children. Roll on November when I get to find out if any of this experience has stuck!