Running head: reflection of aot chapter 8 1

Reflection of Act of Teaching Chapter 8

Lun Sian Cing

International Teachers College

Dr. J. Spanogle

12th April, 2017

reflection of aot chapter 8 2

Reflection:
In this chapter, I have learned four new ways of teaching that I could apply in the classroom. The
first one is Cooperative Learning. This is pretty similar with the Presentation however this
has more specific goals whether in teamwork and goals. In Cooperative Learning students are
either paired or grouped in three to four different peoples in a group. Each one in the team has a
specific role that they have to accomplish. Cooperative Learning method shapes each students to
be responsible in their parts and to be credible for the group to reach the goal. The teacher has to
prepare a rubric that will grade their team-work, their process to the goal, and individuals
participation. Therefore, students are to come up with the same motivation that will unify them to
reach to the goals of their assigned topics. This method also teaches the students about characters
and morality. It is not just a group-work but also a self-reflection and disposition-assessment.

The second one is Discovery Learning. I applied this method in my UOI (Science) class and it
is the most helpful because students can see the before and after effects and the demonstrations.
However, it challenged me a lot to assign my students to do the same when they get back to their
houses with the help of their parents. At that time, I demonstrated the Water Filter and one of
my students mother told me that he did exactly the same when he reached back home and that
made him happy. As a teacher, that really warmed my heart and at the same time, I felt the
tension of higher expectations. I started to ask a lot of questions to myself such as If I am to
assign them to do individual Discovery Learning, then which kind of topics will be the best? And
as a teacher, what is my role in times like that? What should I be prepared of?

The third one is Constructivist Learning. I find this quit challenging to apply during my
teaching practicum because in order to use this method, we need to know what our students
already know and make connections with it. For me, I just jumped in the middle of their learning
process. However, I could apply this at the end of my teaching practicum because I have finally
learned what they have learned and be able to build up their prior knowledge to new things.

The fourth one is Direct Instruction which is familiar to me because every schools in Myanmar
use this instruction mode for generations now. One of my struggles until today is no matter what
kind of teaching styles I provided in my lesson plan, most of the times, it ended up as a Direct
reflection of aot chapter 8 3

Instruction style. I always ended up being the one who kept spoon-feeding them instead of
encouraging them to do their works. This is my one area of weakness and I am still trying to
apply more of other strategies than this even though I know this strategy also has positive effects.

In conclusion, in those four strategies, I am more confident in Direct Instruction. However, I am

still learning the effectiveness of other strategies and challenging myself to apply them in
different lessons.