Reflection 4

Reflection 4: QCG 520

On the whole, the course has met all my expectations on learning how to teach geography in secondary schools. I felt that sufficient time had been dedicated to the various components in the course like coming up with enduring understandings and learning about the who, what and why’s of teaching. However, I felt like more could have been covered in the how of teaching.

Firstly, I still feel a little insecure about planning and executing fieldtrips. Although we were brought on fieldtrips and planned one in pairs, it seemed rather insufficient to prepare us. I felt that we needed a little more guidance on what should be done and how it should be done. I also noticed that most of us were not sure about how to even answer the questions during the fieldtrips. We might be lacking in some content knowledge that is really essential for guiding students during fieldtrips. Secondly, I also felt that we did not have enough practice in setting and marking scripts. We were introduced to the points and levels marking system but did not spend enough time practicing on how to set the questions and to mark it. Although we did go through a few sample scripts in the last two lessons together with Dr. Ivy Lee, I still felt more practice would have been good. Maybe less time could have been devoted to coming up with enduring understandings and devoted to forming and marking questions instead.

I am also very thankful to Dr. Chang for being very understanding about giving us much-anticipated breaks during the course of each 3-hour lesson. It was very essential and I was glad that he always let us take some time off to relax and to eat. Dr. Chang was not strict or very adamant about acceptable classroom behaviour either which made our lessons with him very relaxed and comfortable.