Tell Us About Your First Experience Teaching A Mathematics Lesson
My first experience of teaching a full maths lesson was during a teaching internship which I completed in the summer between the second and third year of my degree. The internship gave me 4 weeks of school experience and helped to confirm to me that teaching was the career I wished to pursue.
A few weeks into the internship, my mentor suggested that I might like to plan and deliver a whole lesson. I was a little daunted by this as I had previously only taught short episodes, but I was excited for the challenge. We agreed that I would teach a review lesson on Pythagoras’ Theorem to a year 8 class who had struggled with the topic on their recent test. I planned the structure and content of the lesson and reviewed this with the class teacher beforehand. Her support and encouragement helped me to feel fairly confident and prepared for the lesson.
However, a couple of hours before I was due to deliver my lesson, teachers in the department began to realise that a sizable number of year 8 pupils had been sent home to isolate after there had been a few positive Covid cases in the school. Due to this, almost half of my class would need to engage with the lesson via Teams. This caused me quite a panic; not only was this my first ever lesson, but I would also need to deliver it as a blended learning lesson, with half the class in the room and half online!
I had to think quickly about how I could adapt my lesson. I had originally planned to mostly use the traditional whiteboard, but now had to switch to using the interactive board, something I had little experience with, to enable the screen to be shared with those at home. Thankfully, the teacher I was working with was really helpful; she said she would take care of the Teams meeting, allowing me to mostly focus on the students in the classroom.
Overall, the lesson went really well. In some ways, having just 18 students in the room made it easier to manage. I really enjoyed leading the examples and getting many of the students engaged with sharing their ideas on how we should proceed with each problem. Over the course of the lesson, the students became more confident with the topic, with many able to complete the more challenging problems on the worksheet I created.
I am currently towards the end of the university-based aspect of my PGCE and am really looking forward to getting back into the classroom to put what I’ve learnt into practise and hopefully grow into a really successful teacher.
By Katie Lay
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Message from the Scholarship Team
You can apply to the Scholarships with a 2:2 degree classification, providing you can demonstrate 'significant relevant experience'. Also you can apply before completing your subject knowledge enhancement course. See our eligibility criteria on our About Us page and our FAQs.
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