Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bracken Ridge state high school is a public co-education school meaning they
teach both genders. It has 501 enrolled students with 70 staff members. These
student to teacher numbers allow for varied class sizes across the year levels
with the larger classes tending to be in the lower years 8-9 and smaller class
sizes are more prominent in the higher grades 10-12 with one year 12 ICT class I
observable had 9 students in it.
In the lower grades most teachers had their students stand behind their chairs
before being allowed to sit down, I think was to ensure that everybody had focus
on the teacher and prepare the students for work.
Teachers would normally explain and give clear goal at the beginning of class
regarding what they were going or expected to cover today. This was through a
range of styles, direct and discovery teaching teaching, assessment work and
individual, group and whole class work. All activates were directed and
instructed by the teacher; students were told what the teacher expected them to
cover before letting them break off into their own work.
Teachers used a variety of methods of motivation including: if you finish this
work we can spend the rest of the lesson doing things practical; mainly in music
and science classes. Teachers utilized the area to have students do activities
which brought a new sense to question asking.
Some of the behaviour management style I observed included non-verbal
actions, verbal and physical (moving them outside or changing chairs not hitting
them). Verbal warning normally consisted of asking the students what they
were doing and how that affects their own and others work and making them
responsible for their actions.
Observation 1 Maths Class
In one Maths lesson I observed students were working on assessment on
computers. During the course of the lesson the teacher went to go help a student
with a problem. The teacher bent over slightly and a student behind him decided
to drop a pen drop the back of his pants.
The teacher understandably did a bit of a jump and took a second to recover
himself but he took the whole event very lightly and jokingly saying that I dont
know where you are from but where I am from doing that is a bit strange. That
was the extent of his reprimand to the student and he continued on with his
lesson.
The teacher explained to me later that there was no real point of getting angry
with the student because it would have only demotivated the student and that
boys will be boys.
I learnt from this experience that it is good to be able to take things that students
do lightly because most likely they are just experimenting and what to see what
happens.