First Day Jitters

What to expect?

I had been pretty calm up to yesterday, but as the day drew to a close I started to fully appreciate that I had no idea what to expect the next day. I need not have worried, when I arrived there were faces I recognized from the interview process, and everyone seemed as nervous as myself. 

The first day brought a lot of paperwork, which was an anti-climatic start to the day, but necessary if we wanted to get paid! However, this did provide a chance for us trainees to mingle and chat to each other which gave us a chance to get acquainted. 

What followed was a series of lessons where we participated as the students, being mindful of:

1. How students learn;

2. The behaviours of  a good teacher;

3. The features of a successful lesson. 

We finished off the day by discussing in groups our thoughts from the lessons, with specific reference to the aforementioned three points. Finally, we chose the values, qualities and skills we felt were important for a teacher to possess and placed them in a hierarchical position to come back to at the end of the six-week initial training period.

I have to say that I felt a little flat at the end of the day. I had enjoyed aspects but I think I wanted to feel cognitively challenged, with questions and ideas racing through my head. I wonder whether my, so very recent, student status has left me still wanting a "grown-up" to point me towards my learning outcome. It is more likely that, although a trainee in status, I need to be the "grown-up" directing my own learning outcome and facilitating that as I go; reflecting-in-action. I can see now that I should have made a note of those three points and scribbled notes to myself at the end of each session, this would have made the experience more meaningful, and kept me focused on the objectives. It might have made me more open to deeper insight than I experienced if I had encouraged thinking time at the end of the lessons. This is the difference between deep learning and surface learning, and it is something I need to address. 

I want to make sure I exploit my time as a trainee to the maximum to ensure I grow and stretch to be the kind of teacher I would like to be. So lesson no.1 in learning to teach is  to set myself mini-objectives for the sessions, encourage thinking and scribbling time at the end of sessions to record reflections, and finally to come back here to untangle all of that into a (sort-of) learning log for myself.