Period 2: Lead Teach, Year 7, Observed, Lesson Evaluation.

Lesson Objective and Intended Learning Outcome:
The learning outcome that was planned was not achieved. The activities that I had anticipated would last for only small percentage of the lesson ran over massively, and I was required to cut a large section of the lesson. For future lessons I need to be stricter with my timings, and this appears to be a recurrent theme. This needs to be addressed as a priority.

Planning:
The lesson plan was detailed, and allowed for a lot of student interaction. However, as above, my timings during this lesson let the plan down. It also noted in the observation that I need to set more realistic timings in my lesson plan.

Management/Teaching Strategies:
Students stopped when asked, and listened. An area for improvement needs to be the planning that I put into the room I am using, and its layout. The group activity that I set was disorganized due to my unsatisfactory instructions, and the room layout played a role in this.

Another recurring theme is my setting of expectations before the start of an activity. These are not clear enough and only further hinder my control of the activity.

Resources:
As noted in the lesson observation document: “Improved upon original lesson plan to make it more interesting for students”.

Student Learning:
I assessed the student learning by the feedback given during the impromptu plenary, and the comments given by students suggests that students understood the task and completed it to a reasonable level.

Homework:
Collected from previous lesson. Extension given to some students, with failure to meet this deadline resulting in a detention.

Professional Studies: A SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) introduction, discussing emotional literacy. I had a very raw knowledge of this subject, through conversations with the specialist TA who is qualified in this field, and this introductory talk was even more enlightening. I am particularly keen to investigate the five strands further, and with my previous support work would be keen to extend my knowledge and perhaps seek to become more closely involved with an initiative such as this. I’m a long way from that stage, but it is certainly something that interests me.

Q8-DUAL SIM Watch Mobile Cell Phone fuses music entertainment and communication into one outstanding wrist watch mobile phone.Built with onboard speakers,it lets you hear your callers voice loud and clear without the need for earphones.

At a Glance

MP3, MP4, hand free, message group sent, voice gake, SMS, MMS, bluetooth, anti incoming ring, mini usb, file management, FM radio, WAP, STK, GPRS, phone book, call history, setting, multimedia, organizer, user profiles, stopwatch, fun & games..(includes stereo bluetooth and 1GB memory card )

Features

• LCD: 1.33 inch TFT 260k pixels, resolutionฃบ128 x 160p touch screen
• Dual sim dual standby
• Camera: 2.0 megapixels
• Music Format : MP3, MIDI
• Movie Format : MP4, full screen playback
• Bluetooth Supported
• Memory : 1GB, TF card support up to 4GB
• Wallpaper : JPG, GIF
• Notebook : 250 groups
• Message : SMS and MMS supported
• Switch on/off : user-defined supported
• Alarm : MP3 alarm
• Game : picture mosaic
• Ringtone : 64 polyphonicฃปsupport formatฃบMP3กขMIDIกขWAVกขincoming ring ,tone, Incoming photo,incoming movie
• Language : English, Francais, Espanol, Portugues, Italiano, Deutsch, Chinese …

Starting October until April 2010, NBK will launch the first EMV Chip compliant NFC Visa payWave mobile payment trial in the Middle East. The trial will allow 500 selected NBK cardholders to download their Zain Visa credit card account details directly onto their Nokia 6212 handset over the Zain network. Following that, customers can then make purchases at any one of the 100 merchant partner outlets at Kuwait’s largest mall, The Avenues by simply passing their phone over the Visa payWave reader at the point of sale.

More details.

Q7.

When you purchase merchandise from Hollister Co. using a credit card or debit card, we collect your name and transaction information related to your purchase ie. items purchased, the price you paid, the payment method you used, which may include your credit card or debit card number, and the time and location of purchase, which may be combined with your online purchase information.

When returning or exchanging merchandise at Hollister Co. they collect personal information such as your name, address and telephone number and transaction information related to your return or exchange.

For my competitor Abercrombie & Fitch

When you purchase goods from Abercrombie & Fitch its the same process as for Hollister Co. They refund any merchandise in resaleable condition with a copy of your original invoice. You have a couple of options. You can, visit any Abercrombie & Fitch store, or send it back to their address at Abercrombie & Fitch Returns Department. All returns will be credited back to the original payment type. Although if you return merchandise without a receipt or invoice, they will provide you with a merchandise credit for the last known value of the item.

Theres isn’t a difference from Hollister Co. and my competitor Abercrombie & Fitch, although they are competitive in business they are basically a similar company, the only difference being the price of the goods.

Q8.

Hollister Co. use the information collected for the following purposes:

• To understand your needs and preferences, and develop, market, sell or provide products and services, and possibly to conduct surveys, research and evaluations.
• To complete your transaction for the goods or process your return or exchange.
• To manage and develop Hollister Co.’s business and operations, administer accounts, collect and process payments.
• To detect and protect Hollister Co. and other third parties against error, negligence, fraud, theft and other illegal activities and to comply with policies.
• As permitted by, and to comply with, any legal or regulatory requirements or provisions.
• If you submit a resume online, they will use the information you provide solely for the purpose of evaluating you as a candidate for employment and to contact you about prospective employment.

By submitting personal information to Hollister Co. you are agreeing that they may collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with the purposes and uses identified in their policy or as required by law.

Hollister Co. limits the number of employees that have access to the databases that contain personal data, and Hollister Co. employees are advised of the importance of confidentiality. As an added safeguard, Hollister Co. does not store credit card information with your registered online profile. Hollister Co. has a written security policy.

Q9. 

Hollister Co. uses a browser feature known as a cookie, which assigns a unique identification to your computer. The cookies are typically stored on your computer’s hard drive. Information collected from cookies is used by Hollister Co. to evaluate the effectiveness of their Web site, analyze trends and administer the Web site. The information collected from cookies allows them to determine such things as which parts of their Web site are most visited and difficulties their visitors may experience in accessing their Web page. With this knowledge, they can improve the quality of your experience on their Web site by recognising and delivering more of the most desired features and information, as well as by resolving access difficulties. In addition, Hollister Co. would use cookies to help keep track of items you put into your shopping cart and to tell them whether you have visited Hollister Co. in the past. This allows visitors registered with the online store to maintain shopping carts between visits. They also use cookies and/or a technology known as web bugs or clear gifs, which are typically stored in e-mails to help them confirm your receipt of, and response to, their e-mails and to provide you with a more personalised experience.

Period 1: Year 9 ICT, introduction to new activity, Unit 4.2.  The most striking and memorable aspect of this lesson was the use of outdoor space in developing the student’s knowledge of linear and non-linear websites. Students were taken outside, and arranged so as to physically build the links that would appear on a website, with the teacher “clicking” and navigating to the next section/person. My general feeling, mostly judging by student reaction, was that this was enjoyable, but mostly understandable, with the concepts and ideas of this potentially dry subject, being made physical, and thusly memorable. Memorable also for the bird poo related incident, what are the odds?! Also nice to see ICT concepts being applied without a computer and in a different environment. This type of teaching is something I would like to apply to my practice, although I am aware of the theatrical nature of it, and time will tell if I can pull it off!

Period 2: Meeting with Mentor. See meeting minutes for a detailed breakdown, but briefly:

• Progress on PLP and targets set for next week.
• Formulating plans for Year 9 post-half term.
• Resources for SKA located.

Period 4: Met the Year 9 class I will be leading after half term. Chatty, but I think I can get some good work out of these students. Going to spend the next 2 weeks getting to know them, and identifying any potential “problem” areas that will need addressing. From what I saw today, my first target is to maintain some focus and put in place some expectations as to what is acceptable for a 2nd set group. I touched base with all students in the class and feel there are some really nice kids in there and, without reiterating too much, I am really excited about starting to lead this class. I discreetly made my own expectations clear where necessary (uniform, games, concentration), and hope that this will be remembered as my first impression on the group. Time will tell.

Received positive feedback from the course leader re: micro-teach on Friday. My first officially observed introduction to a lesson, and although I feel it was far from my best, it has definitely made me feel more confident about my general presence and delivery at the front of a class (albeit a class of very compliant adults!). Touched on Q2, Q8, Q14.

A few interesting thoughts from today:

• Paper Folders: Builds a respect for the lesson/work, organisation, written feedback.
• Headers/Footers: Teach this! Work is named and identifiable, especially at mass print sessions!
• Peer Assessment: Give students opportunities to feedback on and discuss each others work.
• High Order Skills: Use knowledge/skills in and for other contexts.
• Levels: Accessible and clear to students, posters, stuck on folders, etc

QTS Skills Tests: are booked! All three in one day, as advised. Seems like a bit of a mission, but I’ve booked them so as to fit in lunch before the Numeracy Nightmare! Remember, remember the 6th of November. Might save my fireworks for that Friday, if I pass them all.

Another Monday, another train ride to Reading. Met some fellow trainee teachers in the form of PGCE students, a nice bunch. Did the usual icebreaker routine, this time playing a game I witnessed earlier this year; ‘2 Truths, 1 Lie’. I threw ‘em all of with the photography degree!

Down to the serious stuff. Had an interesting couple of sessions on ‘Record Keeping’ and ‘Lesson Planning’. A few points of interest while they’re still fresh: (quoted directly from my notes): “take into account the importance of questioning in planning a lesson”. Something I really feel I need to concentrate on and digest: do my questions have a significance to the learners lesson, and the objectives therein.

Secondly, I became familiar with the term ‘ICT Capability’ which is not just the skills of ICT, but skills in conjunction with knowledge and understanding. I’m sure more details on this will emerge as the course, and my teaching, progresses.

Another interesting point today was that all topics studied in the session, provide some evidence for the Standards, so I will begin tagging this post, and others retrospectively with the relevant Standard they address.

Points of Action:
1. Create a spreadsheet to catalogue what evidence towards the Standards I have addressed, and where the evidence can be found (hyperlink to this very blog where necessary?)

2. Talk to my school Mentor, re: University Mentor visit.

3. Retrospectively tag my observations.

4. Print lecture notes from BlackBoard and annotate.