This week’s practical was yet another enjoyable experience. This time I took on a small writing activity where I taught groups with approximately 5 students at a time. I was required to teach the kindergarten children the basics of writing a capital “D” and a lower-case “d”. It was quite amusing to see how they wrote the letters! The capital “D” wasn’t too much of a problem but most of the students’ lower-case “d’s” were the wrong way around! What made it quite comical to me was the way one of my boys had scoffed at the given task of writing lines because “he already had done it” then proceeded to write “d” in a reverse position. The joys of kindergarten!
Another interesting moment was to see the practice of Bloom’s Taxonomy being put into place. Below is a Bloom's Taxonomy tree developed by Kelly Tenkely, a former primary school teacher. It is a great outline of the ways we can get children to develop higher order thinking skills.
I had wondered how exactly this concept would be applied when teaching young kindergarten children. My practical teacher had incorporated this model when teaching her science lesson. The children were asked to discuss with a partner what pets they had at home. Then, the teacher created a list of all the students’ pets. So as you can imagine, the initial questioning was simple and fact-based, requiring a simple recall of their pets. The teacher then progressed to higher order thinking (analysing) by then asking the students to think about what different foods and drinks these animals might consume. They had to think hard about that question!
I had wondered how exactly this concept would be applied when teaching young kindergarten children. My practical teacher had incorporated this model when teaching her science lesson. The children were asked to discuss with a partner what pets they had at home. Then, the teacher created a list of all the students’ pets. So as you can imagine, the initial questioning was simple and fact-based, requiring a simple recall of their pets. The teacher then progressed to higher order thinking (analysing) by then asking the students to think about what different foods and drinks these animals might consume. They had to think hard about that question!
Through this particular lesson, and judging from my practical teacher’s overall teaching standards, I believe she is a great example for demonstrating professional competence in Element 2: Aspect 2.2.2 of the Professional Teaching Standards (Apply knowledge of the typical stages of students’ physical, social, and intellectual development as well as an awareness of exceptions to general patterns). For me, it has been a surprising experience to see how basic kindergarten teaching needs to be. I had forgotten how much they actually need to be taught and what they need to be taught, so it is great to be able to observe a teacher who understands their needs well.
Until next week!
References
Bloom's Taxonomy Bloomin' Tree.(2010, September 20). Retrieved April 3, 2011, from iLearn Technology blog site: http://ilearntechnology.com/?s=bloom&x=0&y=0
References
Bloom's Taxonomy Bloomin' Tree.(2010, September 20). Retrieved April 3, 2011, from iLearn Technology blog site: http://ilearntechnology.com/?s=bloom&x=0&y=0
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