AEIS English and Math 11 May 2009

Date: 11/05/09

Day: Monday

Students present: Michael, William, Henry, Susan

Students absent: Noe Noe (School released her late at 5.30pm)

Teacher (main and assistants): Jasper

Subject: English and some Math

Topic: Vocabulary, Descriptions, and Prime factorization tricks


Teaching process

Concepts taught:

Started with a crossword puzzle regarding the theme: technology. The purpose was to enhance their vocabulary understanding of that theme. Students were quite well versed in technology except two particular questions of the words: Rudimentary and Illiterate.

I made then copy 10 times each, the sentence of the 2 terms. To make them understand the terms and it's usage properly.

After that I've went through the 5 senses technique with them. Made them visualize their recent trip to east coast park and got them to write out and describe that experience based on sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste. I challenged them to write one or more adjectives for every noun they write.

They saw the importance of this exercise, and I've encouraged them to apply it in their essay writing skills.

Lastly, I went through some tricks and techniques to excite them about mathematics and the previous topic that they went through: prime factorization.

A copy of the worksheet can be found on the teacher's table.

Example questions gone through:

Description of east coast park outing with 5 senses. Challenged to add one or more adjective to every noun.

Number has factor 2 when last digit is even
Number has factor 3 when all the digits are added up and is divisible by 3.
Number has factor 4 when last 2 digits are divisible by 4
Number has factor 5 when last digit is 0 or 5
Number has factor 6 when all digits are added up and is divisible by 3, and the number is even.
Number has factor 8 when last 3 digits are divisible by 8.
Number has factor 9 when all digits add up and is divisible by 9.

Practice questions given:

none


Post-teaching

General comments of students:

Started off quite ill-disciplined. Perhaps due to the weekend off. Had them settled down and praised them for what they did right (Susan helping others arrange chair, micheal arranged tables) and what they did wrong (Henry anyhow placing his bag on teachers table). Drew a very clear line between teacher and student.

Along the lesson, students were very receptive and very vocal in expressing their ideas and thoughts. Very lively lesson and good bouncing off ideas back and forth. To the extent that everyone started speaking at the same time. Told students that I would love to hear from each of their unique experience but only had 2 ears, so I encouraged them to speak one at a time and listen to others. They were receptive and they started taking turns to speak.

I also noticed that William is consistently helping Susan with her work and looking out for her. I told William to do his own work and got Susan to check her own work.

IMPT NOTE:
I've made a very clear stand today to the students; to check their work very carefully before submission. I told them that for very error they make (careless mistakes, and not ignorant don't know how to do questions), they will need to do 10 corrections for that questions. This is regardless of math or science. 10 corrections means copying the question and answer 10 times.

For ignorant answers (don't know how to do). Correction once will do.

For worksheets that are badly done. (Less than 50% correct). To do corrections 10 times for the entire worksheet. (up to marker's discretion.

They took this very seriously and took the effort to check their work carefully and passed to each other to inter-check their work.

I hope to bring across the importance of not rushing their work and be careful and sensitive to errors. Let this be a start of the training to reduce careless mistakes.

Make it a common practice from today onwards.

The trick is to be reasonable with the students and giving them benefit of the doubt and privileges in exchange for strictness.


Improvement points of students:

Very receptive to scolding and comments today. Quite well. Especially Henry and Susan.

Homework given (including due date):

Gave them a list of 20 vocabulary to memorize the spelling and meaning. I will be administering the vocabulary test to them on Wednesday through a crossword puzzle.