Today I got a chance to observe a teacher newbie. She is teaching literature and this is her second term. I have to sit for a few minutes in her class at the expense of sneaking out from my class. No, I didn't leave my students in oblivion.
There is a prepared student-led activity that is expected to run for an hour. I have assigned three student evaluators to rate the rapporteurs for today. I expected that they would finish soon because they might not be able to handle some disruptive students. I was right, by the time that I came, the class was already in the assessment part. Of course I feel bad that I missed learning from their presentation. But, I was confident that can manage.
So I had to observe this teacher using an assessment form our school is pilot-testing. It was so straining, because I had to evaluate her using an 80+ -item test. I found her to be so knowledgeable about the selection they have to discuss for that day. She was able to manage, and at least engage a few of her students to participate. But that was not all that I had to evaluate about her.
I discussed my observations with her and we arrived at the point that professionally and personality wise, she has the potential to teach well. One major component is missing though, and with this she agrees - she needs to improve her pedagogical skills. She needs to step up from that if she wants to engage the whole class into learning. She needs to design instructional process.
During our post conference, I saw how willing she was to improve. She was even taking down notes, althought there were instances that she would try to justify some points and try to convince me of her competence by telling me of things that I missed and other things that they do, still I could notice that she struggles pedagogically. I just hope that I was able to help her.
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