HCI Lesson Observation

Hello!

Nat, Anita (our friend from the other lit class and many of you do know her) and myself attending a JC1 H2 Literature Class. Unlike Melody who felt disappointed that the students in the class she attended were unprepared, personally, the students in this class I attended came across as BRIGHT. It felt very much like going back to JC days, sitting in class and unpacking quotes from 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy that the teacher painstakingly picked out and compiled into a handout for the students.

The teacher got the class to split into groups of about 4-5 students, she insisted that the 5 boys / young men split themselves up and that the students work in a different group from the previous lesson. The lesson was a continuation of the previous lesson and the lesson activities in both lessons are similar, if not, the same. In their groups, students were to look at the quotes given in the handouts, unpack the quotes for their classmates and to put these quotes into context (eg. significance). I have not read this text, but I was impressed by the students' abilities to explain the quotes because at the end of the lesson, I felt that I somehow got the gist of at least certain parts of the text. The students were relatively outspoken as well, asking questions and clarifying doubts. (If I was part of the class, I'd probably be likened to a leech) =) The second part of the lesson was about looking at questions and analysing them and providing answer for them.

I enjoyed the way the lesson was carried out such that students were responsible for their own learning in the sense that they were the ones in-charged of providing ideas and sharing information / findings with their classmates. I think the compilation of quotes are very useful. It may come across as dictating which quotes to remember, but for examination purposes, I would think that these are helpful. My Lit teachers used to do this for us and I think it really helped us identify the main ideas / quotes better. We could alter this by getting the students to pick out quotes that particularly strike them or they think are important. In that sense, the responsibility lies in them. =)

The lesson was pretty much a student-centered one as the teacher did not teach much but instead, facilitated discussion within groups as well as class discussion. However, it set me thinking because I wondered if such an approach would work in a class of students with a lower ability. In this case, maybe scaffolding questions could be provided to the students to help them to complete the task.