Week 8 Reflective Essay

    Week 8 was a difficult week for me. Besides lectures, I was really feeling my mental health deteriorate from stress, anxiety and homesickness. However, I powered through and attended my lectures. In week 8, my group and I were told to focus on constructing the objectives for our micro-teaching. It wasn't a difficult task for us as I feel like my group and I function very well. We settled on the topic of water and air pollution. Before we finalised our objectives, Dr Lina modelled what and how an objective was to be created. It truly helped me because at the time, I didn't feel very confident in my work and abilities.

Dr. Lina's enlightening presentation on developing learning objectives was one crucial instance. I was first dubious about the necessity of learning the craft of questioning, but I quickly came to see the significant influence of asking more complex questions. My viewpoint was completely altered by this insight, which highlighted the value of inquiry as a powerful teaching strategy to pique students' interest, foster critical thinking, and increase comprehension.

Christenbury and Kelly's (2008) development of the question circle method piqued my interest. The unique grouping of issues into overlapping circles—Matter, Personal Reality, and External Reality—provides a flexible yet structured methodology. The intersections of these rings generate higher-order questions, enabling purposeful interaction between students' ideas, experiences, and beliefs and the subject matter. This strategic approach has the potential to improve the quality of learning and critical thinking processes.

This encounter taught me a valuable lesson: successful teaching includes engaging students' brains, challenging their thinking, and promoting investigation beyond the surface. In the future, I intend to include SMART goals and Bloom's action verbs into my aims. Furthermore, the use of high-order questions will be a cornerstone, fostering an atmosphere in which critical thinking becomes a basic component of the learning process.

Finally, the Week 8 challenges acted as a catalyst for personal growth and a better knowledge of good teaching practices. As I begin on this path, I am armed with fresh ideas and eager to restructure my teaching method and cultivate an environment in which curiosity thrives, critical thinking thrives, and learning becomes a transforming experience.

References

Chin, C., & Osborne, J. (2008). Students' questions: a potential resource for teaching and learning science. Studies in Science Education, 44(1), 1-39.

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