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盧汝霆
<Only available in English>
Post-pandemic Teacher-in-Practice
The five-year journey in BMED as a pre-service teacher has passed in the blink of an eye. Once as a freshman, I listened to my senior fellows sharing some memorable moments happened during their teaching practice. Time flies and I have already finished all two teaching practicums last year – full of uncertainties in the beginning, but these uncertainties prepared myself to be a future school mathematics teacher in the new normal. Going to graduate soon and be a teacher-in-service, it is now my turn to share my memorable moments under the challenges brought by COVID-19.
COVID-19 has hit school life hard since 2020. Even though face-to-face teaching was getting back on track in 2021, hybrid teaching was still the mainstream to cope with the pandemic. In my second teaching practice in late 2021, I was required to teach online and face-to-face simultaneously because the ratio of cross-border students and local students were half-half in that class. I had never done this before and doubts were arising in my mind – how could I cater the learning diversity of all students at the same time? How could I spark online students’ interest in exploring mathematical topics when the cameras could not capture the lively atmosphere in the classroom?
Teaching practice actually ‘started’ way before the first day of teaching – I spent lots of time in brainstorming strategies for letting students via two modes of lesson sharing similar learning experience during in-class teaching activities. Holding hands-on activities in class is usually a good way for students to connect mathematics with daily life, but when it comes to hybrid teaching, it is essential that online students can simulate the activities by themselves in front of computer screens too. Therefore, I paid special attention on activity design, making sure that online students can synchronize with their peers in the classroom.
As an introduction to the concept of experimental probability and to demonstrate the differences between experimental and theoretical probability, I did a coin-flipping exercise in front of the class. At the same time, I invited them to guess on the results one-by-one and mark down the results on the board for ‘intervening’ their guesses. Taking an extra mile for online students, I asked one of students to live recording my demonstration and do a ‘live show’ through ZOOM. The classroom interaction, although virtual, made all online students motivated to make guesses in the chatroom. Some even were eager to try the game at home even they were not picked by me to do the live demonstration. At the end of the lesson, all students grasped the difference between theoretical probability and experimental probability, and it was encouraging to see online students learning like their peers in the classroom. “If you never try, you will never know” – my anxiousness towards the teaching practicum gradually faded away as I accumulated more experience on hybrid teaching and witnessed the increment of my students’ proactiveness in learning.
Education may change forever in the post-pandemic future, but what we can do is to be confident and continue to be the bridge to knowledge for students and to facilitate meaningful classroom discourses. Meanwhile, I would not be able to grow as a teacher without the valuable comments and guidance I received along my journey in BMED. Being grateful for all the support, I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisors, mentors and students in teaching practicums, and all professors, lecturers and fellows from BMED. Everyone I met here has nurtured me to be a better educator in the near future, and all things I have been through marked a sparking start in my long teaching journey.
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