Portfolio Guide 4

Personal Presentation(s) and assigned tasks

This section relates to your presentations in the Science core classes, especially the mini-lesson you are giving for assignment 1 in semester 1 (but also including other times you present to the whole class in Science Core this year). In semester one these are probably the first experiences you will have had as a teacher, so it is expected that the class members, collectively or individually, may have made some or all of the mistakes of the novice, as well as run into the problems and challenges typically faced by teachers, such as:

• the tendency to place too much emphasis on the subject matter, as distinct from the audience - the learners;
• a tendency to equate teaching with telling (i.e. lecturing);
• insufficient research to find interesting aspects of the topic, innovative ways of approaching a topic or learner misconceptions about and difficulties with the topic, all of which are important considerations for effective teaching;
• a lack of clarity on the precise aims the teacher had for this teaching exercise;
• the assumption that because the teacher finds something interesting and important, the audience will also be interested;
• the connection between the subject matter, aims, planning, the presentation and the intended student outcomes;
• unfamiliarity with the technologies of teaching
• gestures, movement, voice projection and variation, body language and other presentation skills

All these things are important considerations regarding teaching and learning in science, and are among the things you should be actively considering (as opposed to osmotically absorbing) as you develop your own philosophy of science teaching and work on the development your professional awareness and teaching skills.

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For your Portfolio

For your mini-teaching presentation in particular, consider and make portfolio notes on the following:

• Finding material and ideas
  • How difficult was it to find ideas and useful material?
  • What was harder to find, information or strategies?
  • Where did you find ideas and useful material?
  • Where else might you look for these?
• Motivation and interest
  • What was the level of interest generated by each of the presentations?
  • Which succeeded, and why?
  • Which were unsuccessful, and why?
  • What (general) guidelines can you come up with regarding motivation/stimulation?
• The Starting point
  • Consider how the start of a presentation effects its impact and outcome. Which were the best starting points?
  • Consider whether you should start with "the facts" (i.e. the scientific logic of the topic) or with the students (i.e. some aspect of students' experiences, interests) and why. In what circumstances is it appropriate to start from each of the different perspectives?
• Student involvement and engagement
  • How important is involvement by the students? How did each presentation engage the students in the process of learning?
  • Of the presentations which were in effect mini-lectures, are they likely to be successful with children (i.e. would kids have been interested enough to listen and even if they were, what's the most that these sorts of experiences can achieve?) How many kids would find these kinds of information-transmission from expert to novice interesting?
  • Consider what important educational objectives cannot be achieved using the traditional teacher-transmits, student-receives model of teaching.
  • Are there other ways for kids to find the facts than simply being told them and, if so, what other educational objectives besides knowledge-transmission could they be used to address?
• Aims and Outcomes
  • Was it clear exactly what the presenters had in mind as outcomes for their presentations (i.e. did the presenter seem to have a clearly defined aim which the presentation addressed or what is unclear or simply assumed)?
  • Did each of the presentations achieve its aims?
  • How would the "teacher" have known if the presentation had succeeded in each case?
  • How can clarifying outcomes guide preparation and presentation?

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