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Week 5: End of International Practicum

And we're done! 5 weeks fly by so fast. This week only consists of 2 days, one on Monday where the students clean up their lockers and play games for the rest of the day, and the other on Tuesday where students carry out their chosen activities for choice days. In more detail, I spent Monday giving my goodbyes and tokens of appreciation to all the teachers who I interacted a lot with. We returned the key fobs given to us and packed up all our things. I didd my very last lunch duty as well, doing crowd control as the students trickle in after their classes. At the last few periods, I went down with Qi Ting to observe the fashion show carried out by the Year 9s. From that show, we saw that the students are more open here, with their extremely daring and creative outfits as well as the cheering from the younger students. It was heart-warming to see the juniors supporting the year 9s enthusiastically, giving the models of the fashion show high-fives and fist bumps as they walked down...
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Week 4: Games Week

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This week was really chill since students are winding down before their summer holidays and most time is spent playing math games as well as other strategy games in math class.  Wednesday and Thursday, I spent with another teacher since my CT was away with his mentor class on a 3-day class trip. Ms Joedicker, as the students address her, teaches mostly Year 4s and 5s from what I've seen and her class size is significantly smaller than my CT's, Mr Garratt's. Hence, the class was a lot quieter and easier to manage. It doesn't hurt that the students enjoy the classes now since they get to play games. Thursday evening, we gave a presentation about Singapore at the farewell dinner at Stockholm University. We also met other international students and heard a presentation on their school life here in Stockholm. Friday was the reflection seminar at Stockholm and went into more detail on what we learnt as well as any differences we found between our education systems that we w...
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Week 4: The (Un)official end of practicum!

This week marks the (un)official end of practicum as school's out! :) The students are on holidays after this week, and in this particular week, I got to see how my mentor, Mr Daniel, handles the grading scheme for the students' final grades. It was a tiring Tuesday as both of us marked many tests (P.S. the students were all requesting to do retests to push their grades up and my mentor complied) in order to finalise the results for the submission on Wednesday. In the blink of an eye, 4 weeks have passed in Stockholm, Sweden. Teaching in Rödabergsskolan has made me become a better teacher, as I begin to explore the various teaching methods available, the various teacher authority bases and so on. All these experiences are memorable, and will definitely be of use in Singapore. The motivations of the students in Sweden may be different from the students in Singapore, but they have a common goal: to do well for their studies. It is interesting to see how the students in Sweden r...
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An Eye Opening Week 2

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Week 2 has concluded! Had some chance to teach the students in front of the class (and I was being assessed for my very first lesson)! As mentioned previously, students in IES Bromma are in the midst of working on their projects. The year 5s were already embarking on their Dream Room Project and the Grade 6s are being tasked with researching the History of Number System! Students were split into groups of 5 across their banded classes, and they were to explore the Attic, Binary, Egyptian, Mayan, Quipu and Roman numeral system. They will then have to present how these number system works and converting the numerals into the hindu-arabic system that we are using. This also means that they have to create a mini-lesson to teach their peers about the number system they have to master. Thus, I was tasked to give instructions to the class about the project and demonstrate what the mini-lesson could be like using the "Suan-Pan" (算盘) system. The lesson was assessed and went rather smo...
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Vecka tre

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Before I start on my week 3 post, here's us enjoying our ice cream over the weekend! Fun times Week 3 went by real quick, probably because we are all occupied with work and as the saying goes - time flies when you're having fun. Me explaining some concepts to my students during their activity! As I begun to teach more and more, my CT offered me more insights on how I could improve my lessons. I realise that the way I present ideas and mathematics to the class could be done better. Instead of making it question-answer, my CT suggested that I present it as a problem and encourage them to solve it. I'm working on it! My CT gathered the class back after PE lesson to shake hands with their opponent. I realised that sports is really great for character building This week we had HAGA JOG, where the kids run laps in the HAGA PARK. Here comes the picture spam! I created this board and recorded their laps! Good job to them all. After running f...
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Vecka två

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Week 2! Week 2 was amazing because I got to know my class better. I also started to teach, and worked on classroom management strategies to keep my class under control. My CT gave me one entire chapter to teach and I officially started teaching this week. I had really insightful discussions with my CT on various activities that could teach content and how to structure the lesson such that students' short attention span is taken care of (content followed by activities). We also tried to let students apply what they have learnt into their daily lives. I had a lot of fun! My CT also introduced me to many resources that I could access online and help with my mathematics lessons. I also followed my class to more classes! Here're some photos: Decorating their social studies work with a cool font  Woodworks! (our D&T) Student still working on his Woodwork project My first ever lesson on measurement! Me teaching Student doing the activity wor...
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Week 3: The week of peaceful times

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In the blink of an eye, it is already week 3!  In this week, I had my lesson evaluation by Ms Elisabeth, and I am glad it went well. I am glad this lesson evaluation was conducted because it was a good and objective assessment of my lesson, and it helped me to reflect critically on my mistakes. Other than that, I felt my bonding with the classes became better. :) Students were more comfortable being around me, and students began to ask questions about my classes, which is an indication that they feel that there is a dialogue present between us. I am glad that this is a positive change, and I am appreciative of that. Overall, this week has been peaceful and mostly occupied with teaching. I have also volunteered to help my teacher marked some of his work as he was swamped with tons of markings currently. I followed their answer keys and found that they are rather lenient in their marking, which is very different from Singapore's educational system. Work aside, we had the chan...
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