Monday, 12 November 2012

QLK 520 E-Learning 2 Reflective Blog


Question: To what extent do you think you will be able to apply what you have learned in this course to your future teaching career?

The Communication Skills for Teachers module does have a number of fairly useful lessons and classes that will enable me to be better prepared as a teacher for when I finally step into a classroom. Of particular relevance and usefulness to me as a teacher was the class on Vocal Health and Voice Production. It was useful to learn the various hints and tips needed to preserve my voice and ensure that my vocal ability is not impaired. This is crucial because once I start out in school, I cannot afford to lose my voice as this would seriously hinder my lessons and I would be doing a disservice to my students as well. I have been attempting to practice speaking from the diaphragm and projecting my voice further so as to utilize the strategies suggested by the course material.

Some of the lessons which I did not find as useful might be the class on Classroom communication. I felt that it was perhaps a little too idealized and I would have liked if there were more real-world context and scenarios as opposed to the slightly artificial examples put up on Moodle.

I found the written communication module interesting but the test itself did not really aid in my development as a teacher. While identifying the various types of questioning techniques and strategies was useful, I am unsure that writing a text depicting classroom conversations is the best way to prepare for an actual classroom lesson.

I found the use of the blended approach to CST interesting as it was still able to teach CST concepts which I felt were only applicable to physical classroom teaching. This might offer some information as to how (if I were to do so) I could implement online and F2F lessons in my own classrooms in the future.

All in all, I find the CST module useful, but I would appreciate it if there were more real-world applicability built into the various lessons courses. 

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