Secondary Teaching Reflection: Landforms and Landscapes, Week 3

This assignment presents a student's reflective analysis of their teaching experiences in a Year 8 Geography class, focusing on the topics of landforms and landscapes, specifically volcanoes. The reflection covers two teaching sessions, detailing the lesson plans, activities, and teaching methodologies employed. The student discusses the use of various techniques such as asking questions to gauge the students' understanding of the topic, videos, lecture-cum-demonstration method, group activities, and Kahoot quizzes. The student evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies, noting both successes and areas for improvement, such as time constraints and the need for more in-depth assessment. Furthermore, the assignment highlights the importance of aligning the lesson content with the Australian curriculum, adapting to different student learning styles, and integrating technology to enhance student engagement and understanding of the topics. The student also references educational theories and models, such as the Madeline Hunter model, to support their teaching practices and reflections. The student also highlights the use of videos in the classroom, and quizzes and group activities to assess student understanding. The assignment provides valuable insights into the challenges and rewards of teaching geography to secondary school students.

Running head: TEACHING SECONDARY HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
TEACHING SECONDARY HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Reflection 1
Lesson topic- Landforms and Landscapes
In this section I will discuss about my teaching experience about one of the Lesson
topics- Landforms and the Volcanos, which belongs to the unit of the Volcanoes, Landforms,
Landscapes, hazards, eruptions, and impacts. This has always been one of my favourite topic and
I enjoyed a lot while teaching about them.
I believe, that students tends to learn more effectively when they know, what they are
supposed to be learning. Hence, it is very important to draw the attention of the children towards
the topic why asking superficial questions related to the topic, - Let them guess the topic on their
own.
I have selected students and have asked them, “what kinds of Landforms have they seen”
following with questions like “What is Mount Vesuvius famous for?”
The warm up session was about 10 minutes, where I insisted them to watch a video related to the
volcanos. After a formal introduction with the topic, I wrote down on the board, the sections
which I will be teaching today. Scripting had always been helpful for me, when the topic is large
and the contents are difficult (Wolfe, 2015). However, this was followed by the main content of
my teaching session, where I discussed about the volcanoes and the types of volcanoes, based on
their formation and the time span of their eruption.
As this is a topic, which I have taught several times before, I know that student often face
challenges to understand the steps in the formation of the volcanoes or the reason for the
different shapes. I had already internalized the challenge and have kept a plan in advance. I

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showed them a video that showed them the formation of the volcanoes. I also wrote the content
on the board so that the students could copy them down. I maintained and modulated my voice
tone is I was teaching in order to make the students understand the areas that needed focus. It is
evident that I have used lecture-cum-demonstration method in order to teach the contents to the
students. It has been stated by Tanner, (2013), that a lecture-cum-demonstration method assists
in teaching as students are shown concrete things and increases the maxim of the education.
While teaching the contents, I made sure that they are as per the Australian curriculum of year 7
achievement standards.
In order to assess the teaching learning process, all the students were asked to work in groups
and search for relevant data about volcanoes and volcanic activities from the website given in the
lesson plan.
The teaching session went quite good, except the fact that the time was too less to have an in
depth analysis of the topic. Hence, I had to hurry a bit. However, the videos shown to the
students were much helpful for the topic to be completed within time. There was almost no time
left to assess my teaching. Instead of setting up the group activity, a short question answering
session could have been appropriate.

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Reflection 2 (week 3)
This reflection about teaching experience of the chapter “Landforms and Landscapes”. In this
teaching session, I focussed on the topics like the folding and the faulting that caused volcanic
eruptions. I set up some clear objectives before starting the class. I stated the class by displaying
the resources that has been used in the previous teaching session.
It is the main feature before the introduction of a new topic, comparing the new topic,
with the previously existing assists then in scaffolding new concepts. This can be done by using
teaser question or by reviewing the previous lessons, preferably in a compelling way.
The contents of this session were critical in comparison with that of the previous topic as
we had entered deeply in to the topic. The videos shown about the way how faulting and folding
of mountains takes place helped the students to understand these critical concepts. Video
teaching in classroom increases the engagement of the students that helps in increasing the
engagement of the student that helps in boosting the achievement of the students (Long, Logan &
Waugh, 2016). It helps the students to process the contents in a better way. Students tend to learn
more using visual modalities than theoretical studies. It has been found that the students are less
likely to forget educational contents that they obtain by audio-visual texts, rather than by
learning them (Tanner, 2013).
I have used the Kahoot quiz that the students’ needs to be completed. Kahoot is an
excellent tool for motivating and activating the learning of the students, by enhancing their
knowledge and reiterating their concepts. It helps them to retain information in the brain. Kahoot
is a good way to socialize children. Quizzes and group activities are major steps in providing the
students more responsibilities for their learning (Ismail & Mohammad, 2017).

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The group activity for the students is very motivating and acts as a positive reinforcement
for the children. Group activities tends to create opportunities for the critical thinking and can
promote learning and achievement in student. It even creates interests in students, who are less
attentive in the classroom. Furthermore, sense of team building and capacity prepares students
for their future professional activities.
Each of the students have different learning patterns, hence each of the students will be
given attention, especially the slow learners. I have tried to make the lesson plan considering the
strengths and the challenges of the students.
At the end of the session, the students wrote about three main words about the types of
plate boundaries about the learnt lesson, trying to give closure to this unit, making sure that none
of the students go back with any doubts. I assisted the students in handling computers and taught
them to place appropriate search terms to conduct a perfect a Google search.
One of the bad point about this teaching session is that most of the children found it
difficult to locate accurate places on earth.

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References
Ismail, M. A. A., & Mohammad, J. A. M. (2017). Kahoot: A promising tool for formative
assessment in medical education. Education in Medicine Journal, 9(2).
Long, T., Logan, J., & Waugh, M. (2016). Students’ perceptions of the value of using videos as a
pre-class learning experience in the flipped classroom. TechTrends, 60(3), 245-252.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0045-4
Tanner, K. D. (2013). Structure matters: twenty-one teaching strategies to promote student
engagement and cultivate classroom equity. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 12(3), 322-
331. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.13-06-0115
van de Pol, J., Volman, M., Oort, F., & Beishuizen, J. (2014). Teacher scaffolding in small-group
work: An intervention study. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 23(4), 600-650.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2013.805300
Wolfe, P. (2015). The Madeline Hunter model of mastery learning. http://www. onetohio.
org/library