My Journey to be a Reflective Teacher

Using direct instruction as a teaching strategy means teacher plays a central role and has direct influence over what, when and how students learn. This strategy is not appropriate for a teacher who is lack of confidence and not well prepared. Students can easily become bored and lose interest. For students to learn from a direct instruction, they have to be able to listen actively and see the logic in the structure of the lesson. Since not all students capable of perceiving and gaining knowledge this way, teacher has to cater the different needs and abilities. In addition, direct instruction involves a lot of one-way communication, opportunities to gain students' feedback is limited. Some students might have developed misconceptions.

I believed the real challenge to successfully implement this strategy depends heavily on self-confidence and skill to project myself as an educated and energetic teacher in front of class. In order to do that, I must prepare myself with a detailed structured lesson plan. For example, start the lesson with a question to prompt learners to think about particular issue, provide an overview, and tell what outcomes students will be achieving in the lesson. I also need to engage students by using techniques like probing and using student ideas. Furthermore at a certain point, I have to summarise and put emphasis on important information. It will definitely help students to take note and ensure they know what exactly they are learning about.