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question about the PGDE

  • 30-08-2010 7:59pm
    #1
    johnmurphy2010
    Closed Accounts Posts: 32 ✭


    Greetings all.

    I am going to be doing the PGDE soon and i'm just wondering about the overall process of what happens when in the placement school?
    What i mean by this is..I was wondering that if the student teacher is in the school 2 days a week and in the college 3 days a week, when the student goes into the school on a monday or friday, how does he/she know what to teach? that is, how does he/she know where the 'real teacher' of the class finished lessons and where should the student teacher pickup from? Is it that the 'real teacher' gives the 'student teacher' information to be taught to a class on a particular day or is it maybe that the 'real teacher' gives the student teacher a "forecast" of what the student teacher will have to teach for the next week or so?

    Also, it only makes sense that a student teacher will have very little to no experience teaching. Lets say the student teacher goes into a classroom and while teaching, he/she is not 100% up on the current topic to be taught. what happens here? Is the student teacher given the information to teach before he/she goes into the class or is the student teacher expected to know the material that he/she is teaching inside and out?

    I know there whas alot of reading there, so for anyone that read through the whole thing (and hopefully will leave a reply), thank you in advance.

    JM


Comments

  • #2
    spurious
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,315 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    The 'real' teachers will usually submit schemes of work at the start of the year, outlining what will be done in each class, or at least each week.

    The student might be given responsibility for one topic or poem or story or whatever, but you can be sure the 'real' teacher will re-do it at some stage, no matter how good the student is.

    Don't worry so much.


  • #3
    peanuthead
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,111 ✭✭✭peanuthead


    To be honest, this will, by and large*, depend on your own ability to think logically.

    An example. When I was doing the PGDE last year, using English, my subject as an example, I decided that it would be a good idea if I did the poetry while the 'real teacher' did the novel.

    This worked really well as:

    (a) We didn't overlap
    (b) We didn't have to keep meeting every monday/friday morning
    (c) I was never in a tizzy as I always knew what I was doing a month in advance
    (d) The students were much better able to get their heads round the switch in teachers. Instead of Ms X one day and Ms Y another they had Poetry days and Hamlet days.

    Now, one thing that must be acknowledged here is that I had a very good relationship with my cooperating teacher prior to the PGDE so I was able to suggest that to her. Don't go in requesting certain aspects of the course. Will not go down well.

    Compare that to another girl I knew who didn't prepare anything and just came in every day and waited to be practically handed her lessons. She would go to her coop that morning and say "what will I do today". Thats unnecessary stress on you and it won't put the cooperating teachers confidence in you.

    It was more or less like we were taking different classes and worked extremely well. We were able to compose exams alone and just blend them together and at the end of the year I just handed her my scheme of work and that was that. No messiness at all!

    I know it hardly seems like there was any team spirit between us, but to be honest, theres not a lot of time for that this year.

    My advice would be to ALWAYS know what you are doing with a class before the morning of said class. Sure how could you prepare a proper lesson plan without that knowledge?

    Best of Luck


    *I say by and large as I know there are some teachers who prefer not to allow you to do your own topic and rather prefer to do things in what I think is an awkward way.


  • #4
    rainbowtrout
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,397 ✭✭✭✭rainbowtrout


    johnmurphy2010 wrote: »
    Greetings all.

    I am going to be doing the PGDE soon and i'm just wondering about the overall process of what happens when in the placement school?
    What i mean by this is..I was wondering that if the student teacher is in the school 2 days a week and in the college 3 days a week, when the student goes into the school on a monday or friday, how does he/she know what to teach? that is, how does he/she know where the 'real teacher' of the class finished lessons and where should the student teacher pickup from? Is it that the 'real teacher' gives the 'student teacher' information to be taught to a class on a particular day or is it maybe that the 'real teacher' gives the student teacher a "forecast" of what the student teacher will have to teach for the next week or so?

    Well it's easier in some subjects than others. Eg. I teach science, so if I had a student teacher who took my class twice a week and I had them three times a week, I might ask them to teach the human anatomy section while I worked on plant physiology. So then there's no trying to figure out how far anyone got from day to day. Also when you get hours in a school you tend to be given a class group as a whole. If you got my science class you would have them for all their classes, not half of them. I know some schools like to work the other way and see it as damage limitation. No point worrying about it until you get your timetable from the school.
    johnmurphy2010 wrote: »
    Also, it only makes sense that a student teacher will have very little to no experience teaching. Lets say the student teacher goes into a classroom and while teaching, he/she is not 100% up on the current topic to be taught. what happens here? Is the student teacher given the information to teach before he/she goes into the class or is the student teacher expected to know the material that he/she is teaching inside and out?

    I know there whas alot of reading there, so for anyone that read through the whole thing (and hopefully will leave a reply), thank you in advance.

    JM


    To be fair, if you have a degree in the subject you should really be able to teach your subject at JC/LC level. If it's something like English or Irish where there may be poetry or a play on the curriculum that you haven't studied it would be wise to read it and become familiar with it beforehand. It doesn't wash going into a class and saying you don't know the material. That's what your job is: to know the material and teach it to the students.


    What will probably happen is that you will visit your school in the next while, you will be given a timetable with say 1A Science, 2C Science, 5B Biology and 5C Physics or whatever your subjects are. You will meet the teachers of those subjects and they will tell you what textbook they work from and what they want taught in the period of time you are there. As you are doing sequential teaching practice, they will probably not give you a plan for the year, more likely they'll say start with Photosynthesis and Plant Physiology and work from there. The work starts then for you, you should familiarise yourself with the topics if you aren't familiar with them already and figure out how you are going to teach them.


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