It is my first time to do the observation with a peer. I learnt from the seminar that I should observe the peer from a more objective view. Writing down what my peer did and how the students react, but I should not engage in the class activities or tried to learn some academic knowledge from the classroom. Before the observation, it is necessary to let the students know.
When I entered the room, my peer introduced me to the students, and I chose a corner seat but could observe all the rest of the students. Before the observation, I understood the class is for undergraduate students editing the videos with colour and music. In the beginning, I got a little bit nervous because I had totally no idea about the teaching contents, which are totally not my subject.
But when I wrote down the notes, I realized how to do the observation by practice. It is quite interesting to sit there observing and it does not matter whether I understand the teaching contents or not. I realized from the peer observation, I could much more focus on the teaching skills by my peer and, clearly more observed the students’ feedbacks, rather than the contents.
I sat there writing down all the details from the teaching and the students’ reactions. I realized I could also learn more how to teach from my peer’s teaching and, it is quite clear which way the students engage in the class. For example, the students would engage more in the group activities practicing and some of the students would like to talk more with teacher one-to-one rather than sharing with classmates.
When I wrote down the observation form, I could do more critical thinking about the teaching styles, benefits, or negatives to choose the ways of teaching. Taking the group discussions and practice as example again, from the observation, I realized the group discussion could benefit for more engaging the students in the activity. However, I also realized when the teacher checked each group, the other groups of students waiting and browsing the website instead. I could learn something good from my peer, also could learn something that could improve as well.
Learning from the students’ behaviours in the observation, I learnt the group discussions, questioning the students, but also setting up aims for students to achieve before the end of the class just to make sure each of the student could make their best efforts to practice in the class. Meanwhile, I also learnt how to support the students in the class’s learning as well. The learning outcomes and thinking based on the observation are fruitful for me and let me rethink about teaching methods again.