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Assignment template for 5292 Practice: teaching and learning in actionFor examination 2011

Cambridge International Diploma for Teachers and TrainersModule 5292

Practice: Teaching and Learning in actionAssignment Template for examination in 2012 and 2013

By completing this form and submitting the assignment for assessment by CIE I confirm that the assignment is all my own work. I have appropriately referenced and acknowledged any work taken from another source.

Date of Submission

CIE Unique Candidate IdentifierCentre number Year Candidate number Check digit

Candidate NameAbigail Clare Ferrari

© University of Cambridge International Examinations 2011

Your context(approximately 300 words)

Your professional background including your experience as a teacher

I graduated from the University of Kent in 2009 with a 2.i in English and American Literature. During this time I started working with students on the UK government’s ‘Step-Up’ scheme; initiating students to make applications to University, and to consider Higher Education in general. I enjoyed working with young people and helping them to realise their potential and, therefore, for the past two years (pre-Fairview) I worked as a Pastoral Tutor at an FE college. My role was centred around students with learning and developmental difficulties, and I carried out a lot of training in this area. My particular area of interest is learners with Autism and Asperger Syndrome.

During my last year as a PT, I embarked on a teacher training course and taught one class a week for the year. However, the opportunity at Fairview presented itself to me with the opportunities of gaining additional qualifications as well as enhancing my cultural and travelling experiences.

Your current role and responsibilities including the subject(s) you teach

I am the Language A English teacher for 96 students aged 12-17; all of which are in Grade 9. Therefore, I have the responsibility to teach English Literature and Language skills, as well as identifying skills gaps and upskilling students from a variety of cultures. In addition, I am a Homeroom teacher and the Head of Venus Sports House. These roles demand a high set of organisation and communication skills, including many meetings with parents.

Your institution

Fairview International School, Kuala Lumpur, is a qualified and recognised IB school in Malaysia. The school currently has 120 staff with approximately 2000 students. The Fairview School has been expanding since 2009 and is continuing to grow; following the IB principles and schemes.

The learning group you are teaching across all four Modules – indicate their age range, gender, group size, range of ability, and learners with learning difficulties, etc.

I have 4 groups of Grade 9 students who range from 12-17 years of age. Each group approximately consists of 24 students and is a mix of male and female. Two of the four classes seem to have an equal gender mix, however, the third class is dominated by males (19:6), whilst the fourth is dominated by females, (16:8).

Being an international school, my learners are varied in culture, language proficiency, and more importantly in their language learning aptitude. Despite the obvious language barrier for some, many of my students struggle with forming their own opinions and being creative. I have been facilitating their ability to connect literature to other

Assignment Template for 5292 Practice: Teaching and Learning in Action. For examination in 2012 and 2013.

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common concepts/themes that they experience in their own lives.

I have a particular group of Korean boys who are unable to understand the themes, concepts and texts they are studying for Language A. It is very challenging to engage them in class, especially as three of them do not understand English, and therefore do not understand me as the teacher. In addition, I have several students who have mild Dyslexia and one student who manifests behaviour that is in keeping with ASD.


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Your professional development during the Diploma(approximately 100 words)

Having reflected on the process of design, what do you expect to learn from this Module to help you develop your professional practice?

After reflecting on the importance of planning for differentiation, activities, and inclusive learning during the design module; I am hoping to obtain first-hand experience of delivering and evaluating the outcome of putting design into practice. I hope to successfully provide an effective learning environment for my students, as well as delivering lessons so that they will be able to understand the content and skills required. Finding the suitable activities to meet the learners’ need seems an easy enough task on paper, however putting them into practice can be very different. Therefore, I aim to master the techniques of classroom management, implementing the activities to make sure they work in real classroom situations, and facilitating differentiation for my weaker students.


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Copy of Session Plan for Learning Session 1Please insert here your Learning Session Plan for Learning Session 1 (copy from your Module 1 assignment)


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Copy of Session Plan for Learning Session 2Please insert here your Learning Session Plan for Learning Session 2 (copy from your Module 1 assignment)


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Part A: Putting the programme and the sessions into practice2.1.1 Using teaching methods(approximately 500 words)

In the two learning sessions from Module 1:

How well did you feel the teaching methods and learning activities used met the learning objectives and the needs of your learners?

The teaching method in the first lesson was a classic instructional scaffolding technique whereby the students were intoduced to smaller bitesize themes to promote learning when concepts and skills are being introduced to the students for the first time. Once we arrived to the ‘bigger picture’, the students had developed their own learning strategies to cope with the overarching concept of Belief. This was started with a physical activity, which I think was very engaging and beneficial. I believe it had a very positive effect on the learning objectives and outcomes as I expected, and wanted, my learners to have very different outcomes and thoughts on change, so that they can realise how much of a subjective concept change and Belief really is. In my second lesson I was not the teacher, which I think is the reason the students enjoyed the debate so much. I played the role of Host and Chairperson, other than that, the audience and debaters took charge. This reversal of roles helped the students to develop their autonomy in the classroom; which left a positive stamp on their learning experience and understanding of the topic as a whole.

How did the learning materials and the resources affect the quality of the learning experience?

In the sessions I used aids that were visual, audio and kinaesthetic in order to enhance the learning experience; this experience then became very holistic. The paperclips in session one impressed my learners and gave them the opportunity to stimulate their thoughts and actions. I ask my students to draw a lot of mindmaps or diagrams on the board to help them realise the amount of information they are acquiring. I personally feel this helps their learning experience and encourages them to be confident in themselves. The resources in my classroom are very good – I have a top-range projector that is compatible with my laptop and I have my own speakers. However, I do not rely on streaming the internet for my video clips during a session as it is often temperamental. Therefore, I had already downloaded the sources and saved them onto my computer. Lastly, my classroom is large enough for a variety of layouts; the students became very excited when they entered the classroom to find the debate layout in place. This could be one of the reasons why they were so attentive during session two.


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How did you manage the learning so that all the learners remained interested and stayed on task?

To keep my students engaged, I applied physical learning activities to channel their energy and response to the themes of the lesson. In session one, they were delighted and surprised at the different ways some of them had changed the use of a paperclip. A minor task such as this really engaged their reaction to the idea of ‘Change’ and that it can happen anywhere and with anything. In addition, the students welcome a change to the perceived reading and writing activities in English. With regards to session two, this was a very active session where the students all knew they were part of a debate competition. This meant, naturally, that the students who weren’t debating in this current session were paying particular attention to the content and outcome because they had to debate against the team who won in a future lesson. I also added a Q&A session at the end where the audience had to ask at least one question to either debate team.


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Observation of Session 1

Insert the completed Observation of Teaching and Learning form for Learning Session 1 here


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Observation of Session 2

Insert the completed Observation of Teaching and Learning form for Learning Session 2 here


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2.1.2 Observation of teaching(approximately 500 words)

How did you prepare yourself, the observer(s) and your learners?

The school operates under an open-door policy, therefore, the students are quite used to people being in our lessons. In the first lesson, I did inform them that someone would be present and would be sitting in amongst them. I asked Mr. Daniel to come in and be part of the learning process; to almost be a student rather than a teacher. Mr. Daniel was invited to arrive at the same time the students are expected to, and was sat on a table with one group. He was involved in all activities but was only an observer during the Q&A stage. For the second lesson, Mr. Justin arrived and already knew he would play the part of an adjudicator. I had informed him previously on the topic of the debate, the seating plan, and which students were involved in the two teams. The students were informed that I would be Chairperson and Mr. Justin would be the adjudicator a week before the debate. Mr. Justin slotted in perfectly to the classroom/debate setting of this lesson.

What main strengths and weaknesses in teaching and learning were discussed with your observer(s)?

The observer (Mr. Daniel) suggested different techniques to get the group’s attention as on occasion I was observed to be speaking very loudly for a prolonged period, and that I do not always need to raise my voice to get their attention. I think this is a very valid point as I can get too involved with my delivery and realise that to a small group in a small room this may be overbearing, resulting in loss of interest from students. However, the strengths were seen in the planning of my session with many different activities, which kept most of the students active and involved. At one point, two students started their own discussion during the Q&A, which I did not hear. I will look out for this in the future and intervene where and when I can. Although, transforming Q&A into a written statement, or pass could be an effective task as all students would have to write something.My second observer (Mr Justin) pointed out that discussing the rules, regulations and roles as a whole to the group would have been a good idea. I think this is a good point and perhaps I could have begun the session with this information, however a lot of information would have been shared that was not relevant to 50% of my students. I broke them down into 3 groups (debate teams, timer and judges, and audience) and guided each of them individually on the specifics of their role. Mr. Justin was also unaware of debating techniques and times, and originally discussed with me that the task of the debate could have been shorter. I did explain that debates run from 30 minutes to 1 hour normally, and students were given 20 minutes per team which is actually quite short for a debate. Nevertheless, the particular strengths of this lesson were shown in the Teacher Talk Time versus Student Talk Time, and the many skills my students demonstrated, especially communication and confidence!

What will you do differently next time as a result of your discussions?

In future, I think the outlines of the debate roles is something I will teach beforehand and to embed in the Unit assignment. Particularly, as I plan on having more debates in future because of the skills that were developed so strongly in my students. I will be concentrating on more effective communication skills. As well as reflecting in action rather than on action (Schon, 1974&c), as I need to be aware of my tone and pitch whilst I am talking and not after. If I


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can see that I am losing the interest of my learners or that I feel I am being too loud then I need to resolve this as soon as possible. I can bring the level of my voice down to a conversational pitch as well use effective body language to keep the eye of the learner. It is also good to reflect on action as it helps me to plan how to deal with this in the future. In addition, adopting this attitude of reflection means that at the end of the year, I can change and edit my unit plans to accommodate ideas and feedback from the students and my observers. For example, as Mr. Daniel pointed out, the lesson on Change and Belief could have been moulded into two lessons and more time spent on changing items that are bigger than a paperclip.


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2.2.1 Involving and supporting learners

(approximately 500 words)

How did you provide opportunities for all learners to fully participate in learning and how did they respond?

I provided several activities that aided visual, audio and kinaesthetic learners. I have learners that struggle to understand English, therefore getting them to read the Story of Moses in English during the lesson would not have been beneficial for anyone. Hence, I told the students to read the story as homework, whereby the ESL students could read it in their mother-tongue. I did not mind this as long as they came to class with a basic understanding on who he was and what happened, particularly the Ten Commandments. However, I also played clips from a film about Moses, so those who did not read or did but also need visual aids to understand were accommodated for. During the lesson I started with a physical warm-up acivity to engage my male students especially – this class has 19 boys and only 6 girls. The boys are very loud and talkative and are not always enthusiastic about learning or reading texts. This activity was perfect for them and supported them in understanding change without me having to talk at them. They were all very keen to share their outcomes and this helped me to move smoothly into the Q&A section of my lesson plan. I also provided handouts of the story and asked some students to make notes on what I was saying for their English folders, as all learners have their own style of collecting information.

The debate was planned with two teams (a maximum for debate) which obviously meant that not all of my learners could be involved in the actual argument. However, I provided the opportunity for those who weren’t in the teams to become the scoremasters (judges), the timekeeper, and the audience. This way, all students played a role and felt important. I did not force anyone to be in the teams, it was a student-led decision. Therefore, those who were uncomfortable debating found light relief in being the audience. All-in-all both sessions resulted in a positive response from the students. They all took part and the lessons ended with them understanding and learning new skills and knowledge.

What did you do to support learners so they all remained motivated and stayed on task?

To keep my students motivated and on task I supplied many learning activities to channel their energy and response to the themes of the lesson. In session one, they had a physical task which all enjoyed. This stimulated their mind and their hands and kept them interested. In addition, it also kept them intrigued because this was an English lesson and most students were wondering how this linked to English (a subject they have viewed in the past as boring). To support my students with ESL issues, or general learning difficulties, I provided many different audio, visual and kinaesthetic activities; seen in handouts, visual video clips, and active questionning techniques. With regards to session two, this was a very active session where the students all knew they were part of a debate competition. A winner was going to be decided so both debate teams remained as motivated as possible in order to win. The audience were going to ask questions, which meant they had to pay attention. However, the topic was murder, which they found was a really interesting subject and therefore the audience did not need much encouragement to listen to the content of the debate. The students had 2 weeks to prepare for this debate, and I helped both teams with their research and direction of argument. In previous lessons over the course of the year, I have taught them presentation


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skills, oral speaking skills, use of pitch and tone, and also use of vocabulary to enhance formal language. In addition, I had shown them a video of the famous Stephen Fry debating at Oxford as a guideline on the difference formal language and prepared research can do for public speaking.

How did you provide feedback to learners in order to support their progress?

Over the year I have used several different ways to provide feedback to my learners. They have all kept journals where they are asked to write reflections on specific areas that I give, or general reflections on lessons, topics, themes, research etc. I do not mark their journals but I read them and leave comments. It is a very good way for me to find out if they understand a topic, and how they feel about it. In session one, as always, I asked them to write in their journals for that week and reflect on what we had done and learnt about Change and Belief. Aside from this, the first lesson culminated in the delivery of a formative assessment; developing their own governing rules in the same way Moses did. I gave students feedback on their work, which was to be used to help them with their final assessment. For the debate, I gave feedback during and after the argument. If some of the students were making obvious mistakes, I would interrupt to guide them through as this was their first debate and needed help at times. I also gave detailed feedback on their use of evidence, research, design of argument, speaking skills and use of vocabulary. My judges (students) were also asked to give their personal feedback to their peers, and the audience gave their opinions at the end too.


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Learner feedback for Session 1

Insert completed Summary of Learner Feedback form for Learning Session 1

Summary of Learner Feedback Name of Diploma candidate

Abigail Clare Ferrari Date of session 27.02.2013 Group

size 25

Session topic Creating and Changing Belief

Location of session MYP Level 4 Group

age 13-17

Briefly describe the method(s) used to obtain feedback from your learners for THIS session?I used two methods to obtain feedback for this session; informal and formal.My students keep journals as way of reflecting and connecting to the topics we discuss in lesson. At times, I ask them to write about something specific and all other times they write their own personal reflections. There are many benefits of implementing learning journals, one being that it greatly enhances students’ process of reflection and self-assessment.I have read through their journals based on the week we covered this topic and had this lesson, and have used their reflections as my informal feedback.Their entries have allowed me to see whether they understood the overall theme, how they responded to Belief and Change, and what they think about the story of Moses and governing people. I also asked my students to provide me some formal feedback – either in their summary of their own 10 Commandments, or as a reflection on a piece of paper for me. I took all of their feedback and used it to map the progress of their thoughts, the quality of my lesson, and whether the overall objectives had been met.

Analyse the learner feedback from THIS session and highlight the significant strengths and areas for further development?

The overall feedback was very positive and I was happy to read comments showing the understanding of such a broad concept. Many of my students are quite religious and, therefore, the idea of creating a religion, or that religion was created to govern is very challenging. Through reading their journals, I could see that they have broken down elements of the lesson and are approaching the idea of change with a raw and original outlook.

Many of them enjoyed reading about Moses, and some found it interesting that Moses exists as a prophet in other religions and holy scriptures other than just Christianity and the Old Testament.

I am happy and confident that making them keep a journal is one of the best ways to collate feedback rather than asking them to fill in a form where they feel they have to say they enjoyed it even if they didn’t because their teacher is going to read it.


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Learner feedback for Session 2

Insert completed Summary of Learner Feedback form for Learning Session 2

Summary of Learner Feedback Name of Diploma candidate

Abigail Clare Ferrari Date of session 14.03.2013 Group

size 24

Session topic Belief – Obsession: Murder Location of session MYP Level 4 Group

age 12-15

Briefly describe the method(s) used to obtain feedback from your learners for THIS session?I asked my learners to provide me a simple reflection on their debate, and asked those who took part in the argument to provide me a self-evaluation of their performance. Student self-evaluation is a key element in self-regulated learning as it promotes direct involvement in their learning and improves their attitude towards the subject. My students who are self regulated learners see the connection between their efforts and learning success. They are also able to monitor their own performance.My students are used to reflecting a lot (in their journals previously mentioned), and often they have to write reflections or answers as exit passes in class. It is not a ‘dressed’ up task – simply a piece of A4 lined paper and I ask them to write their comment for me.


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Analyse the learner feedback from THIS session and highlight the significant strengths and areas for further development?The feedback from the debate was positive. My students thought it was a fantastic way to learn a topic, and enjoyed the difference of the classroom set-up.As one student noted; “I feel that this heavily contributed to our lessons on our topics as it increased our knowledge and interest in the topic. Personally, after coming home from the debate I researched more on the topic as I was extremely fascinated by the topic itself and the many sub topics it covered. Overall, I felt that the debate was a very effective way of learning as you do not get bored from it nor do you get tired of listening to people argue over the same issue.”

Many of my students said that it helped them to learn more about murder, others claimed that it made them go on to want to learn more about it and researched at home. This response has made me more determined to incorporate debates as much as I can in next year’s unit plans. The beauty of debate is that you can tie it to any area we are studying in English. I have seen a marked improvement in my student’s confidence, and they have too – noted in their feedback to me.

However, one thing that was brought up was the student’s would have liked more debates within different teams rather than staying with the same people. This is great feedback for me as, again, I can edit the unit plans and embed this variety to it.


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2.2.2 Feedback from learners(approximately 500 words)

Thinking about the 2 observed sessions:

What were the main points from all the feedback you received from the learners, both positive and negative?

The main points were centred around the activities that were provided for them. The students have enjoyed the various opportunities to be active in their learning. They enjoyed a different approach to English, and especially enjoyed using visual aids to help them learn. They also thought the debate was a good opportunity for them to learn oral speaking skills and a chance to showcase some of the advanced skills I have been trying to teach them over the year. The negatives came through in the management of time and groups.

How will you develop your practice as a result of this learner feedback?

I am going to revisit my unit plans and look at the option of starting debates from the beginning of the year. This would be a great way for me as the teacher to map the progress of my learners in a way that is different from the usual exams, essays, and other assessed pieces of writing etc. I have also realised not to panic and try and complete so much in one lesson – I have learnt that it is better to have 2 lessons on something that is interesting and will help my students rather than rushing through a lot of activities just to make it engaging and fun.

How will you develop your approach to obtaining learner feedback to improve the quality of teaching and learning?

After every unit, I ask my students to complete a set of questions that are reflective but mostly centred around what the curriculum desires. For example, what skills they have used, and what learner profile they were exhibiting during this unit. I found it challenging to obtain feedback without expressly saying I needed it. Therefore, I realised that I could just add questions to this sheet. This would give me feedback for every unit, however it would only be at the end of an 8 week term rather than after the lesson itself.

I am happy that I already use journals with my students, therefore, it was not too hard obtaining their thoughts and feelings on the topic I had planned and delivered to them. At times, I use exit passes but these are always related to the content rather than subjective feelings on my teaching or my unit. With all of this in mind, when I revisit my unit plan for many reasons, I will also add exit pass cards and reflection exercises for the teacher rather than for the content.


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Part B: Reflective ReportIn your report you should reflect on your overall experience of facilitating active learning and effective teaching. Among your reflections on this stage of the teaching and learning cycle and your Diploma project, you should include the following themes:(a) How learner and observer feedback can help to improve your practice and the learners’

learning.(b) How you fostered learners’ curiosity and creativity.(c) How you intend to be more effective in facilitating active learning in the future.

(approximately 1000 words)

At this stage of my teaching career, I feel lucky to be in a position where I am freely able to design unit plans that encorporate many weird and wonderful ideas. English, over the decades has been seen as a very bland and boring subject for those who truly have no interest in it, or do not see the point in learning Shakespeare in the modern day! However, with the approach to active learning and encouraging the students to play a part in shaping their own classroom experience, the lessons now feel innovative and full of energy.In terms of effective teaching strategies, Malcolm Knowles, the famous American Adult Educator, looked at the role of the “autonomous learner” where teachers become the facilitators of learning and the student takes charge. Knowles believed learners need to know the reason for learning something and that their experience (including error) provide the basis for learning activities. This includes asking students to identify and evaluate their lessons and their own performance because it allows them to judge error and realise what needs to improve. Furthermore, allowing students to critique lessons not only builds a bridge of communication and trust between teachers and learners, but allows them to feel they are part of their learning experience rather than being dictated to. Being able to set themselves and their teacher’s targets, allows them to be responsible for “their decisions on education; involvement in the planning and evaluation of their instruction.” Knowles, M (2005) This ties nicely with the concept of “why should we learn Shakespeare?” If students know their feedback is used to help plan and design a unit then less negativity is felt towards the content. For example, students when asked for feedback on lessons for Romeo and Juliet, may request acting, performance, or dressing-up in Elizabethan costume; all of which are possible and can be moulded into any lesson rather than just group reading, or showing a film.Therefore, seeking feedback from learners amounts to a wealth of knowledge of how to improve, and through this feedback one can make sure they are striving towards designing units and lessons that provide what the students want. Additionally, the experience and knowledge a teacher has can be extremely beneficial to another teacher; old or new to the profession. For example, one may know the content of a subject and be confident in this, but may not have a grasp of the underlying pedagogy, or how to maintain classroom behaviour. Moreover, when you are the teacher designing the unit you can overlook details because you are too involved in the planning process. Therefore, a teacher who is removed from this area of the curriculum can often notice areas of improvement when observing a lesson. At the same time, their job as an observer is to see the lesson as a whole whereas the teacher views the lesson as a timeline of systematic points and objectives and can miss other things happening in the room. During this unit; this year as a teacher; and my past years as a trainee teacher I have found the wisdom and advice of my observers invaluable. They are the mirror you need to improve and can introduce you to ideas you had not considered; not because of bad teaching but because every mind is different and choices are made differently.


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaluation

It is not just the active teaching strategies of viewing the student as an autonomous learner, or feedback but also the attitude of the learner that is important for success. I believe that the attitude of a learner towards the subject comes from their experience with it and their teacher. Knowing your students is crucial in order to foster their curiosity and creativity. When planning (and delivering) this current unit on Belief, there was a lot of content to cover in a relatively short amount of time, but I wanted to create something fun and challenging. Using debates, films, creating a newsroom broadcast (later on in the unit) were all activities that I knew my students would love. What was perhaps more insightful was that I knew I would enjoy and get pleasure out of teaching them through these activities too. This is where the teacher can also play a vital role in ensuring that activities are in place to make sure barriers to learning are removed. From Module One, we know it is important that this is present in how the subject and its delivery is designed in order to meet the needs and interests of the diverse range of learners. “Tomlinson recommended that the responsibility should be on the educational institution to empathise with and respond to the individual, and to address the needs of that individual learner.” Therefore, you need to “Make sure you have as much detail about the needs of the learners in your group as possible.” Powell. S. & Tummons. J. (2011) Identifying learner needs is a useful tool. Personally, I used the students’ reflections from previous units, their outlook on their English lessons last year with another teacher, and their personal target sessions with me to help me bring English to life for them in this unit. By this point, I had identified my weak learners, my strong ones, the advanced Literature fans, and my group of boisterous, easily-bored boys. In order to foster their curiosity and creativity, I designed activities that could engage most of these learners; activities that would not be too challenging for the weaker learners nor too easy so that my strong learners would become bored. The paperclip activity I designed was perfect in engaging and intriguing my learners and helped them step into the mindframe of ‘change’. The debate encorporated the curiosity of all of my learners with who was going to win, what were they going to say, and can murder be justified?I feel that using meta-cognition (Flavell, 1977) best applies to the learning environment I am trying to create in all of my units. I am encouraging the students to think, which is challenged with questioning, design, and practical elements. I believe this links nicely to Willis (1999) and contextual reflection. The students are able to map where their experience from this lesson fits in overall on their English unit. This way they can map the direction of the task and they are finally identifying the purpose of the unit, the literature, and the research. Overall, I am suitably satisfied with the outcome of putting my unit plan into practice. I am very happy that the reception of my unit in general was a positive one, with a few areas of improvement. I intend to become more effective in facilitating active learning because in all honesty my students respond exceptionally well to being independent learners. I want to widen the scope of activities that I choose, and I want to step away from the fear of a timeline pushing me to ‘cram’ more into a lesson than needed. If I broke down activities and lengthened them, I think they would have even more of a positivie effect on my students than they already have done. I plan to put more effort into the links that can be made between a physical activity and a global concept, such as Belief or Murder. This way, my learners can become fully autonomous and enjoy their subject rather than connecting it to previous experience and viewing it as a chore.


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Additional evidence

You may include selected images of the learning sessions as additional evidence

(NB maximum number of images = 6: please set resolution for web/screen 96 dpi)

Example 1: Email of short reflection asked from students who took part in the debate. Some students wrote on A4 Lined Paper, others emailed me.

From: Qanita Malik <[email protected]>Subject: RE: Debate feedbackDate: 25 June 2013 17:07:54 GMT+08:00To: Ms. Abigail Ferrari [email protected]

Last term, a few students from our class were assigned to prepare a debate based on "Murder is not justifiable" and we had about two weeks to gather information to present on the day of our debate. I found the debate highly interesting as it talked about an issue that is a big problem in today's world. I was on the opposition side therefore I was to prove that murder is justifiable. Me and my team gathered points and assigned roles. We were all extremely nervous on the day of the debate itself as it was our first formal debate that we were ever in. We all have debated informally with our friends, but we had never done something like what we were given to do. We had a few good speakers in our group of four, which were myself and Akaal, Reginald and Samsudeen were assigned to take notes and also retaliated some of the points that were raised by the defending team. The fact that we had two weeks for preparation was a strength itself as we had a lot of time to form strong debate topics within the topic given. The points and information that we found was very deep and had a lot of strong arguments within them. Our weakness was that we did not know what the defending team would raise up, what their strong points are and what topics they are covering. As part of our research we chose topics like Self- Defense, Euthanasia and Abortion but during the debate we were faced with strong points like Religious issues. We found that extremely difficult to retort to so we twisted what the defense had to say and introduced a new topic. I feel that we should have more debates that would include the whole class or different days for different people as it is a kind of peer to peer learning and we are then enlightened on how our classmates think of a concept (Belief/Murder) and how they bring about questions from it. While debating i feel our knowledge about the two main concepts, Belief and Murder, had increased to a great extent. This is because while debating we received knowledge from the defending side on how murder was not justifiable, how murder can be looked at (two perspectives; civil and moral), we learned about how murder is looked in the eyes of different people. I feel that this heavily contributed to our lessons on our topics as it increased our knowledge and interest in the topic. Personally, after coming home from the debate I researched more on the topic as i was extremely fascinated by the topic itself and the many sub topics it covered. Overall, I felt that the debate was a very effective way of learning as you do not get bored from it nor do you get tired or listening to people argue over the same issue.


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mailto:[email protected]

Example 2: Written informal reflections of Lesson 2: Debate on Murder


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Example 3: Written informal reflection on Lesson 1


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Example 4: Journal Examples: a way of obtaining feedback on student’s understanding and competency


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