In Week 1, I was able to observe a total of 4.5 hours of 1 trainee coach (physics) and 1 experienced teacher (biology) classes due to clashes of teaching periods. Both teachers were teaching upper secondary students (Year 9 and Year 10).

In Week 2, I was able to observe a total of only 2 hours of 1 trainee coach (physics) classes due to my involvement in practices and actual event of "Majlis Pengagihan Bendera Kecil Meja sempena Hari Kebangsaan Negara Brunei Darussalam". The teacher was teaching upper secondary students (Year 9).

B. Student Engagement and Behaviour

In some classes, students were responding and participating in the lessons actively. Collaborative strategies such as Think-Pair-Share and other group activities helped to improve students' communication skills and teamwork. This had increased students' engagement and problem-solving abilities. In other cases, students felt less motivated to learn. This might be because the topic was difficult and they were afraid to share wrong answers or ideas.

C. Learning Outcomes and Challenges

I was able to relate some situations or incidents in the classes with the relevant educational theories. Cognitive and constructivism theories as stated by Piaget and Vygotsky were primarily displayed by the students especially when they, observe, think and give reason. Other theories such as SEL, Motivational Theory and development (by Erikson) were also observed in the classes.

D. Teaching Strategies and Improvements

There were few take away points that I learnt that can be implemented in my teaching such as giving more assistance to LA students during dialogical teaching, allowing students to do as many hands-on as they can, using talk placement as my plenary activity, providing exciting starter activities and encourage students to volunteer themselves during demonstration sessions.

The teacher started the lesson by giving an individual task for two minutes. The task was to match four density formulae to their respective objects (cylinder, sphere, cube and rectangular). In my opinion, this task helped to refresh the students’ previous knowledge of density. The teacher shared that by instructing the students to do the task individually allows her to indicate which students would need extra assistance for the rest of the lesson.

The teacher used Think-Pair-Share strategy for the first learning objective. Most students were actively involved in the discussions. Two HA groups argued about the last question’s answers. The teacher consented to them to positively debate their insights while others were listening. I think by doing this, it improved the critical thinking of the students and their understanding of the topic. The teacher agreed on this.

During the second objective, the teacher differentiated the students according to their abilities. I noticed that HA and MA students were able to perform the differentiated tasks easily while LA students needed teacher’s guidance from time to time. I believed that their comprehension of English language was the main problem. According to the teacher, it was important to cater the needs of each group of students. She even prepared specific questions and activities by assessing the performance of her previous students. She kept on improvising her teaching approaches over the years. This was a valuable sharing point that I gained from this observation.

Throughout the students’ sharing session, I observed the teacher gave praises, provided constructive comments and clapped her hands as a way to appreciate the efforts made by the students. This was to motivate and encourage the students’ engagement in the lessons better.

The teacher used an exit ticket to assess the overall learning. All students were happy with the lesson, and they were able to achieve both learning objectives. They were enthusiastic about looking forward to the next lesson for density hands-on practical.

Overall, I was satisfied with the lesson progression from the beginning to the end. It was successful and productive. All students were able to participate in all activities and were able to apply their previous knowledge to the lesson. The teacher also provided sufficient resources for the students, digitally and traditionally. This indicated that the preparation prior to conducting the lesson was very important.

From what I observed, the teacher managed to start the learning session effectively by giving out a short MCQ quiz in a time limit. All the students were focused on the task given individually. She did this as to ensure all students participate in her lesson from the beginning. I considered this as a way to induce the students’ engagement for the rest of the class that I can adopt in my teaching.

During the explanation and the discussion parts, personally I think the teacher did a good job by arousing and sustaining the pupils’ interest and by encouraging the pupils’ participation in the class. She introduced a misconception statement that initially triggers the HA students and eventually other students. I believed this method worked well because the students had previous knowledge on this topic. Therefore, their critical thinking was stimulated, and they were able to assess the statement correctly. If I were to apply this in my class, I would give the misconception statements (in terms of true / false) during the plenary session. It is to test the students’ understanding of my lesson.

During questioning and responding sessions, I observed that both teacher and students had a productive and proactive dialogic teaching / learning. I learnt that if we allow a waiting time for answers after questioning the students, it increases their engagement and motivation in the class. I would definitely apply this to my class.

I also observed that the teacher delivered her instructions and explanations in both orally and written. Her learning objectives, steps to success, instructions and notes were mainly bulleted points. They were simple and easy to remember. She incorporated the lesson with slides, videos and worksheets. I think it is important to give clear and simple instructions to the students so that they can try to do their tasks with minimum supervision from the teacher. This helps to develop their analytical skills.

The teacher ended the class by handing out exit tickets. I personally never used exit tickets in my class as a plenary. However, after seeing how it was conducted in the class and how useful was the information given by the students on the papers, makes me wanted to try implementing it in my next lesson.

Overall, I was satisfied with the lesson enactment by the teacher.

From the previous lesson, there were several positive observations on both students’ behaviours and the teacher’s classroom management that I could gather. The productive discussion during dialogic teaching and learning had helped a better interaction between teacher-student and student-student relationships. The interaction was led by the teacher and built up ultimately by the students. Personally, I think this would increase the students’ confidence and communication skills.

I also observed that the students displayed both verbal and non-verbal behaviours when responding to their teacher’s inquiries. Some examples of the behaviours include delivering answers in a loud and clear voice or in a mutter, the nodding of heads, the empty stares at the teacher and others. Each of this behaviour was validated by the teacher in a positive manner. I think one very important reason for this is that the teacher recognized the abilities of each student. Therefore, this could help to build trust between the teacher and the students that eventually will lead to a healthy and positive learning environment.

In terms of managing the classroom, in my opinion, the teacher had successfully enhanced the students’ engagement and interests in the lessons. By providing clear instructions and rules throughout the lesson, the students were able to be responsible on their learning process. From my point of view, this could help in developing their self-learning skills. Self-learning skills are necessary in such a way that students will become more independent in their study and in their lifelong learning.

Positive reinforcements that were given by the teacher also created a welcoming and motivating learning environment. In my opinion, the students would be encouraged to participate more in the learning process. The students would set their goals higher and try to achieve them with the drives (motivations) provided by the teacher.

In terms of adopting several teaching approaches such as assigning individual tasks, pairing works and group discussions to the student, the learning development becomes more inclusive and effective. According to my understanding, the participation of all students with different abilities should be given equal opportunities and respect. This would benefit the students both socially and academically.

Overall, I was satisfied to observe several positive classroom cultures that were instilled by the teacher and displayed by the students. I would apply some of the cultures into my teaching sessions such as giving praises to the students, assigning tasks according to their abilities and encourage their participations in the dialogic teaching  and learning.

Strengths in my teaching:

I realised that time management was very crucial in teaching. I planned my lessons into small parts and set each part with a reasonable amount of time to execute them. I was able to carry out my lesson in 40 min period. One of the advantages of effective time management was to balance both teaching and learning processes such as starting the lesson, explaining the instructions, doing individual task, assessing peers’ understanding, performing group activity and finally, ending the lesson with plenary session.

It was also important to provide simple instructions and clear flow of the lesson to the students especially primary kids because these made them grasp the ideas quicker and then understand better. I prepared an achievable lesson objective and proper steps to success so that the students were able to follow them accurately.

I also provided the students with some ICT elements and traditional teaching aids. For ICT, I used Canva slides and a YouTube Video that explain the formation of a rainbow visually and interactively. Since the video was enjoyable to watch, therefore it increased the students’ engagement in the lesson. They listened and watched the video attentively. As for the traditional teaching aids, I provided them with worksheets for individual MCQs and for practical session.

As for the assessment of MCQs, I let the students to check their own friends’ answers (peer assessment). I considered this method because I needed to observe if the students could critically evaluate or reflect on their friends’ works. It was indeed a success. Some students critically commented on the illegible handwritings, and some were amused with the unexpectedly higher achievement of their friends. This assessment also meant that the students could take more responsibility in their study.  

As a plenary activity, I used True or False statements. Each student needed to read the statements first and then analyse if they were true or false. I instructed the students to go to the right side of the classroom if the statement was correct and go to the left side if the statement was wrong. It was exciting to see several students hesitated to move left or right because they were still processing the statement’s logic. From this activity, I could observe that the students were able to critically think about what information was given to them. They tried to apply the knowledge that they had previously learned in the lesson.

Weaknesses in my teaching:

My students were grouped according to their performance during a Trial Test taken in January 2025. There were one group of HA students, two groups of MA students and one group of LA students. In my opinion, I should prepare the lesson tasks according to the ability of each group. However, I did not cater to their needs because I wanted to help them by providing them assistance when I deliver my instructions and when I explain each task to them.

To my understanding, differentiated teachings or learnings can be done in several ways. I gave one challenging question only to my HA students; “Is it possible to reach the end of a rainbow? Why do they think so?” They could not provide acceptable answers for this as they thought that the question was too hard for them. I did explain that it is impossible to reach the end of a rainbow because a rainbow is actually an optical illusion, therefore, it does not exist realistically. As for my LA students, they followed the instructions given carefully and they successfully created a rainbow on the white paper. They did not need extra guidance from me. Therefore, I think giving the same tasks to each group was sufficient and necessary.

I also had troubles when asking several questions to my students and then giving them appropriate responses as mentioned by my mentor. In my opinion, I should give easier questions to LA students by calling up their names. However, I did not do so. Instead, I asked the easier questions to the whole class and HA students answered them effortlessly. In the future, I will include the involvement of all students in all aspects of my teaching.

When responding to the students’ answers, I rarely gave them praises when I should in order to encourage their participation in the lesson. I need to give positive reinforcements as to motivate them more. On another occasion, there was one student who struggled to provide me with a correct answer. Instead of giving him guides or hints to answer correctly, I turned to his friends for some ideas. I should have allowed some “wait-time” to allow the student to process my questions properly and then build up his answers. I think I rushed the process because I tried to manage my time effectively. Therefore, I needed to do this better in my next class.

Overall, I was satisfied with my performance when teaching this lesson. However, there are some areas that I needed to improve such as modifying the lessons to cater different needs of the students and responding well to the students’ participation in the classroom. I hope that I could become a teacher who can nurture and encourage students by providing a positive learning environment.