Response to the Principal’s email
I would like to present my reply on the reactions of my students in the lesson that I conducted today in class 3. It is a common observation that at the beginning of any class, the students will always show signs of fatigue and lack of attention because of the workload or complexity of the previous lesson. According to this observation, only three quarters of the students will be attentive and raise their hands, while others will still be adapting to the new lesson. This is the reason why most teachers will always engage their students in warm up activities such as brainstorming on the previous lesson’s assignments or homework. This will energize the students and enable them to concentrate in the course group. Therefore, it is crucial that after going through previous lesson’s work, the teacher need to introduce a fresh topic or subtopic to enable easy transition of ideas and concepts. The majority of the students are slow learners who take considerable time to grasp new concepts; hence, it is appropriate that a teacher builds up a new concept from the last topics. Therefore, this was an indication of an active class since only a quarter of the pupils were not attentive in class.
Another response concerns the close of the lesson. This is the time that full concentration is experienced in the class since all students have adapted to the new lesson. To improve on this area, teachers will use this time to raise questions on the teachings in that class or introduce the next lesson’s topic. Students’ brains are now occupied in a this lesson that they are capable of relating concepts to their environment. This explains why a number of them were able to write down the home assignment and follow instructions for transition to the next class. Concentration is always optimal when the lesson comes to the end. This depends on the mode of teaching that the teacher executed. For example, use of question-answer method, which demands that students have to be attentive in order not to miss any vital information. Similarly, in capturing the concentration of students, the teacher may also opt to ask questions that require students to apply their opinions about the topic. This will enhance full attention at the end of the lesson and equip students with the necessary knowledge that was passed in the course of the class. I , therefore, hope that the students showed signs that are always evident in any educational setting.