Today I observed an Academic Reading Skills course offered at Thompson Rivers University. Due to a work commitment I joined half-way through the multi-hour class and I tried to join without disrupting the flow of the lesson. Luckily I joined just before the class was going on break! During the break the teacher and I spent a couple of minutes discussing course content, classroom management techniques and the lesson; this context was extremely helpful as I continued with my observation.
After the break the teacher provided me with an opportunity to introduce myself to the class so students knew who the “new person” in the class was. I took this opportunity to explain who I was, the TESL program, and how I was hoping to engage in the classroom space. Students didn’t have any questions and the lesson progressed. I felt that the opportunity to introduced myself to the class created an instant connection to the students and I immediately had a sense that I was part of this community.
As the lesson progressed it became apparent that the English language proficiency of this class was one of the highest I have observed to date. The lesson was focused on a piece of literature and students were discussing characters, plot and themes throughout the text. Students shared an analysis of the text that they completed prior to the lesson and the teacher provided a summary of the questions and comments from these submissions. Even though students were highly-engaged and demonstrated an understanding of the text, there were vocabulary words that students struggled with. The teacher paused the lesson a couple of times to ask students if they understood specific vocabulary and if they did not know a word, the teacher took the time to explain it in the context of the piece of literature.
For the second part of the lesson students were assigned to break-out groups where they were asked to reflect on the text and answer specific questions as a group. I was placed in a group with three students. Once in the group a natural leader emerged and took charge for facilitating the group conversation. Students used their microphones and didn’t turn on their cameras. While the students worked through the questions they struggled with vocabulary. During this part of the activity I found it challenging to not jump-in and support or facilitate the discussion for the students. I held back from turning on my microphone or writing text in the chat as I wanted to provide time and space for the students to work-through the activity at their pace.
In conclusion this lesson has me thinking about the role of the teacher, specifically when to provide answers and when to lean into students in the classroom space to support each other’s learning. In an online environment it can be challenging to see behavioural cues of students understanding, such as facial expressions or the act of raising one’s hand. Ensuring students have the space to question or clarify is important and determining how to create these spaces in which to do so is key to a positive learning environment, even more so online.