Activity 1: Creating a reflective Journal

Activity 1: Creating a reflective Journal

Who am I?

Welcome to my blog page for Applied Practice in Context.  Before I write any blogs for you to comment on, I think it would be nice if I introduced myself to the readers.

My name is Vimal Singh, an Indian by ethnicity. I was born and raised in Fiji. This is where my primary, secondary and tertiary education took place. I did further studies in New Zealand and Australia. Came to New Zealand 21 years back and have no regrets. I worked for a Telecommunication company for 4 years before taking up teaching.  I have been teaching for the last 16 years at Edgewater College.  For the last fifteen years, I have been teaching Mathematics from years 9 to 13. From last year I have started teaching year 12 and 13 Physics.

My Passion:

I enjoy reading novels, watching English movies and churning out some yummy food when I am in the Kitchen. I enjoy the nature and love gardening. I get inspiration from motivational speakers and teachers that have the can do attitude.

My Teaching Style:

When I first started my teaching career in New Zealand, I practiced how my teachers taught me. This was chalk and talk. In other words, my teaching style was quite traditional. I thought I was the sole authority in the class and ruled with an iron fist. Some students liked me being strict whilst others loathed it. At that point, in time I lacked the friendliness that students seek in a teacher. I didn’t realise that building up a warm relationship with students would help me in learning more about them and the students will open up to be taught easily. As time progressed, I became friendlier and held one to one conversation in class with students trying to learn more about them. This helped me in lifting the students’ motivation and engagement in class. However, I still held on to my traditional ways of teaching and did not feel comfortable relinquishing my control.

I have been thinking of using collaborative teaching style in class, but held the belief that my class would become noisy and disruptive. However, last year I built the courage to put students in small groups and get them to work on certain topics. This was the game changer for me.  At the same time, I was lucky to enrol myself in the Post Grad course offered by The MindLab. This course challenged my beliefs and it motivated me to become a facilitator rather than a control freak.  Now, I am open to various ways of teaching students so that they become skilled with the 21^st Century skills, mandatory for survival in the 21^st Century.  When I see a student smile and say,  “ I now understand this”, makes my day and I feel even more motivated as teacher/facilitator to empower these students so that they become successful learners both outside and in the classroom.