Interview- sample lesson- any teachers please...

[Rachmumoftwo]

I have to teach a mixed age/ability group of 10 children for 20 minutes. The only spec I have been given is the lesson must promote collaborative learning.

I was thinking of doing an interactive lesson on Wants and Needs (Literacy- speaking and listening, Citizenship/PSHE), imagine you are on a desert island,what would you take- plenty of discussion, laminated cards to sort as a group in order of importance.

What do you think? Any better ideas

PS- could be year 1,2,3 or mixed.

Just thinking aloud - how would you link Wants and Needs to citizenship?

I think discussion and group work would be great but the pupils need to make the link themselves.

i hate when schools invent such arbitrary 'lessons' which you will never experience. yes, the idea of a group acitivity, discussion etc (do you know all the learning objectives?) do you know the range of possible abilities, e.g. will every child be able to read?

i once got set one of these (sec school) in a room with NO kind of board at all, I had gone prepared with white board, chalk board & paper writing stuff, only to find it was me, holding up a piece of A4, as we planned a poem. grr.

I like your idea, the one thing i always looked for was that the teach KNEW the purpose of the lesson, and that the kids got there. preferably in a reasonably positive and interactive way.

The citizenship aspect is the link to the Global Dimension- how the needs are the same for everyone but not necessarily always met- basic needs of food, shelter etc.

I can't assume anything about the children or the resources available so will have to be super-prepared

God, interview nightmare scneario! Your lesson sounds good but they will be looking to see that children understand the objective, make progress during lesson, are engaged etc
I think that your idea would work with articulate, confident speakers, but with a ragbag mixture of kids it could be hard to engage them all and move them clearly towards your LO.
You know the schol and the context. I would play it a little safer with the task unless you can be really sure it won't end up you talking a lot..
Just my thoughts.

I wanted to do a science activity but 20 minutes is just not long enough for any kind of exploration or investigation, but thought I might throw that into the presentation that follows the lesson. I am in for a fun day on Friday and then in the evening I am giving blood

Still possible to do a science activity: a quick demo, then ask pupils in groups to try to work out what's going on. If the demo is a good one, you'll have their attention straight away and hopefully they'll be enthusiastic about talking.

sounds like a good idea. Have you heard of 'spaceship earth' - similar to the desert island, but imagine you are on a spaceship - what would you take with you etc. Then you draw out of them that the EARTH IS A SPACESHIP!! and you cant just pop to the next planet to get more water/food/air - so you could link it in to sustainable development/recycling/equitable distribution of resources.

just make sure you get the kids to do most of the work - and have you thought about how you are going to organise the groups? Do something like put different coloured spaceships in a bag and get them to pull them out and go into that coloured spaceships group. Something they cant argue with!

good luck!

oh and have you come across 'snowballing'? where they think of their response on their own, then share it with their partner, then pairs get together to share their best ideas, then the groups of four share their best points with everyone.

Well, it worked, I got the job! Thanks for your input ladies

Pooter - have you been doing some recent training on Speaking and Listening by any chance? It's just I've done those exact two activities in training very recently!

Congratulations on the job, Rach. Well done you!

hey that's great!! well done Rach!

janeite no - must have been a complete fluke - i left teaching 3 yrs ago when preggers (whispers - never to return hahahahahahahahaha)

Congratulations!