Lessons from the classroom
This assignment is linked to your own experiences and progress in teaching practice, your
observation of peers, your ‘live’ observations of experienced teachers and the filmed lessons in the
Observation Room.
Please organise your assignment under the following headings:
1. Your teaching strengths
Identify at least three areas of teaching which you have improved on during the course
and state how you have achieved this progress. You should include specific examples from
lessons you have taught and feedback comments from trainers, other trainees and your
teaching practice students.
2. Areas for improvement
Identify at least three areas of teaching you need to work on and make suggestions on
how to improve on these after the course. Give examples from your teaching and include
comments from trainers, other trainees and your teaching practice students to justify your
suggestions.
3. Observations of other trainees and experienced teachers
Identify particular strengths and skills you have observed, commenting on both your peers
and experienced teachers. You should include specific examples of skills and techniques
you would like to use in the future, and say how you will incorporate them into your own
teaching.
4. Further development after the course
Say how you intend to increase your knowledge of ELT after the course. State which
sources you intend to use to find out information about new methods and approaches. You
should also say how you intend to develop your teaching skills in the future.
Sample Solution
Laying eggs is crucial part of the life cycle for oviparous animals. “An important factor affecting the life-history of an organism is parental investment in reproduction: reproductive decisions are almost invariably costly” (Kotiaho and Paukku 2008). Our experiment is focused on pre-oviposition by measuring whether or not bean beetles prefer small or large lima beans to oviposit on. Oviposition preference is dependent on size, small or large, of a lima bean. If bean beetles prefer large lima beans, will we see any eggs deposited on small lima beans? Or, if there is no preference, will we see near-equal numbers for both categories?
For this experiment our model organism is Callosobrachus maculatus, commonly known as the bean beetle. C. maculatus is frequently found in reproductive experiments because they are easy to maintain, adults do not require food or water and the tropical/subtropical regions they are naturally found in can be easily duplicated, and they spend their entire lifespan (around 1-2 weeks) mating and laying eggs (Beck and Blumer 2011). The reason why this organism was chosen for our experiment is because the larvae of this species exclusively feeds and develops on the seed of legumes (Beck and Blumer 2011). We believe that if a preference is shown, a greater number of eggs will be oviposited on the larger lima beans when compared to small lima beans.
Methods
To begin we gathered 3 individual petri dishes with lids and put 15 large and 15 small lima beans in each dish. All lima beans used in this experiment were gathered from the same source. Next, we obtained the beetles from a laboratory container which supplied the class for this experiment. 3 randomly chosen female and 2 randomly chosen male bean beetles were placed in each petri dish. This was done by using an aspirator to suck each beetle into a collecting vial, then releasing the beetle into its prearranged petri dish. Finally, the petri dishes were placed in a room-temperature location for 2 weeks to allow enough time for fertilization and oviposition.
After 2 weeks, each individual bean was observed under a microscope and examined for eggs. To calculate our results we used the final measurements. Our ending measurements were obtained by observing, through the microscope, which beans had eggs laid on them. We recorded our observations by numbering how many eggs were found on each bean. After observing all 90 lima beans, we returned the beans back to their original groups to determine group averages. After, all 45 small and 45 large beans were placed togethe