Preparing To Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector: Session 8-My Microteach Week
The second microteach week covered sessions on beauty therapy, pharmacy and customer service as well as my history one. I'll briefly summarise the others first.
The first learner gave her session on beauty therapy, specifically manicure. She demonstrated an express manicure -on my hands! I don't think they've ever had such attention! She was good at explaining things.
The second was a qualified pharmacist and she taught us about the over the counter protocol-why pharmacists ask the questions they do when you go to the chemist-such as 'is the medicine for you?', 'what else are you taking?' etc. Quite a lot of it was common sense, but it was quite interesting.
I was up next. More about that in a moment.
The last learner gave her session on customer service-good experiences ,bad ones and how to handle awkward situations. Again it was quite useful and practical.
My microteach:
My subject was developments in 19th century medicine/surgery. I started with 3 minutes of an episode of What the Victorians Did for Us, which described what an operation was like at the beginning of the 19th century. (I warned the learners first!). I then got them to say why they wouldn't have wanted to have been operated on then (no anaesthetics/pain relief, risk of infection and many patients died).
Then we looked at various developments (anaesthetic, antiseptic, antibiotics and x-rays) and I got them to tell me whether they thought they were 19th or 20th century developments (all 19th century except for antibiotics). I then gave them some of the historical context, but not the dates or people responsible. I gave them a timeline exercise to do-I'd put the name/date/person chiefly associated with the aforementioned developments on a grid on a piece of paper, cut them up and got the learners to match them back up again.
After going through the right answers, I showed them a picture of 19th century medical apparatus and got them to try to work out what it might have been used for. Quite a few of them got it right-a carbolic antiseptic sprayer. I finished with a quiz.
I was very pleased with how interested and engaged in the subject the learners were. They seemed to be happy when they got an answer right. I was more nervous than they believed I needed to be as "I clearly knew what I was talking about". They said they really enjoyed my activities and liked my resources-they were especially impressed I'd printed off photos. Anyway, now I know I'd pitched my activities at the right level and the whole thing came together quite well, I really don't think I'd be that nervous again and maybe I can actually teach history to adults after all! :)
The first learner gave her session on beauty therapy, specifically manicure. She demonstrated an express manicure -on my hands! I don't think they've ever had such attention! She was good at explaining things.
The second was a qualified pharmacist and she taught us about the over the counter protocol-why pharmacists ask the questions they do when you go to the chemist-such as 'is the medicine for you?', 'what else are you taking?' etc. Quite a lot of it was common sense, but it was quite interesting.
I was up next. More about that in a moment.
The last learner gave her session on customer service-good experiences ,bad ones and how to handle awkward situations. Again it was quite useful and practical.
My microteach:
My subject was developments in 19th century medicine/surgery. I started with 3 minutes of an episode of What the Victorians Did for Us, which described what an operation was like at the beginning of the 19th century. (I warned the learners first!). I then got them to say why they wouldn't have wanted to have been operated on then (no anaesthetics/pain relief, risk of infection and many patients died).
Then we looked at various developments (anaesthetic, antiseptic, antibiotics and x-rays) and I got them to tell me whether they thought they were 19th or 20th century developments (all 19th century except for antibiotics). I then gave them some of the historical context, but not the dates or people responsible. I gave them a timeline exercise to do-I'd put the name/date/person chiefly associated with the aforementioned developments on a grid on a piece of paper, cut them up and got the learners to match them back up again.
After going through the right answers, I showed them a picture of 19th century medical apparatus and got them to try to work out what it might have been used for. Quite a few of them got it right-a carbolic antiseptic sprayer. I finished with a quiz.
I was very pleased with how interested and engaged in the subject the learners were. They seemed to be happy when they got an answer right. I was more nervous than they believed I needed to be as "I clearly knew what I was talking about". They said they really enjoyed my activities and liked my resources-they were especially impressed I'd printed off photos. Anyway, now I know I'd pitched my activities at the right level and the whole thing came together quite well, I really don't think I'd be that nervous again and maybe I can actually teach history to adults after all! :)