TESTING SESSION

In order to have a brief taster session for both me and the students-to-be, the teachers first arranged a session during lunchtime. It was also an opportunity for me to understand how many students I could handle. Although I've had some experience with children in Year 3 and 4 through community service (I had to teach them English), I have never tried teaching alone - I was always working with somebody, and when they weren't listening we would always control them together. Handling young students was a challenge I'd have to overcome.

When I first entered the classroom for the tester session, it was honestly quite chaotic, with around 20 students around the tables, talking, walking, running and they didn't really stay quiet. The teachers around me helped keep them calm, and I realized how important and difficult classroom management was. I first tried to teach them basic buttons and skills using the 'Hello Purr' project mixed with 'Paint Pot', as I thought they were the best examples of what the students would come up with and also provided some interaction between me and the students.

I first had to introduce MIT App Inventor to them, as nobody had really heard of the website. However, since the students were in Year 4 (soon to be Year 5), none of them had school emails we could use and therefore they couldn't try it out by themselves. So, instead of having them try the application I just projected my computer screen onto the whiteboard and talked as I went along the process.

I was and still am pretty shy when answering questions that teachers ask, but after that session I realized that I should really try my best to answer them as it was pretty frustrating when no one answered any of my questions. They were definitely shy, and so we had to play a little ice breaker in the middle to make sure that everyone could participate. I showed them how to add buttons, and we would decide the background image and the colors to paint onto the canvas together, and the students really liked that interaction between us. That was one of the most valuable lessons I've learnt : always communicate with one another! It really helps!!

However, due to time constraints, I wasn't able to cover everything I wanted to show. Although I was a little overwhelmed, I think that I did okay as it was my first time teaching alone with quite a lot of people. After that session, I realized that 10 students would already be enough to handle and all I had to do was wait for the semester to pass.

Having a taster session really helped me to understand how the classroom would work and the whole 'feel' of the project. It was also really useful getting feedback from the teachers and them help spread the word on social media!