In this module, we discussed the tensions that exist when we assume our role as a teacher. It ranged from whether the classroom environment should be serious or fun, whether our decisions should consider the individual or whole class to even the highs and lows of the teaching profession. In the end, I feel that as with every profession, there are challenges and ironies and it is the one’s philosophy, attitude and innate passion that will carry one through these tensions.

In the second part of this module, we also learnt the skills related to writing a good lesson plan, and skills associated with micro-teaching: explaining, questioning, opening and closing a lesson. This followed with a 25min micro-teaching assignment. I chose a difficult and unfamiliar topic to do my micro-teaching: genetic engineering which was an area students often struggled to understand and it is abstract and microscopic. I developed a lesson that involved getting students to model after the process of genetic engineering itself and using analogies to help them better understand the function of restriction enzymes and ligases. I received positive feedback on my lesson and eventually achieved an A+.