Model Reflection 1

I was thinking of choosing training for elementary teachers as my model context, due to my undergraduate study background in elementary education and my internship experience in two elementary schools. And then it recalls one of my internship as an assistant of English foreign teachers in the 1^st grade and 2^nd grade in Wanquan Elementary School.

At first English foreign teacher courses started from the 3^rd grade. In order to enhance the students’ oral and listening English, the school principle decided to change the curriculum to open this course from the 1^st grade. Since the students in the 1^st and 2^nd grade were too young to understand and follow the foreign teacher’s class, some university student assistants from elementary education were needed. However, there was no training or direction that could help us to understand the working content, the environment, the instructional objective, etc. that wasted me several weeks’ classes to get those information through my own experience.

Therefore, I decided to have a model on topic of the training of teaching assistants for English foreign teacher courses.

Following the direction of the Module 1 worksheet (Practical Excercise II):

1. My preferred professional context for practicing instructional development is elementary education

2. The System to be served is the Foreign English Course Office in Wanquan Elementary School. Suprasystem within this system is the English Course Department in Wanquan Elementary School

3. Two Subsystems in the system are English foreign teachers and students in the 1^st and 2^nd grade.

4. Two Information channels that exist within the system are:

a). students’ performance in class

b). the foreign teachers’ feedback

5. One example of a Subsystem Interface within the system: the class activity is a subsystem interface through which the students can gain knowledge and achieve the learning objectives defined by the teacher.

I feel there’s some thing wrong with my description, but I cannot clearly figure it out yet. Due to my description of the system, the teaching assistant stuff seems isolated from the whole system, suprasystem and subsystem analysis. Hopefully I can make sense though the later classes. And it’s very welcomed if you can share your thoughts on it.