Mutual attendance of lessons is an important career stage for a teacher, when he can learn important knowledge from his colleague or show something himself, or share experience with young teachers. If such events are carried out, the level of methodological training of the teacher himself will increase. Teachers can also attend each other's lessons by mutual invitation.
What determines the quality and productivity of a lesson?
There are two factors that directly affect the productivity and quality of teacher training. The teacher should have the following skills:
- Recognize the subjectivity of the novelty of the lesson you attend.
- To be able to see and master the new, as well as include it in their activities and apply these skills in the future.
The reflective activity of a teacher when attending a colleague's lesson allows him to develop methodological competence. Thus, he cultivates himself, drawing for himself new ways and tools of training.
It is the increase of one's own professional level that is the main goal of attending another teacher’s lesson. Therefore, the main purpose of the mutual attendance of lessons is the exchange of experience, as well as the receipt of a new impulse in further professional activity. The main impetus for development is attentiveness and observation.
After attending the lesson, the teacher writes down various points and then analyzes them. If after this he saw flaws in his work or in the work of a colleague, then he is considering how to improve the methodology.
After attending a lesson
After a mutual attendance of the lessons, the teacher should understand what he wrote down during the event, as well as take part in the analysis of the work done and take stock. Further, he should actively learn the experience that he gained in the lessons attended. In the future, the teacher can also conduct surveys, questionnaires, introduce new concepts and more effectively organize the process of independent work of students.
It will also help in the development of methodological competence. If you creatively interpret the experience gained, then you can find your own new approaches to the organization of the educational process at school.
This practice facilitates the effective exchange of work experience between educators. Thus, the level of the educational process at school is increased.
If guests of the lesson will use visiting cards, then the effectiveness of the lesson will be much higher. Thanks to the cards, colleagues can tell the teacher what is worth paying attention to and what is better to miss in the future.
Lesson Mitual Analysis - Structural Elements
To increase the effectiveness of such events, a great deal of work needs to be done where you need to draw up a lesson analysis plan. It includes:
- Basic goals.
- Lesson organization.
- Compliance of classes with generally accepted requirements.
- Lesson content.
- Methodology
- The psychological basis.
- Homework.
- New elements in the pedagogical activity of a teacher.
Secrets of the teaching methodology
Teaching is a unique science. It can only be understood by trial and error. If you listen to even a thousand lectures, you still will not be able to conduct the perfect lesson the first time, because you do not have sufficient skills. Only in practice, the teacher understands how certain techniques work. Also, for each teacher, their own methods will be effective. They are different.
To improve teaching, you must attend additional classes. In our case, this is a mutual attendance of lessons between teachers. As the famous teacher Makarenko believed, the teacher should not only teach, but also learn.
Problems of young teachers
Mutual attendance of lessons by teachers is an important attribute for their professional growth. But there is a problem: young teachers often intentionally do not attend the lessons of their colleagues, explaining this with character traits. Often the school administration comes to classes, because it obliges the position. Young teachers also perceive conducting open classes as punishment.
Also, a lot of things depend on the working conditions in a particular school. Everyone knows that mutual attendance of lessons is voluntary. Often such experiences are exchanged between teachers working in the same school or in one that is close to home.
But sometimes information appears that in some schools, mutual attendance of lessons is carried out on a mandatory basis. For this purpose, a special journal is kept, where such classes are recorded.
How to organize this?
The process of mutual attendance of lessons by teachers looks like this:
- Teachers are independently divided into groups. True, most often they are united by labor relations or various methodological associations. But teachers who work in the same class can also be grouped. This is best done by those teachers who work in the fifth or final grade. So it will be easier to find the relationship.
You can also organize a special force-group, where the leader will be the one who graduated from special courses in teaching and shares his experience with colleagues. To do this, he must:
- Set a goal. In this case, it is necessary to answer a number of questions, among which there will be various leading questions to oneself. What will I give students today? Why am I going to class? How will it end? Is he needed at all? What methods and techniques should be used? There may be many such questions. They should be an integrated group of teachers. Each teacher sets goals with a certain bias.
What is the result?
In order for teachers to be able to attend classes together, a number of recommendations need to be developed. For example, in the first quarter you can deviate towards the development of new technologies, in the second you can develop critical thinking, and in the third you can deal with the problems of lagging students, as well as give additional instructions for those who have talent and who can show themselves at local competitions in subjects or excel in sports competitions.
Also, thanks to the mutual visit, each teacher of the organized group accumulates a huge amount of materials, where a large amount of methods and techniques are collected on one specific issue. This base can be processed together, which will increase the competence of each teacher sitting in a group.
To do this, you need to implement such a system:
- Make a schedule. Here you need to take into account the interests and work schedule of each teacher. In addition, you need to register windows. After all, not every teacher can come at a certain time.
- Make the task easier. The organizer of such meetings can provide ready-made schemes for analyzing the lessons. This will simplify the work of all teachers when attending lessons. A sample of such a document will be presented below. You can also fill out forms using a computer, so as not to carry tons of paper back and forth.
- Stimulus. In order for teachers to willingly attend the lessons of their colleagues, it is necessary to keep an activity journal with a rating. For example, 10 points for an open lesson, 5 for an event, etc. The list can be continued indefinitely. The best ones are encouraged with some kind of prizes or cash rewards. Also a nice bonus will be additional time off.
What should the administration take into service?
- Organize free attendance of lessons. This is much more effective than a teacher just sitting out 20 lessons in a quarter and not doing anything. The administration should show the practical significance of the mutual attendance of lessons and in every way stimulate teachers.
- Foster a friendly attitude towards everyone.
- Require mandatory analysis from the teacher. If detailed feedback is not received, it means that the teacher came to sit out time, and not exchange experiences with teachers during the mutual attendance of lessons. Samples of documents provided to teachers will greatly facilitate their work.