I hope the laser show impresses

Stardate 12 Oct. 07
Today dear listener I would like to try to compare and contrast between my experiences as the learner (I want to be a student not a learner, sigh I suppose I’ll be a educator not a teacher soon but I digress) and as a teacher. The course I’m on and the course I run. I worry about the lesson planning as my course is run in a work shop environment, my time spent speaking from the front, is usually limited to primarily administrative duties such as acl and ncfe paperwork .Once my learners understand the health and safety issues and the basic skills they need to practice them. I like to guide and inspire my learners but I don’t want to tell them what they like or what they should make. This is for a few reasons firstly stained glass can be an expensive craft, and not everyone can afford to throw money as a project. It would probably be discriminatory in some way to press a learner into in to spending more than they can afford. That said some of the best projects I have made have been entirely made from clear glass but again I’m going of topic. I am trying to utilise the workshop lesson plans as I mentioned earlier. I’m hoping and I use this word advisedly the description of what each learner is achieving may be replaced with a photograph as a um *blushes* picture is worth a thousand words, digital photography has rendered the medium effectively free I consider it the perfect way to describe a piece of visual art so I’m striving to do that, in a educational environment so keen on ICT I’ll be annoyed if I have to print everything out ill give an example but to print out 500 colour photos is expensive and wasteful. Back to my point on a one to one basis I instruct my learners how best to improve their work and solve their individual problems. If each learner was working on the same project then I could devise a straightforward lesson plan. Differentiation prevents this from happening.
Sitting in college as a learner, I understand the reasons for the way the course is being presented but I feel its taking a lot of time to impart only a little information. Whilst there is an element of individual discussion it’s irrelevant to my questions. I noticed at the end of the lesson whist I headed to the door everyone else headed to ask Steve things “teacher will solve problems even if it takes an hour after the lesson doesn’t seem to apply me thinks “. I couldn’t help but wonder if the tasks would be better done during the lessons partially so problem solving can be attended and some peer discussion could be resourced. When the first task was set I felt a little pushed out to sea, the questions i had as soon as I began I haven’t been afforded the opportunity to ask.We have been asked to hand it in next lesson so if it’s wrong it’s wrong. Gill who set the task was so keen to emphasise to keep it simple but the lack of comparative interaction and perceived competition in the group, it’s anyone’s guess to what everyone else produced. I’ll be upset if I don’t win, I hope my laser show impress.