Local Field Experiences During the Pandemic

Shum Kwan Ho, Year 4 Student of BEd(HIST) (2020/21)

Year 3 of study is bound to be a bittersweet kind of time for me as a student of the Bachelor of Education (Honours) (History). But this was even more true due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, which changed how I study in unexpected ways. Although there were many guidance and support from the University, I was still confused and worried about my Field Experience (FE) and teaching arrangement. I was unfamiliar with online teaching, and so were the in-service teachers; we found it so difficult to set up our teaching plans and activities. But despite these hardships, the teaching practice must go on. 

It was challenging to serve as a student teacher under the pandemic and we faced new uncertainties every day. However, I was able to navigate these challenges with the support of my host colleagues. Indeed, I believe that the proper way to understand the requirements of curriculum and lesson design is through collegial cooperation. The support teacher and supervisor were helpful in giving me information and advice on the curriculum at my host school, and also helped me to track my learning progress. I really enjoyed the diversity of the students there, too.

In order to serve as a better student teacher, I also worked to be “self-cultivated and self-controlled”. I tried my best to enhance my self-discipline by setting up personal principles to follow, and I evaluated the teaching practice continuously. As teachers, we should always review and modify our lesson plans and teaching materials so that they match both the learning objectives and students’ abilities. By using different teaching methodologies and resources such as multimedia tools or other interactive resources, we can then attract our students’ attention and concentration even when lessons are conducted online. And of course, we should always talk to our support teacher, reflect on our own teaching performance, and find ways to further improve our teaching techniques and lesson flows as a whole.

Under the pandemic, our FE experience was dramatically different. Although we as student teachers were only placed at the FE host schools for a very short period of time, and we just started working with the support teachers and teaching our own students online, we still treasured that experience. Perhaps someday in future, we may meet again at the same school. But until then, we should always prepare ourselves to be ready to make every lesson perfect!