"SLC | S22W3 : Teacher self-evaluation using SWOT analysis technique"

• Good communication skills: This is another strength I possess in that this skill has helped me reach out to students throughout Q&A sessions and when delivering my lessons. **My ability to communicate effectively with these students and not just be too formal giving out information has made most students I teach enjoy my class. I throw questions to the class, answer whatever questions they ask, and interact with them.

My being conversational and also informative makes them keenly interested in what I teach. In a situation where you lack good communication skills with your students, you just teach and leave the class; your students will always be bored in your class, and your inability to possess these skills may bring about disrespect and lack of interest in the subject and teacher. This is my interview.

• Professionalism: As a teacher, you need to know your subject area very well to avoid embarrassment when questions arise or when teaching and a student is correcting you. This won't speak that well. As my strength in class, my professionalism makes students respect me whenever I'm teaching and trying as much as possible to learn from. I'm not subject to corrections, though it's not bad or embarrassing when you're asked a question you're expected to know and then you don't.

Aside from having in-depth knowledge of my subject area, I know how to teach effectively, explain concepts, and inspire my students. They are teachers who are professionally equipped with the knowledge but can't find common ground. They can't teach in a sense that makes learning boring and dull. It also doesn't enhance understanding in class.

A teacher who doesn't break things down using illustrations and examples the students are used to, the students may find it difficult to understand whatever concept is taught. They'll just be on the verge of cramming for exam purposes. My ability to be an expert in my subject area and know thousands of ways to deliver has helped me become effective over the years. I'll not go into much detail again.

• Bringing about creativity in learning: This is what Steemit has taught me, and it's my strength. I look for ways to be creative so I can deliver my message in an appealing way. If I'm talking about separation techniques in chemistry, I'll bring two physical solutes and solvents that my students are aware of, like Garri and water, and then use this creativity to explain to the whole class. They'll never forget that type of separation technique even when asked in an exam hall.

• My ability to talk to students that are lagging behind or students that are less concerned about education is a strength I have in teaching, and the outcome is always positive because of how I converse with these ones, giving them an opportunity to prove themselves worthy in my next class.

Weaknesses As much as I have strengths to accomplish certain things, I have weaknesses too that need to be worked on.

• Class management in a large class: This is one of my weaknesses that I'm working at improving. No matter how good I am at organising a class, when there are many, I find it difficult to be in authority even with a cane. If I can manage to control the front row, the back seaters would be a case study that drains my time used for teaching. I later came to realise that it's because of my size and height, as most of my students are taller and bigger than me.

So they may feel I'm their age mate and may not have much to do even if they turn the whole class up and down. Even when I try to be creative so I can accord organisation, it seems not to be working in a public school, but if it's a private school, it can easily be attained. This is my weakness, though, as I don't like inflicting much pain on students. I try to discipline them mildly while still being in control of my class.

I'm not used to teaching large class sizes, but when opportunities come, I always present myself. So in a case whereby you're in a class of 200 students since it's a public school and you want to manage your class, how do you do this? The students you are trying to organise are from different backgrounds, of which some may not have eaten before coming to school, and some may be lousy because of their work as house helps and the likes. Will the project method work in this case where you group the students?

• Poor time management: This is my weakness. I love being extensive in my teaching; even when writing, I love ensuring points are made and understood even when the course contents aren't covered. **This is my weakness because anytime I'm teaching, I'll make sure I use illustrations to explain concepts to the understanding of my students before teaching them the main concept.

This usually goes beyond the 40 minutes allotted once a week for teaching, which makes me run overtime, and in the process of making the class lively, I'll introduce something the students would think about before continuing the subject matter, which is part of time consumption.This poor time management has caused incomplete syllabus coverage by me in some cases as I spend most of my time doing feedback and ensuring there's a common ground laid.

• Another weakness of mine is my inability to handle stress in class. I spend time teaching students in such a way that they would understand. Sometimes, I organise projects, reviews, group work, and lab work to ensure a particular concept is understood. This stresses me a lot and sometimes makes me reluctant to teach in my next class. I'd rather look for an excuse to stay off school to rest before I break down. I'm not able to manage my stress effectively, and another weakness is lack of motivation.

• Lack of motivation to teach us another weakness as it may occur in a case where most of the students you teach are dull and aren't that sharp in understanding concepts. You become demotivated as a teacher to continue this set of students. This is how I feel anytime I teach such a class where you'll ask questions and no one answers, but you've taught them. Patience and discipline are sometimes what I use to motivate myself and the class as well.

With this, they'll wake up from their slumber and make teaching motivating for me by giving me positive feedback. These are the strengths and weaknesses I have as a teacher. It's always said you can't be a teacher with more weaknesses than strengths. What are you teaching? Except you're a student teacher. Your strengths must outweigh your weaknesses, and that's how it is with mine.

As much as we have strengths and weaknesses as teachers, we have opportunities that drives our teaching and make learning effective. We also have barriers known as threats that hinders our success to be effective in our teaching methods. Analysing these will help us as teachers. As a student teacher, I've come across opportunities in campus which I'll deliberate on extensively.

Development programs relative to teaching: There's this particular program hosted by a group of professional teachers in form of seminars. All student teachers and teachers were invited to learn from the best as to how they can manage a classroom and be effective in teaching the public. We were given materials to use for this purpose and we also learnt from those advanced in the field. Their experiences and illustrations built the foundation. I learnt a lot about how you can respond effectively to a challenge you face in school and class management as well.

These opportunities to be lectured in this way gives me more knowledge and practical experience to carry on with. Occasionally hosting teaching programs for teacher's development helps us know how to tackle our weaknesses and strengthen our strengths. Another opportunity we have as teachers is when we are exposed to digital teaching tools.

Educational Technology advancement: This is an opportunity I have to be versatile and direct in my teaching methods. The lack of these technologies has made it difficult for teachers to teach effectively in this digital era especially teaching computers when there's no facilitation in the school or they don't have enough computers and electricity supply to make this possible. It becomes a challenge as the teacher doesn't have the opportunity to teach with the right teaching method.

He or she will have to improvise theoretically to meet his syllabus, provided the students understand. The introduction of virtual labs where students can learn practically from teachers in a simplified way even when they are not physically seen by the teachers can actually go a long way. I can remember teaching my students using one of the virtual labs platform from labexchange.com.

Screenshots from my chrome

Even with the COVID at that, I could reach out to my students through Zoom application and teach them using the virtual whiteboard feature therein. Asides these advancement in educational technology, the following are other opportunities I've encountered as a teacher.

• I've had the opportunity to communicate with educators worldwide through video conferencing where I got to connect with them and learn from their educational ideas and strategies.

• I've also seen opportunities where teachers are rewarded and recognised for their hardwork over the years. I can remember when I received a mail that I was seen as the best chemistry teacher in the school and that I should come to a particular location to get awarded for such. Not just me, other other teachers and students teachers were awarded. This program really made me someone recognizable even at diminishing height.

• Opportunities such as funding by the government and being placed in a place where you get to work as an educator in that system. Have the opportunity to expand and get motivated to teach effectively in your field of study.

• Opportunities to access Open Educational Resources in Nigeria and educational policies has been a driving factor too.

• Use of spreadsheets for assesment and records and publishing results online with ease instead of manual records.

Threats to my success in education as a student teacher includes the following;

In large classrooms, I find it absolutely difficult to give attention to individuals because of the size. I may not really know who's following, who's emotionally depressed, who's confused but shy to ask questions and the likes. That personalized attention isn't there and it poses a threat to the success of my teaching as some students who feels you're giving attention to the front row only may perform badly in exams and would be tagged on you for not teaching well or something.

That's the usual say. This large classrooms due to my inability to manage it affects the listening ability of others when there's noise or distraction while learning is ongoing. So this poses a great threat to me as well.

Location matters too as there's a particular school I taught which is located close to a playground. Though they don't operate round the clock but when they do, they produce music that diverts the student's attention into their song.

Sometimes I do teach in areas where a school is close to a marketplace. It's not actually my place to change the location of the school as I came to meet it but I discussed these factors to the school government that learning is hindered greatly because of the location.

Language Barrier and acceptance has also been a barrier because I've been exposed to a public school where majority are from the streets and they are used to the language of the heart in the way they speak and behave. They aren't fluent in English because they aren't used to this. This language has been their culture and is deep-rooted in them. To make my class lively, I use the language of the heart in explaining some concepts before these children could understand.

It was difficult for me at first because I'm not eloquent and it really made my teaching presentation bad and amateur. Sometimes the students would laugh because of how I speak the language, leading to disorganisation. This cultural barrier in terms of language has been a major threat.

The behaviour of students has also been a threat to my effective teaching as they disrupt the class, sleep in class and make others feel the class is not that important. Everyone has different attitude based on family background. This I came to know in public school. You may feel someone is sleeping in class because the class is boring but won't know the person hasn't eaten for days and is starved by his guidance.

Sometimes you'll see students behave rudely and even leave the class without your permission, causing others to feel they could do anything they like to disrupt others who are focused on learning. You'll later come to realise it's out of pain and memories of suffering they are doing these things. It becomes a threat to my being effective.

• Frequent absenteeism by students drags me back a lot because they won't understand a particular concept that was taught in class when they were absent. So you'll now have to take them back to what you already did before which affects the class continuity and progress. While trying to place a common ground, you're dragging others behind. Other threats includes;

• Lack of parental support

• Shortages of teachers where I'll be recommended to handle more than 3 subjects.

• Cultural barriers and parental overinvolvement in their children's academic activities and the likes are threats to my being effective as a teacher

I so much love how this question is being channelled in that we just finished analysing our teaching activities using the SWOT analysis and came to understand our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to teaching. Identifying these requires action on our part as to leveraging on our strengths, addressing whatever weaknesses we have as teachers, make use of available opportunities and mitigate threats or risks as you may not be able to stop them totally. My future priorities to enhance my effectiveness as a teacher includes the following. Let me talk about my weaknesses first because this must be addressed to enhance effective teaching.

Weaknesses

• My future priorities towards addressing my weaknesses are explained in what my weaknesses are. Remember I said I find it difficult managing my time as a teacher. My aim is to create a detailed lesson plans for myself and stick to it. I can try avoid the use of excessive illustrations to enhance clarity and stick with timers that would help me strike a balance. Group or team work is what I've seen as effective because my teacher in secondary school will group up to teach subjects in the syllables while she does the explanation. This method has helped us known these topics in our fingertips.

• As to large class sizes, I am still looking forward to a better strategy to use while setting priorities for myself to be effective in such a situation. I can try setting boundaries between myself and the students and if possible, seek the assistance of other colleagues who are more feared in school to help me coordinate the class from behind while I teach. I will also set clear rules to maintain discipline and a positive learning environment. This is my future plan though.

Strengths

• One's strength can become one's weakness overtime if not leveraged on or strengthened. Don't you know one can strengthen strength? Sounds funny right? You all know I'm effective in communicating with students. I can actually improve my building relationships with students so that my communication would be clear and empathetic. Not being close to the students won't help you know their strengths and weaknesses as well and ways of helping them. I won't wait until a student approach me for help as they may not. I should take the initiative to approach them if they can't do so. This fosters good relationships with the teacher and students but regardless, boundaries are important.

• Being professional in my subject area, I won't stop there. I'll continue my search for more information they can lead to effective teaching when taught a particular subject. This can be done by attending workshops or enroll in online courses so I can learn from how others teach this particular subject and follow same with their level of expertise.

Opportunities

Whatever opportunity I come across is necessary for my growth as a teacher. I will try using advanced tools like the virtual labs I mentioned earlier to improve my teaching and make learning effective and engaging as well. Attending seminars for teachers and workshops will expose me to life experiences of teachers who have been there and know the robes. Their experiences as to how they managed a particular class size, taught or solved a particular problem faced in school will help me incorporate this in my teaching.

Threats

The threats cannot be completely gone but can be mitigated in the sense that the use of project method or group learning in large class sizes would be effective since you can't reduce the number of students in that class. Dividing them into groups will help me channel my teaching to every students and not leave anyone inactive.

In situations where I can't beat the environment that poses a threat to learning, I can move the students to a place that's quite for this learning process. It mustn't be in their own classroom. My priorities as a teacher after analysing the SWOT technique in summary are;

• Preventing burnout even when trying to be effective in teaching.

• Improve on my strengths as they may turn my weaknesses someday if not improved

• Address my weaknesses before they take me down in my teaching process

• My student's priority is my priority. I must make sure of this no matter the class size.

In conclusion, the SWOT analysis has awakened my mind into knowing I have weaknesses that must be addressed. Some teachers know they have weaknesses but if not told again and again, they won't admit they do.

I invite @whizzbro4eva, @sahmie and @vigibebilis

All pictures are from canva