Name of Peer: Dhirendra Chaudhary

Campus: Sahid Smarak College

Class: Bachelor degree (BBS 1st year)

Subject: Business Statistics

Date of Observation: May 8, 2016

On Sunday, I observed my colleague’s class of Business Statistics at Sahid Smarak

College, Kirtipur with campus supervisor. My colleague granted me permission to observe his

Statistics Class (Bachelor degree 1st year) which comprised of around 30 students.

Before entering into detail about this particular class, it is important to review the requirement

and benchmarks of the subsisting curricular goal and objectives of Business Statistics and his

lesson plan as well as instructional aids and so I zipped through its contents, curricular objectives

comparing with the observation form.

As far as his overall goals for the class, he has many. He strives for his students to amend

their mathematical understanding, proving theorems allied to the probability especially Bayes

theorem with accuracy in writing, the ability to draw a concise figure that demystifies the given

statement, the ability to write unified, coherent, and developed proof in terms of various styles.

For this particular class period, his goals were to solve problems by using this theorem. By the

end of the class period, students should understand the implication of Bayes theorem in solving

problems. The class also looks at the “process of theorem proving.”

Within the first 10 minutes of class, students were asked to recall the rudimentary

knowledge that he alluded to one day before. This may be a daily activity for them which are

supposed as apropos strategies in order to motivate students toward classroom learning.

 He spent the next 15 minutes or so introducing and proving the statement of the Bayes

theorem. To exemplify this, he could not draw any figure or use any instructional aids in order to

eradicate common pitfalls or misunderstanding toward new content. And then students were

given a chance for coping the proof and examples. In this class, the instructor demonstrated his

knowledge on the topic by the way of oral expression with a usual gesture. Overall, the activities

instructor used were enough for engaging the students or interaction but not for enriching the

meaningful learning and even-handed participation in learning owing to the dearth use of

materials, in fact, not at least category.

Aside from these, I could not comment about the grouping of students and use of

technology because there was no grouping activity at the time I observed and there was no use of

ICT tools like student’s worksheet which was relevance there.

What I really liked which I think also kept the students at ease and less anxious, was that

the instructor kept telling the students that within the next week they would be getting a lot of

practice with this. Students stay motivated and less anxious from the beginning if they know

they’ll have time to review new material. Owing to the lack of full preparation, he had made a lot

of mistakes but he corrected errors when he felt it was needed. Krashen, one of the theorists I

have studied, believes correction should be minimal in the classroom. He believes it is of some

limited use when the goal is learning, but of no use when the goal is acquisition (Hadley, 2001).

There was not a so nice balance between a teacher’s delivery pace of lesson and students’

activity. There should be a blend of both styles— closed and framed— in my opinion for

meaningful learning of Bayes theorem that contributes to imply it in solving problems. However,

he persuaded the customary approach, since he did not move around the class and so there was

an imbalance between time and task management. This indicates that, as a teacher, he played not
more than one role around the 45 minutes in the classroom learning. This is still considered

teacher-centred. The instructor had such a high calibre for controlling that a huge number of

students within a single class in a more attractive way without using ICT tools and created this

“warmth” in the classroom. The class was dismissed after he handed out the home assignment

due next week.

Classroom Observed by
Puskar Raj Bist
University Campus, TU, Kirtipur
Kathmandu, Nepal
8 May 2016