Category Archives: 3.4 Prof. Reflection & Commitment

IB Reflective Activity 4

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Similarities

The most obvious similarity between the two curriculums is that they are child centred. Every decision is made to suit the children by taking into consideration their wellbeing and the world around them. The curriculums both have documentation which encourages teachers to create learning which is child centred CfE has the principles of curriculum design (challenge and enjoyment, breadth, progression, depth, personalisation and choice, coherence and relevance) (Education Scotland, 2019). Where IB aims to be interesting, relevant, challenging and significant (Cambridge High School, 2019).

Both curriculum frameworks aim to involve the world around us for example CfE has made an effort to be inclusive of outdoor education, where children link their classroom learning to their own community. This also encourages children to understand learning doesn’t only occur in the classroom. The PYP curriculum involves the world around them by ensuring pupils are also receiving valuable learning from their countries national curriculum so that they do not miss out on cultural learning. PYP also has children learning a second language from the age of 7 so they can be involved and participate in communication around the world.

PYP and CfE bot encourage learners to learn about the world and be accepting of different cultures and religions. They both encourage learning about place and time, where children are encouraged to learn about history and its influences on where we are in the world today.

A final similarity between the two curriculums is the pedagogy of effective classroom talk, where children are encouraged to be leaders in the discovery of their own learning. Instead of tick box exercises both curriculums guide teachers to help create a support system for pupils to discover learning for themselves by providing the correct resources and boundaries.

Differences

Looking closely at both curriculum’s I believe there is a difference between the world the curriculum’s are setting their students up to be able to live in. IB is based on bringing people all over the world together whereas CfE is based on creating learners who are resilient to the change in an ever developing society. Also, CfE is based mainly on Scotland with the rest of the world being global learning. Whereas IB does not have a specific location and is adaptable to being taught all over the world.

A final difference is between documentation, different aspects of each part of learning is given different emphasis in the curriculum guide lines. For example, the four capacities are left to discussion on what each means whereas PYP has 10 learner attributes which are made clear what each means and what is expected of a learner. However, CfE has the principles of curriculum design which makes it clear what learning should be inclusive of e.g. relevance, personalisation and choice but IB only states these ideas in their aim and doesn’t include specific documentation for it.

Do IB and CfE students have different attributes?

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The IB curriculum has 10 learner profile attributes these are inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced and reflective. The CfE curriculum has the 4 capacities which are successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.

Difference: The first difference is strikingly obvious, the IB attributes are much more obvious of what is required from each learner. Where CfE requires extra questioning, what does it mean to be a successful learner? How do I show that I am a confident individual?

Similarities:

Inquirers, as IB believes are students who ask powerful questions (Cambridge High School, 2015). I believe this links to being a responsible citizen because these are students who participate in political, economic and cultural life and to be able to do so you have to be able to question what goes on in the world. Open-minded, as IB believes are students who are appreciative of their own and other peoples cultures (Cambridge High School, 2015). I believe this links to being a confident individual because these children have secure values and beliefs and are also self-aware. Responsible citizens relates as well because these students are respectful of others and are able to understand different beliefs and cultures. Knowledgeable, as believed by IB are students who explore locally and globally significant ideas (Cambridge High School, 2015). I believe this relates to responsible citizens as these are students who are able to develop knowledge and understanding of the world and Scotland’s place in it. Caring, these are students who are committed to helping our community (Cambridge High School, 2015). I believe being a caring person links to all 4 capacities as learners are encouraged to think about themselves, others and the world around us. Thinkers, are critical, creative, decision makers (Cambridge High School, 2015). I believe this relates to successful learners as these are students who are able to think creatively and independently. Risk-takers, are students who are courageous, resourceful and resilient (Cambridge High School, 2015). I believe this links to confident individual as these learners are able to be self-aware and can assess risks and make informed decisions. Communicators, are confident in more than one language (Cambridge High School, 2015). Communication is a key part of being an effective contributor however, there is a difference between IB and CfE. This is because IB is linked more to being a worldwide communicator and a CfE effective contributor is a learner who can work well as part of a team. Balanced, these students are focused on caring of well being of ourselves and those around us (Cambridge High School, 2015). This relates to confident individual where students have a sense of physical, mental and emotional well being. Principled, learners who are honest, fair and responsible (Cambridge High School, 2015). This is another attribute which I feel is shared evenly between all 4 capacities as students are taught to be respectful and to work well alone and together. Reflective, learners are thoughtful and hopeful for the future (Cambridge High School, 2015). I believe this relates to confident individual as these learners have ambition.

Difference: Looking closely at both curriculum’s I believe there is a difference between the world the curriculum’s are setting their students up to be able to live in. IB is based on bringing people all over the world together whereas CfE is based on creating learners who are resilient to the change in an ever developing society.

Difference: A final difference between the two curriculum’s is that CfE is based mainly on Scotland with the rest of the world being global learning. Whereas IB does not have a specific location and is adaptable to being taught all over the world.

In my recent professional practice I witnessed the attribute of knowledgeable. During a maths topic children were shown three different types of learning in maths (concrete, pictorial and abstract). This allowed each child to learn in a way that suited them but also allowed them to see different approaches to gaining knowledge. I also noticed the attribute of being reflective, each child had their own targets booklet where they recorded learning which they wanted to improve on with a timescale in which they would try to complete the target. As a school I noticed the attribute of caring by providing a breakfast club for the children who needed a soft start to the morning.

References

Cambridge High School. (2015) What is an IB education? Available At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZPi2-x0zkc (Accessed: 23/08/19)

 

Reflective Practice

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In today’s lecture I have learned that is important to consider the consequences of my own actions and the role in which I have played in an incident rather to jump to conclusions and blame everybody else first. I feel that this was important to learn because it has taught me to realise that not everything is going to go the way I plan in my future placement and in order to get over this I will have to think critically and not let it hurt my ego.

This lecture has made me think about how I should go forward looking in my placement and has also given me good tips for writing an interesting and detailed evaluation or reflection on my placement. I found the examples of different reflections effective so in the future I can look at these in comparison to my own work and consider whether or not the reflection I have written has enough content and is helpful for my own professional development.

Semester 1 results have had a major influence on my professional mindset, I found my ego to be sorely hurt with the results I received. After talking to my AoS about my feelings I have realised that this is a merely a learning curve I have encountered and the situation is not nearly as bad as I was making it out to be. I have learnt how to move on from the mistakes I have made in my work and how to correct them in the future. I have also learned to take the constructive criticism given by my marker in order to help myself in my professional development.  The process of reflection is starting to become a way to collect my thoughts on each lecture/input I have been to and be able to make my learning clear to myself on what I understand and what I need to do extra work on in my own study time. My blogging has also highlighted areas of interest that I could make into my professional goals for the upcoming placement.

 

Initial Professional Goals

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It is the end of my first week back to university and prior to my first placement I have been looking into the Standards For Provisional Registration (SPR).  Looking into the standards has helped me to make some initial decisions on my first placement goals.

I have taken into consideration different types of goals for the upcoming placement and have decided that I would like to have a mix of both personal and professional goals to develop over the duration of my placement. I have made this decision so I can work on both myself as a future teacher and the work that will be required of me as a teacher.

Through the reading which I have done I have decided that my first goal will be for my personal development and it will be “to have confidence in myself at all times”. I think this is important because if I do not believe in myself I cannot expect my mentor, tutor or any other person relying on me to do so either. Being confident in myself will allow me to:

  • create successful partnerships with those around me
  • develop my own ability to control and look after a class
  • allow me to help the children in my class safely

There is a huge list of achievements I will take from a growing confidence over placement and above are some examples I hope to achieve.

The professional goal I would like to achieve during my upcoming placement is time management and organization. These achievements will allow me to create successful lesson plans which will lead to lessons going to plan with back up arrangements already in place so there will be no panic for me. This will be helpful on placement as the class pupils will be able to tell if I have not taken care into my lesson planning as I will experience anxiety if something goes wrong and they will potentially not learn from the lesson.

In the weeks coming up I hope to consider more options for goals for my placement so that I can choose the best set of goals before starting my placement.

Reading

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The most prominent memory I have of language is reading. “Biff and Chip” are my most memorable language experience from primary school, these are a series of stories that we used for our reading groups. I remember these novels because our teacher related learning activities to these books and we also had a large display of pictures of the characters on the wall.

In my family home reading was also an important part of my day because I spent every night being read a bed time story until the age where I could read the stories to my parents at bed time.

Even though I participated in lots of reading as a young child I remember it being something I got into trouble for not doing enough of as an older child. I think this was because I could not find a genre that kept me interested. As a future teacher I will keep this in mind so that my reading books for children offer a wide range of interest so no child feels the way I did.

 

 

First Experience of Dance

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Before participating in the dance workshop I was nervous about having to teach dance in the primary school. I assumed it would require me to learn the basics of many different dances, however, I have now realised this is not the case and has made me feel much more confident in teaching dance. I now understand that there is many ways to teach dance that will not put me in a situation where I feel uncomfortable. Three key suggestions that I will take from today’s workshop are:

  • I will always make sure to proof-check my music to make sure its content is age appropriate.
  • I will start lessons with different dance related videos if possible to grasp the young people’s attention. These videos will also allow me to have discussions with the class around dance.
  • Finally, I will try to use dance styles from different religions in order to promote cross-curricular learning e.g. dance and R.M.E.

Workshop no.1 – inequality

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Looking back on Tuesday’s workshop I realise how much fun and how interesting I actually found it.

I was placed in the lowest resource group and too many people’s surprise including the lecturer I was very happy with the outcome we produced as a group. I was questioned if I was angry about being given less resources and I simply replied “no, I am not angry, I am proud of what we produced as a group with the little amount of resources that we had.”

I understand the exercise to be showing inequality in the world however, I realised not every person experiences jealousy or selfishness or no care at all.

The main aim I found from this workshop is that every person experiences different outcomes towards equality and things they are given. I think as I progress into my role in education I will see this greatly around the classroom and also outwith so I think it was a really clever workshop to begin the year with.

Not why. Who?

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If you ever asked me “why teaching” I probably wouldn’t be able to answer. I don’t really have a cliche answer as I don’t “love” children. My journey to choosing this career path was never based on a “why” it was much more of a “who”. The who has two parts to my journey, who convinced me and who I want to be.

There was a teacher who once caught me at my lowest and helped me to see through to the light at the end of the tunnel. She cared for me, offered me a smile and a shoulder to cry on when no one else offered. She was the part of my “who” that I will never forget. She was the part who convinced me that as a person this is who I want to be. I want to be the person who makes a difference to a child’s life when they feel they have nothing and no one else.