November 2017 – Page 2

Sustainable Development- Energy

These last week lectures focused on energy. When i reflect on my time in primary school, I remember learning a little bit about energy but i definitely learned a lot more about it in high school. From studying and learning more about energy in this module it has opened my eyes to the variety of activities and lessons that i could create to teach this topic in the classroom in a fun and enjoyable way. I feel like from the inputs in lectures and workshops on this topic i have developed numerous skills such as communication, team working, research and creativity and now feel more confident about teaching this topic.

For the first input on energy, we got to take part in a debate. The debate was to focus on ‘Alternative Energy’. We worked in small groups to read academic texts focused on wind turbines to find out information to debate about. We then went into larger groups to share our ideas and research with one another in order to work together to come up with 5 key points to debate about. We had two large groups, one for wind turbines and one against, we then had to decide which members of the group would go up to debate. Through this input i learned a lot about the skills i already possess and new ones that i have developed. Through this my team working, communication and research skills came to light. However, i also realized that i do lack confidence skills and this is something i would like to develop throughout my years in university.

The second input on energy focused on an activities we could use in the classroom such as creating a model of a wind turbine. This was an activity that we could to try ourselves and then create a lesson plan based on this activity. When it came to creating the model, we had to ensure that we had the appropriate resources and that we read our instructions correctly in order for our model to work. I was really happy with my end result and it is definitely an activity that I would try in the classroom.

When it came to creating the lesson plan we worked in partners and it was very interesting and fun. I really enjoyed being able to understand how doing an activity like this would be created and written up in a lesson plan. It was a good experience to work cooperatively with someone else and see how they would write up a lesson plan opposed to how I would do it. We managed to finish our lesson plan and we were really happy with the finished result.

From both these inputs my knowledge and skills in energy have definitely increased and improved. It was a topic that I didn’t think I would be interested in but now experiencing it in a different way I would love to teach this in the classroom. There are lots of resrouces and activities out there to help with teaching a topic like this that would be fun and enjoyable for the children. There are activities such as creating energy circuits, making a wind turbine, creating animals that use energy and many more. Energy is such a relevant topic and is important to teach as it is something that surrounds us in everyday life.

Integrated Arts- Everyone’s Experience

This week’s class began with listening and learning about everyone in my section’s experience of what arts they have witnessed in their school placement so far. It was very interesting and surprising to find out that the majority of people had seen very little if not any arts lessons within their school. I found that it was very intriguing to realize that in most schools arts is taken a back seat prior to literacy and mathematics. I think its sad to see that the arts isn’t given priority as it can provide children with a variety of skills in order to help them learn and grow into young individuals. It provides children with the opportunity to develop their creativity, confidence, motor skills, academic performance, visual learning, decision making, perseverance and focus (Learning Lift Off, 2017).

When we discussed as a class our experiences it was clear to see that arts was given a back seat due to a number of barriers. These barriers included aspects such as: time, funding, lack of confidence in teachers, lack of creative thinking, to much focus on academic results and lack of resources. I think this module has enabled us as student teachers to realize the importance of the arts and that it is important that we ensure that we try and overcome these barriers to the arts and give our pupils the opportunity to experience and express themselves through the arts. I think one way to overcome the most common barrier to teaching the arts, which is time, is to try and incorporate it into different areas of the curriculum. You could do this by having a literacy lesson based on a book that the class have read and been learning about, but deliver it through a drama lesson with the children.

Reflecting on my experience in placement, I have witnessed a wide range of visual arts displayed around the classroom I am placed in as well as around the whole school. I think it is extremely important to display pupil’s work as it shows them that we as teachers appreciate their work and value their hard work and creativity.

Displays of the children’s work in the classroom.

The class charter displayed visually in the classroom.

The boats the children made based on the titanic.

Art work displayed throughout the school.

As well as being able to witness the visual arts. I have also been lucky enough to witness a music lesson. I have inquired about being able to see a drama or dance lesson, which the teacher said will not be a problem when I am at my placement from a Monday-Friday. I think the main problem for everyone who is on placement right now is that because we are only there a day a week, their arts lesson isn’t always scheduled for a Thursday therefore I believe when we are there for more days we will be able to see more of the arts in action and make a better evaluation of how much attention the arts is given in schools.

From doing this module, it has highlighted to me the importance of the arts and that when i become a teacher i want to try my hardest to ensure that i give children the opportunity to express and develop themselves through the arts.

References:

Teaching and Learning, (2015). Creativity in Education. [Online] [Available: http://c21teachingandlearning.global2.vic.edu.au/2015/02/20/barriers-to-creativity-in-the-classroom/] [Accessed: 17th November 2017]

Learning Lift Off, (2016). 10 reasons arts in education is important. [Online] [Available: http://www.learningliftoff.com/10-reasons-arts-in-education-important-kids/#.WhNFNUpl_IU] [Accessed: 17th November 2017]

Learning Log – Energy!

I don’t remember learning much about energy in primary school, just a little from secondary school. I have enjoyed the activities we have completed over the past couple of weeks and I can imagine myself using these activities with pupils … Continue reading →

Energy – Learning Log

When I think back to primary school, I can slightly remember learning about the energy. When revisiting the topic, it brought many memetoies such as creating a circuit. I found this topic very enjoyable and as a student teacher I would feel fairly confident teaching this in the classroom. Through out the lectures, study tasks […]

Through out the lectures, study tasks and workshops I developed many new skills such as team working skills and communication skills. For many of the tasks we had to take part in, we had to work as a team and work in partnership. I sometimes find it challenging working in a team but as we have worked in teams a lot over this trimester I feel like my skill have developed well. I am now able to sit back and listen to everyone taking their thoughts into consideration, and I am also able to show my leadership skills in the team. I feel confident enough to report back to the class after having a class discussion. Another skill I think I have developed during this topic is my research skills. For one of the seminars we had to look through a number of academic sources that had information about wind turbines. We then had to sort this information using a table and work in teams to bring that information together. This was a really useful lesson to bring both team working and research together.

Mad a student teacher I would love to teach this topic in the classroom. There are lots of great activities to do with energy that the children would enjoy. As energy surrounds us in every day life, it is a relevant subject that must be taught.

Reflections on Placement

When I was on placement I learned alot more about my own communication skills and I had lots of opportunities to put what I had learned in the Situated Communications module into practice. I really enjoyed communicating and engaging with the children in the class. While on placement I took small groups for literacy and … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

When I was on placement I learned alot more about my own communication skills and I had lots of opportunities to put what I had learned in the Situated Communications module into practice.

I really enjoyed communicating and engaging with the children in the class. While on placement I took small groups for literacy and numeracy tasks, worked with children who were struggling with their work, supported children with ASN and took groups of children for art activites. All of these expereinces helped me to develop my communication skills and gave me an understand of how to communicate effectively with a variety of children. From my self and peer evaluations I am able to see what some of communication strengths and weaknesses are. Some of my strengths when working with the children were active listening, speaking clearly and at a good volume, varying my pitch and tone, demonstrating positive body language and showing an interest in the children.

While on placement I had 4 literacy tasks and 4 numeracy tasks to complete. I found it hard to complete all the tasks as I was in a Primary 1 class for the 2 weeks. The Primary 1’s were just starting simple addition and were just starting to learn how to blend sounds together to create words so I found for some of the tasks that the children were not at the acquired level that I needed to observe. My placement tutor sat down with me and we went through the tasks I had to complete. She tried her best to add these elements into lessons and activities for me to observe. For the “Making Maths Relevant” task I planned and carried out my own activity with the chidren.

My two main weaknesses that were highlighted during my placement were behaviour management and communicating effectively with staff and other proffessionals. I found behaviour management difficult as some of the children didn’t see me as an authoritative figure at first. Also 2 children in the class had ASN and often displayed challeging behaviour which some other children in the class joined in with. I could see that I was getting better at behaviour management as my placement progressed as the children were listening to me and showing me respect. I think that behaviour management is a skill that I need to keep working on so that I can become an effective teacher.

My main area requiring progress is communicating effectively with staff and other proffesionals. I have always struggled with talking to people that I don’t know very well. I think this is because I overthink about what to say and how to join in with a conversation. I don’t have much confidence when communicating with people. I was able to communicate well with my placement tutor and with other staff if it was on a one to one basis or only with a few other people. What I really struggled with was communicating in the staff room. When the staff room was full of people I stayed mainly quiet and didn’t really join in with conversations. I felt quite nervous and this was shown through my body language e.g. wringing hands. I know that communicating with staff and other proffesionals is an essential skill that teachers need so I need to really build up my confidence in this area.

To help myself become a more confident and effective communicator I am going to read “Acting lessons for Primary Teachers,” by Tauber, R and Mester C, as this book will hopefully help me to gain the skills to be able to act confident in situations that normally I wouldn’t feel confident in. I will also put myself in more situations that require me to talk to different people and this will help me to gain more confidence with my verbal communication skills.

Reflections on Placement

During my time on placement from the 30th of October until the 10th of November i realised many strengths and areas of development which I perhaps would not have encountered without this experience. My first strength of my Placement experience was working one on one with a child who required a lot of additional support with his class work. Throughout my time in the class I built a relationship with the pupil which allowed me to engage fully and support his every need. I also tried my best not to tell him the answers, instead I consistently encouraged and with a little push he began working more as an individual with full confidence. With the pupil I could adapt my communication to suit his individual needs such as using basic words and speaking very slowly to make sure he understood what was going on all the time. An area of development for my time on Placement would be to speak with more confidence while working with a larger group whether its for learning or play. This area of weakness let me down twice during my time in school meaning none of the children got the best from the experience as they were always talking over one another being very rude and I showed a lack of authority. This was the case for a more challenging group of boys within the class who consistently challenged me as the ‘student teacher’ making me feel truly out of depth. I then began to lose motivation for this sort of activity. My action plan to improve this for next time would be to establish control before beginning the activity which would make sure the children listened from the very beginning and know what to do. Also mentioning briefly the result of what will happen if they don’t follow the rules will ensure they don’t carry on. A method of regaining attention after a distraction will also be useful for me such as “hands on top its time to stop”.

While on Placement I think I interacted with both the classroom and staffroom very well showing intrigue in everything that was going on and taking on many learning opportunities while out at school. My ability to do this was my previous experience in the Primary School situation as a volunteer in High School and the extra volunteering I have carried out in my local community such as Brownies and Youth Clubs. The only obstacle I felt was a challenge to my time in Placement was working with children with behavioural issues as it was something I had never previously come up against and I did not feel the support was there in this respect.

Energy Learning Log

For this theme we began with a lecture about Energy. This included learning about what energy sources (fossil fuels) we use and how long these finite resources will last. We […]

For this theme we began with a lecture about Energy. This included learning about what energy sources (fossil fuels) we use and how long these finite resources will last. We later discussed what alternatives can be used such as wave, nuclear, solar and wind power.

The science workshop allowed me to develop the mist skills as a future teacher as we again had a number of stations where we could try different science experiments. The majority of these experiments could easily be replicated in school to educate pupils about energy such as the balloon experiment which involved blowing up a balloon and seeing what reaction it would have with different materials such as salt, pepper and small pieces of paper.

However, the second workshop allowed me to develop more knowledge and skills as a learner. We had a choice of sources about wind turbines to read and select key points from. We were later numbered into four groups and summarised our findings into points for and against wind turbines. This helped me develop my critical literacy skills as I was able to read through the text and pick out the most relevant points. Later, two of the groups joined to make the for argument with the other two joining to make the against argument. We then engaged in a debate, which was both enjoyable and informative. This helped me to build my confidence and persuasive speech skills such as altering my tone of voice. Using a debate in class is a memorable lesson and varies from every day lessons and so would be a valuable lesson to use with pupils at second level.

In the directed study task, we were challenged with constructing an anemometer with the given materials. We then had select relevant Experiences and Outcomes for this task before creating a lesson plan. This task developed my problem-solving skills as creating this anemometer itself required a couple of attempts before it would work properly. However, whilst developing the lesson plan my group continued to come up with many other ideas to incorporate technology into our future lessons.

Learning Log – Energy Use

Week 1 This week in sustainable development we were looking at energy and how to implement teaching it in ways children can relate to. Our main concern is recognising how much energy sources (fossil fuels) our planet uses and how we will eventually run out of these sources if we do not make changes and … Continue reading Learning Log – Energy Use →

Week 1

This week in sustainable development we were looking at energy and how to implement teaching it in ways children can relate to. Our main concern is recognising how much energy sources (fossil fuels) our planet uses and how we will eventually run out of these sources if we do not make changes and use alternatives. Initially we looked at what everyday forms of energy are used tremendously in the Western world, such as heating and electricity to power households and the use of transport fuels. Looking at basic examples like boiling a kettle or leaving a light on can show children how they heavily rely on fossil fuels and by recognising this they can contribute to helping save energy. We later investigated what alternatives can used to find new ways to generate electricity, power vehicles and make materials.

Our first workshop consisted of going round six stations where there was an experiment set up based on electricity or magnetism. These experiments would be very useful to introduce specific terms to children such as circuits, voltage, series, amps, etc. Each experiment built on my science process skills, including observation and communication. Observing is fundamental in order to see changes, make sense of what has happened and identify why it happened. Communication, especially in groups, is also very important as others can share their observations and ideas, therefore having another perspective can lead a more accurate judgement of what happened in the experiment. Doing these experiments myself particularly informed my planning and practice as a teacher. It gave me the opportunity to judge which experiments would be the most engaging and stimulating for a young class.

The second workshop proved to be very informative to me as a student. We looked at the use of wind turbines as an alternative use of energy. Firstly, we were set out to individually research sources on the argument of wind turbines, i.e. are they a good idea for governments to use a main alternative energy source? We later were set into groups to share our own findings and summarise them into a list/mind map of for and against points of using wind turbines. This use of collaborative learning greatly developed on my overall knowledge of the subject matter, this is an area I have always wanted to learn more about as student. As well as developing my research skills, my critical literacy skills were expanded too as I judged what sources were the most informative and also as I was able to pick out relevant information from the source and apply it to my research. The last stage of our workshop was to debate with another group, with one group being allocated in favour of wind turbines and one group allocated against them. Despite the opinions of the debate teams, each were able to present arguments for their side very well. Debating highly builds on skills for persuasive speech, presenting, listening, critical thinking, and academic confidence. All of which I can use throughout my time as a student. However this experience of learning also provided a meaningful in sight to me as a teacher. I took from this that using debating and other memorable teaching methods is great way for children to use their own ideas and opinions to learn an important subject.

Week 2

We had the chance to listen to a teacher from Onthank Primary in which she spoke of how she incorporates STEM learning in the classroom. She is involved in a project that encourages teachers to get children to think like engineers.

She spoke of how all children should be involved in interdisciplinary learning where they can get involved and become creative, because it should be recognised by teachers that learning through traditional maths and literacy is not for everyone. Key ways to teach children to be STEM minded involved giving them a real-life context to the learning and use specific language that stimulates them to think as a problem-solvers. Also we as teacher should be modelling practice by encouraging children to see that making mistakes is good and reframe failure as necessary part of learning; show them teachers can also make mistakes and do not always have the right answers. I identified that in order to implement effective STEM learning in the classroom the teacher has be skilled in areas of creativity, collaboration and problem-solving. The talk was very informative to me, as a teacher, particularly when she spoke of how a school does not need to be from a wealthy area or have highly intelligent pupils for them to gain achievement in STEM learning. Having spent time in schools in deprived areas, and I most likely will spend more time in my future career as a teacher, I plan to take this knowledge on and implement these useful strategies.

In our only workshop of the day, we had to create an anemometer out of materials and after to create a lesson plan from the task including CfE experience and outcomes, learning intentions and success criteria. Thinking as a teacher, I had to use my organisational skills to clearly structure my objectives and what steps I would plan to take during the lesson. Although we were given the task that would take place in our lesson plan, we came up with other technology/engineering based tasks (such as structuring a paper bridge) this developed my creativity skills as a teacher as thinking of fresh and engaging lessons is a main component of the job. The collaboration of group members developed my group working skills, teacher will commonly share ideas and lesson plans in their career.

Sustainable Development Serial Day Task

It is evident that the school are encouraging sustainable development education throughout the year groups from primary 1 to 7. The have two eco councils that run on a Thursday afternoon which are named the eco hero’s and the garden council. It is also evident that the children are engaging with the eco education as […]

The Garden Area :

This school has put a lot of time and effort into their garden area and there are also a council which maintain the area. There is also a timetable of when the area gets used and when there are free slots allowing each class to rotate and have turns of outdoor learning. There are many resources that are in the garden area allowing the children to explore and get messy! Resources include plant beds, recycling bins, compost, water area, bug garden, huts, bird boxes, fruit and veg patches and a mud kitchen. These are all great resources which can all be linked with areas of the curriculum such as science and health and wellbeing.

Litter picking :

For one of the council sessions, the eco hero’s got to take part in a whole school litter pick. Sandy, the community safety officer, came into the school and equipped the children with litter pickers, hi-vis jackets, gloves and bin bags. The children had the opportunity to go around the school and pick up litter and discuss why this is an issue. A follow up task involved the children of creating posters informing children of the school and members of the public why not to drop litter in the school grounds. These posters got displayed around the school and on the school gates.

Recycling:

In each classroom, the children in the classroom and the teacher all have the chance to recyncle. There are recycle bins in each classroom and there are also recycle bins In the school canteen. When asked, most children were able to tell the difference between bins and also were able to answer the question “why do we recycle?”. Most children seemed fairly confident about the subject.

Play Area :

In this school, the space for play is very basic. They have a large concrete ground play area and one child mentioned that “there is not much to do but run around”. However, when I had the chance to look at the playground during lunch time, I found many children playing around the trees on the grass area. The children were breaking branches with the trees and also exploring for bugs. There was lots of opportunities for outdoor learning during free flow play. Here is a mapping of the school grounds :

Through out the school there is many posters of the eco code. This has been created by the children and when asked about it they were able to explain the poster and where confident enough to speak about how their school was an eco school.

Sustainable Development – Energy

Learning about energy has been something which I have found very interesting and I feel that it could be easily implemented into the classroom in a relatable way for children. We all use energy every day, without even thinking about it. Being asked to reflect and to think about how I had used energy from … Continue reading Sustainable Development – Energy