3.1 Teaching and Learning – Page 3

Reflections on Placement

Having just come back from my first two weeks Primary School experience I can honestly say it was informative, motivating, enjoyable, exhausting and an eye opener in respect of what life as a teacher really involves. I had the opportunity to experience a range of classes, from P2-P7, this gave me the chance to learn an enormous amount in respect of the variety of teaching styles, the different levels of learning, as well as see the struggles faced by some children. I tried to take away as much knowledge from this experience as I possibly could.

Strength
I have always thought I was a good communicator with a bubbly, enthusiastic personality. This was highlighted as a strength during my peer observation, and from the teachers I worked with during my 2 weeks placement. When engaging with the students I would listen attentively, encourage and provide support where it was needed. I was interested to hear what the pupils had to say no matter their age, I found that P7 pupils appreciated your attention and assistance just as much as the younger pupils. Working with children either 1-2-1 or within small groups gives me a real sense of purpose and seeing them interested and wanting to learn fuels my enthusiasm.

Area for Development
I need to work on my pace and tone, I am aware that I speed up my speech when I’m both nervous and excited. This was highlighted during my peer observation and I when doing my own reflections. I need to be able to control my pace and tone more effectively, to adapt it in different situations and depending on the ages of the pupils I am working with. For example, when talking with younger children I need to slow down to make sure I am fully understood.

Action Plan

I need to develop my knowledge/strategies around varying my pace and tone to find out what will work for me. I feel this will help me to be more focused and aware of when I need to alter my pace/tone. This will help me to manage situations where I am nervous.

Helicopter Stories Reflection

“The Magic Porridge Pot” Peer Feedback: Strengths: -Continually asking the audience questions -“I liked how you made the pot appear physically through actions” -“I liked how you got into character” -Leaning towards the audience Areas for Development: -Potentially too long to keep kids attention Image 1 […]

“The Magic Porridge Pot”

Peer Feedback:

Strengths:

-Continually asking the audience questions

-“I liked how you made the pot appear physically through actions”

-“I liked how you got into character”

-Leaning towards the audience

Areas for Development:

-Potentially too long to keep kids attention

Image 1 Image 2

I title the first image as ‘keeping the gears turning’.

I title the second image as ‘Running away with time’.

Self-Reflection:

Strengths:

-Keeping the audience engaged

-Actions were appropriate and sufficient

-Enthusiasm was high throughout

Areas for development:

-Don’t exhaust myself

-Vary tone more

-Watch timing

My Thoughts:

Before presenting my story to the group I was feeling slightly apprehensive as I did not have my ‘script’ in front of me. On top of natural nerves, I felt an extra pressure as I was telling the same story as one of my peers before me. I noticed that their presentation was rather different to mine which made me question my interpretation of the story. However once I got started on telling my story I did not care that I didn’t have my ‘script’ , I forgot it existed which allowed me to connect with my audience much more than if I had had it there in front of me. This made my story telling more natural as I was unable to get hung up or stumble on the missed or mixed up details. Furthermore, once I had got going I got into the flow or presenting and got absorbed by the story. Soon was in the full swing of my own presenting style and interpretation of the story, again forgetting about the presentation of the same story before me.

During my time telling my story I noticed one or two of the audience members becoming slightly distracted by other presentations in the room, making it impossible to make eye contact. However, I did not let this throw me off course and I continued going. Occasionally I threw in a question to the audience, varying between asking them to come up with a detail for the story and asking them to recount a part of the story with the odd participation of ‘helping out a main character’, this proved an effective way of keeping my audience’s attention and helped them and their ideas to become a part of the story.

I felt I must have been telling the story nice and clear as none of the audience members asked me to repeat anything or to reiterate any parts of the story. I felt quietly confident as I was telling my story, once I had gotten over that initial apprehension, and I got increasingly comfortable in my presentation style as the audience participated more.

After I had finished telling my story I received the above feedback from my peers which was all positive, however in order to get balanced feedback I had to push them to provide me with at least one development point. Personally after telling the story I was slightly exhausted so this highlighted as an issue that needed some serious thought.

Overall I felt that my story came across quite well to my audience. This was a worthwhile exercise which highlighted my strengths in the way I present stories to a group of people and showed me some areas for development. I found that I need to adjust my ‘performance’ slightly to make this a fully appropriate presentation to make in front of a group of children as it was being delivered to a group of adults as though they were a group of children.

Analysis:

Strengths:

-Continually asking the audience Questions

I did this to ensure that my audience were giving me their full attention. Asking questions made sure that they were listening and taking in what I was saying to them. This also proved to be a simple method to encourage audience participation.

-“I liked how you made the pot appear physically through actions”

At first I didn’t notice I was doing this, it just happened naturally but it proved to be an effective way of keeping my audience engaged as they came to expect this action and visually see this part of the story.

-“I liked how you got into character”

Again this came naturally to me, telling the story had to involve some kind of performance. The nature of the story meant that it required the characters to be brought to life through actions, stance and my voice. This made the story more exciting and made the whole presentation much more exciting to the audience.

-Leaning towards the audience

I was more aware of this action, it was happening naturally but I was also doing it on purpose at the same time. I used this very simple gesture of stepping forward or leaning forward to emphasise the point I was making but al so to prompt my audience to know that I was expecting an input from them.

-Keeping the audience engaged

Through using multiple techniques I was successful in keeping my audience engaged with my presentation, without their engagement and participation my presentation of the story would not have been as successful as it was.

-Actions were appropriate and sufficient

While preparing my story I was not sure about what actions I could put into it which gave me concern. I decided that I would let whatever actions came through on the day take hold. Thankfully the actions were a success and worked with the story, as far as I could tell my audience enjoyed the actions along with the story.

-Enthusiasm was high throughout

Throughout my presentation of the story to my audience I managed to remain enthusiastic and energetic. This helped to keep my audience interested and engaged as they bounced off of my enthusiasm and became enthusiastic about the story as well.

Areas for Development:

-Potentially too long to keep kids attention/watch timing

Although there was a time limit of 10 minutes for telling the story my audience highlighted that my story was much longer than the rest although within the allocated time frame. It was pointed out that it could be difficult to keep the attention of an audience of children if the story goes on for too long and gets too complex. This is an issue I will bear in mind for the future and keep an eye on the time I have and the time I am taking to deliver the story.

-Don’t exhaust myself

Immediately after telling my story I was slightly out of breath and I was exhausted. I had put on a very energetic performance with had tired me. This alarmed me slightly as in my future career I will have to be enthusiastic most of the time so it’s not good if I’m exhausted after telling only one story. I realise that I have to dial down on the energy and enthusiasm in my story telling if I want to survive a whole day, not get rid of them completely just don’t put in quite so much.

-Vary tone more

I felt that during my presentation that I was not varying my tone enough. Although I was changing voices for specific characters I didn’t feel I was altering my tone for the rest of the story. I will work on this and be more aware of how I am saying things in my stories.

I named this picture “keeping the gears turning”. I called it this as I felt it highlighted my strength of keeping the audience engaged and I kept them thinking about what had happened in the story. This image immediately jumped out at me and I thought it fitted perfectly.

I named this picture “Running away with time”. I called it this as I felt it very clearly highlighted my issue of being aware of the allocated time. I thought it was an easy picture to remember. Before I found this picture I knew I wanted one with a clock so I grabbed this one as soon as I saw it.

Communication in Other Environments

Group and Leadership We were in groups of around 7 and were given the challenge to build a den outdoors. The group was not assigned a leader to allow us to see who the natural leaders were. Within my group nobody stepped up to take over as a leader, we all voiced our ideas in … Continue reading Communication in Other Environments →

Group and Leadership

We were in groups of around 7 and were given the challenge to build a den outdoors. The group was not assigned a leader to allow us to see who the natural leaders were. Within my group nobody stepped up to take over as a leader, we all voiced our ideas in the same way and tried and tested them to see which ones worked out best. Personally, I enjoyed this way of working in a group as I feel like it didn’t apply any pressure to the group. It also allowed everyone to get involved and not feel like their taking over anyones ‘role’.

Explaining

Within this area the outdoor communication became a slight struggle. However, i think the group explained well to us, they had one person who done all the talking and the rest of the group just stood in the den. This showed that their group had a clear leader who was taking over the bigger roles instead of them working together.

Environment

The environment impacted on our explaining due to the distractions around. I noticed when we were explaining to the other group they weren’t actually making eye contact with us as we spoke due to them being distracted by the other groups roundabout. To try and make this communication easier groups could move in closer to each other to ensure they can be heard over the sounds in the environment. They could also stand facing away from other groups to eliminate being distracted by their explanations. When listening to the other group i felt like the environment was a distraction because of dog walkers going past and the noises from the birds it was hard to concentrate on the explanation. To overcome this I could ensure i make eye contact with the speaker which will help me stay focused on the points their making.

Negotiation

The negotiations were challenging because i don’t really know everyone yet it was slightly awkward having to go up to someone you don’t talk to and persuade them to swap materials. However, it was a good opportunity to have a bit of a laugh and joke with each other to get to break down barriers.

Reflection on outdoor Den Building task.

-Group and Leadership From my perspective there did not appear to be a single group leader. This task was very much a team effort completed with everyone voicing their ideas and the group as a whole deciding whether to go with them. From a building perspective everyone seemed to adopt their own areas to work […]

-Group and Leadership

From my perspective there did not appear to be a single group leader. This task was very much a team effort completed with everyone voicing their ideas and the group as a whole deciding whether to go with them. From a building perspective everyone seemed to adopt their own areas to work on, with constant communications with nearby team members to ensure everyone knew what each person was doing. The group dynamic was very informal without a set leader, but the team worked really well together and we were all very proud or our end result. The entire team worked on the den so nobody was left excluded or observing from the sidelines. The most challenging thing about this task for me was working closely with people that I had only had brief encounters with so it seemed bad to ask who people were just over 3 weeks into the course, but it was all taken in good stride so wasn’t a big deal.

-Explaining

The other groups I went to see explained their ideas very clearly, I knew what their thought processes were and how they executed the building. they explained what issues they encountered and what their successes were leading to their end results. From what I could see the Preparation part was left out pf the explanations, I found this to be the case as the team added on numerous end notes to their explanation as if they forgot to say that, but over all the rest of the 5 P’s were met sufficiently.

-Environment

Being in the outdoor environment resulted in our communication being effected. Being outside meant we had to communicate in a different way, speak louder then we would indoors, use different tools than we would indoors and speak more clearly in order to successfully get our individual points across easier. There wasn’t a great deal of surrounding noise so the sounds of the environment were not particularly challenging, however in the outdoors this fan change very quickly. This can be overcome by the speaker talking louder and clearer and the listener standing closer if possible and having an increased concentration on the speaker in order to not miss anything that is being communicated to them. Personally I did find some aspects of the environment to be a distraction as there is always something that can catch your eye and take your mind off the task in hand. This is slightly more difficult to overcome however making a conscious effort to concentrate more on the task in hand will help significantly.

-Negotiation

Our team negotiations were all successful and we managed to acquire materials that appeared to be vital to another teams structure. The main challenge with the negotiations was convincing the other teams to trade with us something that was a vital part of their structure. This was difficult as they wanted something either equally valuable to us, or something that sufficiently replaced what they were giving us. Through the use of persuasive language and some very skilled negotiating we managed to get what we were wanting, without any major sacrifices to our structure.