UWS BA ePDPs – Page 259 – Personal Development Plans of BA(Hons) students of education

Reflection on Placement

I found that placement was very worthwhile and beneficial for myself. I found it very useful to see the different variations of methods that teachers use and how the theory of our lectures and workshops are put into practice and context. I found that primary schools have changed a lot over the years as there … Continue reading “Reflection on Placement”

I found that primary schools have changed a lot over the years as there is far more interactive learning an pupil involvement rather than copying and listening. It was great to see the way that children of different ages and abilities engaged with learning.

Overall, I enjoyed my placement, however I felt that one week was not enough to gain a lot of benefit from what we have been learning at university. I felt that this may have impacted on the ability to complete the eight placement tasks to a high standard as we had such a short time to gain and condense specific information relevant to the tasks. It was challenging as classes may not have been doing any lessons on what the literacy and mathematics tasks were referring to. It was also challenging, personally for me as teachers were asking me to work with groups within classes so it was difficult to observe a wider range of pupils.

I had a very positive experience as the school I was placed in made me feel extremely welcome and relaxed. I felt that the teachers wanted me there and so this boosted my confidence which impacted on my interaction with the children and staff. I also felt extremely comfortable asking questions in the school which was beneficial and useful on placement.

Strength –

I found that my main communication strength within the classroom was the way in engaged and interacted with children and teachers and the way that I was able to vary my vocabulary and different ways of engagement when speaking to different ages and different abilities of children. An example of this is when I was working with a reading group in P1 that were not as advanced with their phonic sounds and so I still included the action after saying the word that goes with the phonic in order to show them it physically written down in a word but did not need to with another group who were more advanced. I feel comfortable in engagement as I did previous work experience in a primary school. I also found that I took a bit of a back seat in my work experience and I was more of a peer to children rather than a teacher or authority figure. Evidence of this is that I was able to speak to children easily and confidently. I also found that children knew that I was a student teacher or an authority figure as they spoke to me respectfully and appropriately whilst still being able to talk about things outside of classwork. I feel that I have established the appropriate teacher-friend balance with children in the classroom setting.

Weakness –

I found that an area of development needing to be worked on is my tone and pitch. I found that teachers pointed out that I should vary my tone a bit more and be more dramatic when working with children to keep them more engaged and enthusiastic about their work. I also found that I need to avoid using ‘yip’ and ‘a’ instead of yes and I. I was not even aware that I overuse these errors in my language.

Area of most improvement-

The area I feel that I improved most upon was not using slang words when in the classroom. This was a huge challenge for me as I have been bought up using slang words my whole life. I also found that I was able to give more clear instructions to classes by avoiding using slang, especially in the infant classes. I slowed my pace down for the infants and seen a huge improvement of their interaction with me as they had a clearer understanding of what I was asking them to do.

Strategies-

I will form an actions plan to put in place from now onwards which will also help with my next placemen. As part of my action plan I will practice giving clear, paced instructions further and not use slang words to certain audiences and not as often in general. I will also practice varying my tone and dramatizing my actions in certain situations when working with children. I will also practice saying yes and I instead of ‘yip’ and ‘a’ when working with children. I could also ask my peers and teachers for advice of how to improve my weaknesses. Another way to improve my weaknesses is trying to imitate teachers tone of voice, expressions and reactions in certain situations.

Reflections on Placement

During the week beginning the 31st of October I worked with seven class teachers, a Principle Teacher, a Head Teacher, class room assistants, cleaning staff, and a janitor, as well as pupils from primary one to primary seven of a primary school. I completed eight placement tasks which were based on mathematics and literacy. These tasks allowed me to observe and analyse … Continue reading Reflections on Placement

Reflections on placement.

I attended Stanley Primary School in Ardrossan for my week placement in BA1. The school has 444 pupils and I was lucky enough to be able to work with a range of ages and pupils from various backgrounds. The school has four main aims: respect, commitment, caring and courage. This was shown to me through the … Continue reading Reflections on placement. →

Reflections on Placement

The one week placement has really gave me insight on what it is like to be a Primary school teacher. It has definitely made me feel confident that this is the occupation for me. Being in a primary 2 class for the whole week was challenging, but overall a great experience. The teachers were all … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Strength

I would say that my biggest strength was that I always spoke in a loud voice when speaking in front of the class. This allowed everyone to hear me when I was reading a story to the children and carrying out their morning meeting. Speaking at an adequate volume allowed the children to understand my instructions and also made me feel confident in my teaching.

Area of most Progress

I think that I have improved my non-verbal communication the most on the placement. I always made sure that my body language was positive by sitting up straight or standing in a wide stance. Before placement, I would tend to cross my arms and legs. Now, I am always thinking about my positive body language, and it really does made you feel more confident!!

Area Requiring Progress

For me, I have to really focus on my pace when speaking. When nervous, I have the tendency to speed up my pace of speech, which leaves me stuttering and using a lot of words like ‘ehm’ and ‘ah’. I have always had a issue with this and would love to tackle this problem.

Action plan

In order to become more successful, my action plan is to read about improving verbal communication and ways to calm nerves, as I feel that this would really help me to slow down my pace of speech. Another thing that I am going to do is record myself speaking so that I can listen to my voice and point out any errors that I could be making.

Interdependence Learning Log

This week our theme was Interdependence and I found this input particularly enjoyable as we had a guest speaker from the soil association and we also visited a dairy farm. Sammi Jones was the guest speaker from the soil association. Her talk was very informative and she explained how different types of soils lend themselves … Continue reading Interdependence Learning Log →

This week our theme was Interdependence and I found this input particularly enjoyable as we had a guest speaker from the soil association and we also visited a dairy farm.

Sammi Jones was the guest speaker from the soil association. Her talk was very informative and she explained how different types of soils lend themselves to growing (or not growing) different types of plant life. In Scotland she explained that our soil is suited to growing grass which supports looking after livestock and dairy farms. I also learned the importance of soil as 95% of all our food is sourced from the soil. Furthermore, it takes 1,000 years for The Earth to produce just 1cm of top soil! I think this highlights the importance valuing our green spaces especially with our ever increasing urban population and the growth of towns and cities.

We also discussed how to incorporate interdependence into classroom lessons. One idea ,if the class were learning about a particular country as a topic, would be to discuss the soil found in that country and then explore the different plants grown and also the diet of the people who live there. You could also run an experiment planting different seeds from a variety of countries in the same sort of soil and see what plants grow best. Then afterwards discuss the results and get children to investigate what plants are suited to which soils and environments.

mxni1j8p_400x400

The trip to Strandhead Farm really had an impact on me and I definitely learned a lot. Strandhead is a dairy farm that is run automatically by machines. It is actually the first fully automatic dairy farm in Scotland. The animals there all live indoors. Apparently this is actually quite humane as the all of the animal’s requirements are met inside and there is no risk of them getting hurt out in the muddy fields as cows are prone to getting sore and damaged feet.The barn has air-conditioning and creates an outdoor temperature and breeze that adapts to ensure the animals are comfortable. The adult animals all live in quite a large space and the calves live in a small pen up until about 8 weeks. The cows start getting milked at around 2 years old.

hqdefault

There were machines that were automatically moving around the barn cleaning and ensuring the cows were able to feed. There was even a large spinning brush that the animals could go over and get a scratch from if they wanted to. The most fascinating aspect was that the milking machines were automatic as well. The cows were able to choose when they wanted to be milked (ideally 2 to 4 times a day) and the whole process ran without human involvement. It was really interesting and quite ingenious as it is fairer on the animals and less work for the farmers. However all of these autonomous machines are very expensive but I think it is a really good system.

As a future teacher I think a school trip to Strandhead farm (or any farm) would be really valuable. I feel that it is important that children know and understand exactly where their food comes from. It is important to know about how our diet impacts the environment so that children are able to make choices about what sort of food they are going to eat e.g. locally sourced, free range eggs. It is also relevant for children to respect and appreciate the amount of effort, time and cost farmers put into providing us with food and understand it does not just magically appear into a packet.

Reflections on Placement

Placement was a very worthwhile experience for myself. It was great to see how another school worked, how it was ran and the moral of the teachers in the school. I felt as though one week was far too short. When I first saw all the placement tasks that we had to complete I really […]

meaning-ring-be-a-reflective-thinker

Placement was a very worthwhile experience for myself. It was great to see how another school worked, how it was ran and the moral of the teachers in the school.

I felt as though one week was far too short. When I first saw all the placement tasks that we had to complete I really did panic and wonder how I was going to get them finished on time and give them all as much attention as the next. I felt as though, especially task 5, was a huge challenge. It was only on Thursday I felt I had enough information to start observing certain children’s language differences – strengths and weaknesses – which then didn’t really give me loads of time to really observe them properly and understand why they may have these differences.

The overall experience of the school was great. I felt comfortable and appreciated which really boosted my confidence and allowed me find out information I wanted to know by asking questions and not feel silly about anything I said as I was there to learn. The school was very supportive of me, giving me loads of opportunities to develop my skills within the classroom and school setting.

Strength

I feel my main strength would be my presence in the classroom and how to engage and interact with the children. A couple of years ago I started a 12 week block placement with college and felt as though my first impression in front of the children was not the strongest. I ended up being more of a friend than a teacher because I wanted the children to like me which I feel is normal although this was changed when I worked in an after school care. I learned the I had to develop a ‘teacher-aura’ rather than a friendly relationship and I feel this really showed throughout my week in placement.

The evidence I have to support this would be through my verbal and non-verbal communication. I spoke confidently to the children and groups of children and constantly reflected on volume, pitch, tone and speed. The children would listen to my instructions and follow them giving me a good demonstration of how effective my communication skills were throughout the week.

Area of Most Progress

The area I progressed in the most, I would say was learning to change the way I speak to benefit my audience. I was with Primary 1 and learned that slower, clearer instructions were needed to enhance the children’s learning. I also found that enthusiasm was the key to keeping the children engaged and on task.

I also used this when talking to other members of staff around the school. I got a great understanding of the conversations that go on between teachers and how they help each other out, its not just everyone for themselves which was positive and reassuring to see.

Area Requiring Progress

From peer and self observation I would say the area that requires progress would be allowing children more of a chance to answer/writing/speak before offering help or support. I noticed that the combination of becoming mildly impatient when someone doesn’t know an answer and wanting to help everyone isn’t great. I felt I was too quick to do things for them without letting the children use their own initiative.

Action Plan

My action plan is to take a step back and allow children to be more independent, especially the young children. That is the one of the ways that children learn the difference between right and wrong. I feel like I need to work on my patience and self control, encouraging children when answering instead of answering for them.

Reflections on Placement

B00303588 I thoroughly enjoyed my BA1 placement as it gave me an insight on how a school works from the prospective of a teacher. I feel my experience was made even more rewarding and interesting by the fact I was placed in a P4 class where ability and development varied extremely between the pupils and … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Reflections on Placement

Placement definitely allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of how a school is run and what goes into a teachers daily routine. Starting on the Monday I was nervous about the new experience I was going to participate in. … Continue reading →

Reflections on Placement

Reflecting back on my university placement, the week went by extremely quick. From the first day of university finding out the date that placement would begin, did not seem to long ago either. Fast forward seven weeks I had discovered my placement school and was fretting over printing out the required eight placement task and … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Reflecting back on my university placement, the week went by extremely quick. From the first day of university finding out the date that placement would begin, did not seem to long ago either.

Fast forward seven weeks I had discovered my placement school and was fretting over printing out the required eight placement task and hoping I had printed enough placement handbooks for staff who required it at the school.

Monday morning came I was immensely apprehensive as my placement school was dissimilar to the primary school that I attended and also where I gained my work experience at. But I was eager to get started and to embrace this new challenge… and the placement tasks.

As the week evolved I observed in many classes and also introduced to interesting teaching methods that contributed to completing the placement task. I was engaged in self/peer evaluations and school assessment that helped me to discover strengths and areas for improvement in my communication.

Strength

My most notable strength was the way in which I used voice to speak loudly, clearly and variation of tone when carrying out group work activities. This allowed the pupils’ to understand the task and also show my enthusiasm when explaining the task.

Area of Most Progress

My area of most progress during the placement was my engagement with staff. Initially during the first couple of days while in the staffroom I was rather quite, but as the week progressed I felt more comfortable in this setting and began to interact with staff more while in the staffroom.

Area Requiring Progress

It was evident after evaluations that my area that I need to improve is my overall non-verbal communication. When explaining tasks to groups I would use limited amount of body language and often would hide my hands.

Action Plan

This placement highlight to me that I need to become more confident with teaching staff and to improve my non-verbal communication. My next steps for next placement is get more involved with staffroom discussion. In terms of my non-verbal communication my next steps is to use more hand gesture when speaking to friends and family so I become more adjusted to this method of communication.

Reflections on Placement

Strengths During my placement, I came to realise that I am very good at positioning myself so that everyone in the group can clearly hear me and can see me most of the time. As well as this, I ensure that when I am talking to the group, I talk loud enough and clear enough … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Strengths

During my placement, I came to realise that I am very good at positioning myself so that everyone in the group can clearly hear me and can see me most of the time. As well as this, I ensure that when I am talking to the group, I talk loud enough and clear enough for everyone to hear me and understand me.

When working with a small group of children, my body language was very positive and I stood with an open posture at all times to ensure that the children knew that they could talk to me if they had any problems or if they needed help with their work. When helping the children work out an answer during a maths lesson, I used hand gestures to represent the numbers on a number line moving from one number to another. This helped the children to further understand what I was talking about and picture the number line in their heads.

Area of Most Progress

At the start of my placement, I used the words “like” and “ah” very often however by the end I had managed to completely avoid using it when talking to the children. I feel that this was my area of most progress as I use the word “like” all the time so being able to avoid using it made me feel as though I was making some progress towards being a proper primary teacher.

Area Requiring Progress

When taking a small group of children, I need to encourage everyone to take part and not allow certain individuals in the group to dominate the discussion. I must ensure that every child has a chance to speak and that when the children do give me responses, I encourage them to extend them.

I must also build the confidence to give children into trouble when they are misbehaving and not paying attention to the class teacher. When I was on placement, I felt as though I could not do this as I felt that it was not my place. Even though I was a student teacher, I felt that it was the actual class teacher to give the children into trouble for disrupting them. However, this is not the case and when I am in a classroom it is just as much my responsibility as the class teacher’s.

Action Plan

I must start to think positively about my experience on placement and learn from the criticisms that I picked up both from my self evaluations and from my peer observation feedback. By doing so, I will begin to build confidence in myself both as a teacher and as a student. This will help for the next time I go on placement and I will know what to do differently this time.

As well as this, I plan to do research on way that I can build my confidence and put these into action. Through this, I hope to become more confident in front of small or large groups of adults or children.