reflection – Page 2 – UWS BA ePDPs

Reflections on Room

I consider myself to be an avid reader, and it is one of my main hobbies. My preferences tend towards fantasy if reading fiction, the works of Shakespeare and Tolkien being at the top of my list of favourites, along … Continue reading →

Reflection on Room

Before attending University in September, I had only every put a huge focus on non-fiction texts when reading for enjoyment. This interest in non-fiction texts began when I had read […]

Reflections on Placement.

On the week beginning the 31st of October I went on my first of many weeks of placement within the BA Education course. I went to a small primary school minutes away from me and learned a lot whilst I was there. I really enjoyed my placement and am looking forward to the next one. … Continue reading “Reflections on Placement.”

Strengths

I realised that I was more confident at interacting with pupils and staff than I thought I would be. I consistently was able to communicate clearly and loudly enough for pupils to hear and understand what I was saying. In addition to this I also made eye contact with who I was communicating with and used positive body language all week. For example I was not sitting with my arms crossed. As I was in every class in the school throughout the week from nursery all the way to primary 7 I realised that I was able to adapt my language to suit the pupil that I was talking to with ease. The staff within the school were all very welcoming and encouraging which gave me more confidence to push myself outside my comfort zone when communicating and approaching the pupils and other members of staff.

Area of Most Progress

The area that I feel I progressed the most in was simply my confidence. At first I thought that children would rather interact with their own teacher who they are used to rather than me but as the week went on I realised that the pupils also valued my opinion and wanted my help as well. In addition to this I noticed at the beginning of the week that I was not really using hand gestures a lot which may have come across as showing that I was not as enthusiastic as I wanted to show. I worked on this throughout the week and by the Friday I felt as though this had significantly improved, and will continue to improve with the more practice that I get.

Areas Requiring Progress

During the week I had to complete two self evaluations. I found this challenging as it was hard to judge what I had done well and what I had not done well as I can not see myself communicating from an outsiders point of view. However the help of the peer evaluation and advice from teachers assured me I was on the right track with my self evaluation. Furthermore, I had a bad habit of asking pupils a question and not giving them enough time to think of an answer, instead giving them another question to help them answer the initial question. I have learned that it is important to allow children to think and give them time as they can not always come up with an answer straight away.

Action Plan

As my next placement is a long time away I want to work on my communication skills in my everyday life so that when the next placement comes around I am more than prepared to go feeling very confident in my communication skills. In order to do so I think my part-time job will come in very handy as it involves serving customers and also being out on the shop floor welcoming customers and interacting with them. I think this will massively increase my communication skills as I will be able to get a lot of practice with a huge range of people. In addition to this I will also get to practice my communication skills with the upcoming situated communication presentation assignment, which will test my skills in front of an audience, something which I do not have a lot of practice in. The previous points mentioned should help me to strive to be a more effective communicator in the future.

Reflections on Placement

Now that my BA1 one week placement is over, I can now look back and reflect. I had an extraordinary week with many learning curves which I will take on board with me through my whole teaching career. As Monday, … Continue reading →

Now that my BA1 one week placement is over, I can now look back and reflect. I had an extraordinary week with many learning curves which I will take on board with me through my whole teaching career.

As Monday, the 31^st was quickly approaching, my nerves were starting to kick in. I was anxious to begin my first day as a student teacher and worried I wasn’t going to make the impression I needing to make. After all, first impressions are cruical. It was like going for a job interview only this time 100 times more nerve wracking. As I prepared my tasks the night before, I remined myself that to succeed I must fling myself into the deep end I give everything I have. I knew the week ahead will be an experience I will never forget and one I had to grasp with both hands to gain the experience I needed.

Strength

One area of strength I identified through my self-evaluation check list was an element of communication which was the pitch and tone of my voice. I had the opportunity to work with a small group of primary one children during literacy. The task I had was to introduce a new book to the children, ask them to identify the pictures in the book to describe the story. All children seemed to be engaged throughout the lesson and they also seemed to be following the lesson. I tried to make the instructions as clear as possible throughout the lesson. I encouraged turn taking and no shouting out. I also encouraged the children to ask questions to help further their learning. My peer mentioned that I had a “soft tone” when working with the children and commented that I spoke clearly at an adequate volume to suit the size of the group.

Area of most progress

I think the area I made a lot of progress was communicating with parents. This is something I have hardly had an opportunity to do, and I would like to have more experience in. However, placement allowed me to further this skill. I took part in an after-school session which was linked to the Scottish Attainment Challenge. This session invited parents to come into the school to work on maths with their children. This furthered the parent’s knowledge on what their children were learning in the classroom and helped the parents assist their child with their homework. I had the chance to interact with some parents and ask them questions about their involvement in the school. Some parents commented that they weren’t too great at maths their selves so these sessions helped their learning as well as their child. I enjoyed working with the parents as this was a different insight to the child’s learning at home

Areas Requiring Progress

One area requiring progress would be my nonverbal communication. When working with the primary sevens I realised that I was very standoffish and not that confident. I also found myself not sitting in the correct place when I took a group lesson in literacy. The class teacher gave me some informal feedback on how to correct this and ensured me that I don’t have to be nervous.

Action Plan

Throughout my years of being a student teacher I aim striving to gain as many experiences as I can to further my skills, knowledge and communication skills. I am a strong believer in no matter how old we are, we are still learning every step of the way. I will take guidance from the informal feedback I received and I will also take guidance from the peer observation. I will research and keep on top of how to communicate positively and effectively and I will also practice. I will aim to be a reflective practitioner.

Reflections on Placement

As part of the BA1 Situated Communication module I took part in a whole school placement. During placement I was able to observe a number of different lessons and the techniques how they were carried out. By observing all primary classes … Continue reading →

Reflection on Placement

The school I visited for my 1st year week long placement was a small rural primary school with an incorporated nursery that had approximately two dozen pupils split into two classes; P1-3 and P4-7. I worked alongside both teachers and a fellow student throughout the week, interacting with all the pupils of the school and … Continue reading Reflection on Placement →

The school I visited for my 1^st year week long placement was a small rural primary school with an incorporated nursery that had approximately two dozen pupils split into two classes; P1-3 and P4-7. I worked alongside both teachers and a fellow student throughout the week, interacting with all the pupils of the school and of the nursery as well as interacting with the teachers in the classroom and staffroom.

Strengths

I would say that my main strength is that I am an effective communicator, I can effectively explain to children what their tasks are and what is expected of them throughout these tasks. I can also successfully describe to a child the steps for getting to the correct answer of a question using creative and interactive methods. For example, there was one child; let’s call her Jane. Now jane was stuck on the following mental question 5 – ? = 0, she was struggling to mentally subtract to get to zero. I came up with the idea to use concrete material (pencils) to physically show the calculation needed, the situation went as follows.

Jane – I’m stuck on this question (5 – ? = 0)

Myself – alright, well if I have 5 pencils (holding 5 pencils in my hand) but I don’t want any, how many do you have to take away from me so that I have no pencils.

Jane – I’m not sure

Myself – ok well you take them from me, physically take the pencils out my hand and count as you do so.

Jane – one (takes away 1 pencil), two (takes away another pencil), three (takes away another), four (takes away another), five (takes away the last pencil, looks up and smiles). Five, the answers five.

Myself – well done that was good.

I used this process repeatedly when Jane became stuck on similar questions and also when other students in the class became confused as well.

Area of Most Progress

I would say that my confidence in working with the children, using behavioural management techniques and also interacting with the teachers on a professional level as I had never experienced anything like that before progressed as the week went on. At first I struggled with interacting with the children as I didn’t know them, as in the school I previously did work experience in I knew 90% of the students which made connecting with them particularly easy, but in this case I had no prior knowledge of any of the children which made me less confident in interacting with them. This lack of confidence did however decrease over the course of the placement as I spent more and more time with the children every day and built up trust. I also became more confident in using behavioural management techniques as the week progressed as in the beginning I was reluctant and unsure whether to use them as I am only a student and I am not yet qualified so don’t have the authority to punish bad behaviour. I was however reassured by the teacher that if I saw any bad behaviour I was to deal with it in a manner I saw fit, this usually consisted of me having a quiet word with the misbehaving pupil. Interacting with the teachers on a professional level was quite difficult to get my head around at first because I had never experienced anything like it before, but after a few days I realised that I was viewed as an equal to the teachers and was trusted with personal and sensitive information about the students and was also asked for my opinion on situations and how to handle them.

Area Requiring Progress

I would say that the area that needs the most improvement is my ability to self-reflect on my experiences. At the moment I can reflect and find all the negatives of what do but I really struggle with identifying the positive aspects, this is probably due to a lack of self-confidence and self-worth. This lack of confidence also affects my ability to present in front of my peers. Children that are younger than me and my elders don’t make me nervous at all but when it comes to presenting to a group of people my own age that I don’t know or aren’t comfortable around I get really nervous and sometimes I’m even ill from the stress. So this is one area that I would really like to improve on as it will be relevant to my future career and experiences.

Action Plan

My plan of action is to film myself presenting to groups and watch it back and note down what I did well and what I didn’t do so well, I’ll also do this when I’m in everyday situations such as paying for shopping. This practise in everyday and formal settings will give me the chance to review everything I do right and wrong and should hopefully help me get better at giving myself positive feedback. For the confidence side of presenting I’m going to practise talking in front of a mirror and also build myself up to presenting to groups I am uncomfortable rather than jumping in at the deep in.

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.

Starting A New Adventure

Starting a new adventure in your life can be quite scary as well as exciting. After having started my own new adventure recently I can confirm this was the way that I felt. On my first day of university I … Continue reading →