Category Archives: 1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment

An Enquiring Practitioner: Benefits and Challenges

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“Practitioner enquiry, as defined by Menter et al (2011), is a ‘finding out’ or an investigation with a rationale and approach that can be explained or defended.” – GTCS Website

Throughout our time as students, and also as qualified teachers, we will be expected to expand our learning and thoughts about various aspects of school life.

By becoming an enquiring practitioner, I believe that I will benefit from many different viewpoints and opinions. One major benefit would be that you are able to discuss your ideas with other people. I find this can be very beneficial because people will be able to give their opinion on your interpretation and this means that you can work together to figure out what would be the best idea for that situation. This will definitely help when I am a student teacher because the teacher I am with on placement will be able to discuss with me about topic regarding the class.

However, becoming an Enquiring Practitioner does not come without its challenges. One major challenge could be that the group would get off topic. This means that the main point of the discussion is being missed due to the conversation being diverted to a different topic. Therefore, by getting off the subject, the group may end up spending more time focusing on things that are no longer beneficial to the actual topic.  I think this would be a challenge to me as a student teacher because I will have many questions and when I discuss these with my placement teacher there is a high possibility that I will end up off the original topic.

References:

http://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-update/practitioner-enquiry/what-is-practitioner-enquiry.aspx – cited 4/11/15

Managing my learning

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This is a link to ways that I find work the best for helping me study.

Unit 1 B Managing my learning

Professionalism Vs the Online World

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  • Discuss what challenges/opportunities you may be faced with when marrying the personal vs the professional presence on social media.

The General Teaching Council of Scotland recommends that teachers put all of their social media outlets on private. I think this is a good idea as students will inevitably try to look up and possibly add their teacher on Facebook. By having all details on private, children or their parents will not be able to find out any further information about the teacher than what they know from school. However, I believe it is a good idea to have a public account as it means they will be able to interact with other teachers/pupils and share ideas or themes that they have been using in their school.

  • How are the challenges/opportunities afforded by social media framed? How will you frame things – positive or deficit viewpoint?

Personally, I have found that the older generation have more of a closed minded view about social media as they assume the worst of what could happen all the time. I believe social media, such as YouTube and Instagram are great and will really help children as they will be growing up surrounded by new types of technology and, as a teacher, being on top of it means that they can be on the same level as the children.

Becoming a Professional: Five skills a teacher should have

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There are many skills that contribute to a teacher becoming a professional, however, here are five that I feel are very important.

  • Patience

Patience is a very important skill for a primary teacher to have. This is because every child is different and will learn things at a different pace compared to others; the teacher must be patient and allow the children time to try and understand the topic.

  • Empathy

For a teacher, being able to empathise with the children is very important. They need to see what is happening as if they were seeing through the eyes of a child. By getting on to ‘their level’ the teacher will also be able to sympathise with the children and therefore get them the correct support they need. For example: if the teacher can see that a child is being picked on, they can give a personal anecdote and then direct the child to whichever teacher is in charge of anti-bullying.

  • Respect

Mutual respect is very important in a primary school. By respecting all of those in the workspace, from cleaners to classroom assistants, a better learning environment is created as well as better established relations with others. Teachers will also find that by having respect for the children in the class, they, the children, will be more respectful and listen to the teacher more attentively.

  • Kindness

Being a kind and approachable teacher is very important because it means that when the children enter the class they will feel more relaxed and enjoy coming into the learning environment. Furthermore, if a teacher is known in a local community as being kind, then parents would feel more at ease if their child was going to be in their class.

  • Fairness

A teacher must be able to be fair and just with the children in their class. Clear boundaries should be set at the start of the year in partnership with the children, so that they know what behaviour is expected of them. Once the rules are set the teacher must make sure that they do not let one child away with something they would not allow another child to do. This will make sure they are working in a professional manner and work well with the children.

How did Gender affect me as a child?

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At home, gender was never really discussed. The only real aspect of gender that I was told about, apart from physical, was ‘boys toys’ and ‘girls toys’; girls were expected encouraged to dress as princesses at play time, whereas boys were the knights in shining armour.

Boys and girls were given equal opportunities with regards to academic studies. Gender did not impact who was doing well, it simply came down to who was paying attention to what was happening around them.

When it came to the 11+ in primary 7, my classmates, male and female, scored a range of results. Gender did not play a role in this difference, I believe, as it was more to do with the social group that they were involved with.

Welcome to your WordPress eportfolio

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Welcome to your eportfolio. This is where you will document and share your professional thoughts and experiences over the course of your study at the University of Dundee and beyond that when you begin teaching. You have the control over what you want to make public and what you would rather keep on a password protected page.

The eportfolio in the form of this WordPress blog allows you to pull in material from other digital sources:

You can pull in a YouTube video:

You can pull in a Soundcloud audio track:

You can pull in a Flickr page

Teacher, Lorraine Lapthorne conducts her class in the Grade Two room at the Drouin State School, Drouin, Victoria

You can just about pull in anything that you think will add substance and depth to your writing.