Semester 1 was a whole new learning curve for me, especially working with other prospective students in the Social Work and Community Learning and Development courses for the ‘Working Together’ module.

Myself and seven others from the 3 professions came together to produce a presentation based on our visit to a Social Work agency and how well we thought we worked together as a group throughout the module. I was a bit timid to begin with in the group. I think this was because I came straight from school to University where I sat exams which assessed me purely on my own capabilities. This put me at a disadvantage when it came to collaborating within my group as it felt unusual to me to be challenged on my views as I had never really experienced this before, whereas others in my group had much more experience of working in a collaborative environment.

After some time in the group, I quickly began to contribute more to discussions as I saw the benefits of bringing everyone’s views together but also challenging them. I learnt to listen and take into consideration the views of others in my group and use it to develop my own views. This allowed us to come to varied and diverse answers and conclusions to different topics.

Moving forward, I will use this experience to engage with professions outside of the teaching community when on my Professional Practice, and to share my professional learning and development with colleagues as directed by section 3.4.2 of the Standards for Provisional Registration (The General Teaching Council for Scotland, 2012).

References:

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (2012). The Standards for Registration: mandatory requirements for Registration with the General Teaching Council for Scotland. Available at: http://www.gtcs.org.uk/web/FILES/the-standards/standards-for-registration-1212.pdf (Accessed: 19 January 2018).