Reflecting on my first semester

Reflection is a major part of a teacher’s career and development; both at the beginning of our training and as we progress through our careers. I am now beginning to understand how important it is for us to be constantly looking back at the progress we have made, recognising the room for improvement as well as our achievements and having a positive attitude towards what our next steps are.

My first semester was a completely new experience for me and I have to say I have come quite far since our first week in Lecture theatre 4. The biggest learning curve for me was assignment writing. This type of academic writing was new to me and I can remember in the values assignment briefing I was quite overwhelmed. I had no idea how to approach this and had no confidence that I would be able to even attempt it. Miraculously my essay turned out to be something I am very proud of. Looking back I needed to have a more open mind towards new challenges and what I am able to achieve. However if I could tell myself one thing at the start of freshers it would be to properly reference from the beginning of the semester in my reading! That’s one thing I have taken into semester 2 that will save me a lot of time and stress.

Looking now to our first placement I know that reflection will be a key part of our development. Being able to be receptive to constructive criticism; being open to advice and not taking anything too personally is something I want myself to remember and hopefully when reflecting on semester 2 I can be more positive about my confidence to achieve.

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