Category Archives: 1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment

Not just a warm up…

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I was really excited for our P.E. input as anyone who knows me knows I enjoy exercising and playing sports. I think we were all a bit nervous as we weren’t sure what was going to be involved in terms of efforts of exertion however I think wilovepee knew Will wouldn’t have us running laps for the whole hour. I was surprised the find out the aims of a warm up that I had not considered before in a P.E class. For our warm up Will gave us a series of simple instructions to follow. He asked us what the intention of this and most of our answers were as you would expect such as increase heart rate and preparing the body. Will then explained his intentions were not only of that mentioned but to also identify areas such as:

  • Physical ability
  • Ability following instructions
  • Potential bullying
  • Competitiveness
  • Motivation

The simple instruction that were given for us to follow were also allowing Will to assess who is or isn’t physically able to do some movement. If a child cannot bend touch toesdown to touch their toes or they aren’t co-ordinated they may need further help in certain areas. Another of the instructions was to stop jogging and sprint in the opposite direction – this was so assess spacial awareness.

 

The next part of our warm up was to jog round the hall and when will shouted “freeze”, he would show the number of fingers of how many people to get in to groups. What he was doing here was to see if we could follow non-verbal instruction but also identifying possibilities of bullying e.g. do the same people always go in a group and are some people always left out. By doing this when it comes to grouping for further drills or activities the teacher can work out ways to put people in different groups. I am guilty of saying in school we did try to outsmart our teachers by not all lining up in a row to try to be grouped together.

Next in partners we took turns to dribble a ball, however there were only one or two full sized basketballs. What Will was showing us here is that the resources available to us may not match up with our lesson plans so we should checking to see what is available before planning.

I did come across some interesting information while researching for this blog post and came across this report. sportscotland and Education Scotland invested £5.8m to support local authorities in providing two hours for primary and two period for secondary school of quality physical education per week. This report details how some local authorities spent this money including buying resources, sports equipment and inclusion training for teachers to fully include children with additional support needs. From this hopefully the schools we work in will have benefited from this investment and resources won’t be an issue.

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Most importantly from this input I learned that P.E isn’t about doing a gym class for two hours per week and that’s it. It provides learners with the opportunity to build and improve physical fitness but also build upon interpersonal skills from working in groups. It allows for children to take on leadership roles and demonstrate fair play.

Encouraging the collegiate environment of EduShare

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Reading the blog posts assigned for today’s TDTs has inspired me to get my own blog up to date. At the start of Semester 1 I was really into GLOW and posting my TDTs. During this first semester there was such a huge focus on becoming an enquiring practitioner and a professional who challenges their self for their own benefit and of that of their practice. However, life did get in the way and there were other things that required more attention such as assignments and VIVA’s. All results are in so there really are no more excuses for me to not be re-engaging in the ePortfolio. I have understood from the beginning of this course that the intention of the ePortfolio is for me to show evidence of my understanding and working towards the SPR. However, the lack of engagement from my peers and lecturers on my blog posts is something that put me off before the Christmas break and I never got back in to the swing of things.

Personally, it takes me a lot of time to prepare, preview, draft, redraft and finally publish a blog post. I have a tendency (like now) to start writing and go off on different tangents. I then have to go back to my original thought and edit, edit, edit. I hope that with practice this becomes more straightforward and isn’t so consuming so I can utilise my time more effectively to perhaps research what I would like to write before jumping straight in.

I really enjoy reading my peers posts and I feel I benefit from them as I see different thought processes and opinions. There are a lot of people in our cohort so our ePortfolio’s do give everyone the opportunity to get to know each other better.

There was one post we were assigned to read today that really caught my attention – Problematic Problems. This is a very well thought out post and I can see Michelle’s train of thought and I really like how personalised it is e.g. including family members ideas of maths etc. Although she discussed her previous anxieties with maths I especially liked how you have included the next steps to prepare you for teaching maths. It is so informative and the further reading is especially helpful for your peers.

By evaluating the blog posts I will definitely be taking indexsome tips to make my own posts more interesting such as including more links, pictures, references and further reading. I’ve also realised considering how many of my peer’s posts I have read but I have never fully engaged in commenting on them. Without comments on the ePortfolio I feel we will remain anonymous which is counter intuitive to the intention of collegiate environment of EduShare. Without engaging in my own ePortfolio along with commenting on my peer’s work I would really be letting our hard work go unappreciated.

Nurturing their nature

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Deciphering different personality types and understanding different theoretical approaches of personality is paramount when it comes teaching. The ability to recognise and accommodate why children of the same, age, and ability react in different ways is fundamental. Being a positive role model is central in teaching as children learn behaviour through observation and not only reinforcement as the behaviourist theorists would suggest. However, as a mother myself, I would tend to agree more with Bandura’s social learning theory that personality is reinforced through interaction between environmental factors. My daughter’s standards and ideas of self-efficacy will reinforce her personality then through the behaviourist approach they will be further strengthened.

The Big 5 personality test I carried out consisted of 50 questions of which were rated from 1-5; disagree to agree. I agree with the specifications of my results however I was not confident when answering some of the questions with the correct context. The results I received, as no surprise to me, was that I am 96% extrovert. However, I know that depending on the social environment can have an adverse effect on this part of my personality and I can become a complete introvert. Carl G Jung said “there is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in a lunatic asylum”. It would not be socially acceptable to behave only in the approach these results suggest.

Openness to Experience/Intellect – 0%
High scorers tend to be original, creative, curious, complex; Low scorers tend to be conventional, down to earth, narrow interests, uncreative.
You prefer traditional and familiar experiences.
Conscientiousness – 83%
High scorers tend to be reliable, well-organized, self-disciplined, careful; Low scorers tend to be disorganized, undependable, negligent.
You are very well-organized, and can be relied upon.
Extraversion – 96%
High scorers tend to be sociable, friendly, fun loving, talkative; Low scorers tend to be introverted, reserved, inhibited, quiet.
You are extremely outgoing, social, and energetic.
Agreeableness – 32%
High scorers tend to be good natured, sympathetic, forgiving, courteous; Low scorers tend to be critical, rude, harsh, callous.
You find it easy to express irritation with others.
Neuroticism – 22%
High scorers tend to be nervous, high-strung, insecure, worrying; Low scorers tend to be calm, relaxed, secure, hardy.
You are generally relaxed.

Constructive or destructive

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I’ll be honest to say it will take some accustoming to give and receive feedback. Emotions play a huge part in reactions to feedback and we are on a journey now on how to understand and use feedback constructively.  A few weeks ago the whole year were instructed to engage with three peer’s eportfolio’s and I feel this task has highlighted the fact that I commented on two blogs, only one time…. Naughty me!

The feedback I received was mostly positive and framed in a way that didn’t make me feel uncomfortable.  Previously, upon receiving feedback that has firstly been construed negatively had an adverse effect on my confidence and willingness to share future blogs. Confidence is something that can take a long time to build and can be shattered in second and with a few short sentences.  Learning how to frame feedback positively will help immensely deter any conflict in the future with colleagues.  You could list ten positive points about a persons writing but if there is one critique then that can outweigh the positives. To combat this, Nicki mentioned framing feedback in a positive way such as “have you thought about trying this” instead of something like “I didn’t like that”.

The process of giving peer feedback is a daunting.  You might have a thick skin but that doesn’t mean to say the person on the receiving end does.  I found that considering criticising someone’s work before I’ve read it is difficult.  The success criteria of this task was to make suggestions however if you feel the person has met all the criteria do you then pick at their punctuation or grammar?

Certainly from this exercise and in the past I have come to realise the importance of taking time and reading over feedback a few times, as tone is impossible to interpret over text.  In a professional environment, most, if not all feedback will be constructive so I need to learn first time to take my feedback positively to improve my practice.

What, why, how – the power of enquiry

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An enquiring practitioner is responsible for maintaining and enhancing professional competency for pedagogical development. It means going beyond the role of reflecting and conducting practice based research for a deeper insight to improve practice.

Professor John Hattie said “The biggest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching”.

Teaching in Scotland has been reconceptualised vastly within policy, legislation and what it means to be a teacher; the benefits of which are tangible in practitioner enquiry.  This quote places huge emphasis on the fact that practitioner enquiry should always be carried out in mind of improving practice for the benefit of the children being taught.  An enquiring practitioner creates space to review and engage in reflective practice to help gain an enhanced understanding of not only their own teaching but when working collaboratively.  Now, there is more emphasis about understanding incentives to drive teachers, colleagues and children forward to make a difference.

It’s easy to be critical of others however to challenge yourself takes confidence.  You wouldn’t do the things the way you do if you didn’t feel it was suitable.  What we, as students, need to understand that the fundamental principles of practitioner enquiry is not to root out weaknesses but to refine existing ideas on what it means to be a good teacher.

As first year students there is already huge importance on the Standard for Provisional and Full Registration in preparation for autonomous life-long learning.  Practitioner enquiry impacts on us all as students as we need to always have higher expectations of ourselves, become critically adaptive in how to improve our own learning and utilise this is practice.  Ultimately, the result of practitioner enquiry is to better meet the needs of children and improve achievement.

Improvement without reflection?

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Reflection, in its simplest form, is recalling what you have done and is an essential part of learning. There are different levels of reflection that can take many forms. A reflective model I am encouraged to use in my social work module is Stephen Brookfield’s Four Lenses: autobiographical, peer (student), that of or fellow professionals and theoretical. The lens titles have been adapted slightly to suit the module but ultimately have the same meaning. By looking at ourselves through an autobiographical lens we identify our own assumptions in order to reveal pedagogy that may need reinforced. A peer (student) lens focuses on observations, evaluations and group work. Fellow professionals can provide support and feedback to enhance learning and teaching. A theoretical lens offers a view to support, understand and consider teaching or learning.

Reflection correlates with one of the most important professional values of being a teacher in my opinion: integrity. The SPR description of integrity is “critically examining the connections between personal and professional attitudes and beliefs, values and practices to effect improvement and, when appropriate, bring about transformative change in practice”. We must reflect on what we do in order to improve ourselves; it is imperative to recognise strengths and weaknesses. Without reflection there can be no improvement or change and without reflection, we are doing, not only ourselves, but our students a disservice.

Reflective writing is an opportunity to critically analysis what you have or haven’t done and include suggestions of your intentions to improve and develop yourself. I am really enjoying using the ePortfolio to reflect on my university life so far. Previously my writing may only have been conveying information but my ePortfolio is helping not only identify where I am, but what I need to, to help shape me to be the best practitioner that I can.

Honey and Mumford learning style questionnaire

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For my Social Justice module I was asked to complete the Honey and Mumford learning style questionnaire to identify and build on areas of development as a professional for collaborative working.  The questionnaire was developed based on the work of Kolb, corresponding with the experiential learning cycle he suggests – experiencing, reflecting, generalising and application – and involved answering eighty questions to result in a particular learning style.  There is a maximum score of twenty indicating learning styles and my results are the following:

Activist                 16

Reflector             10

Theorist               9

Pragmatist          15

Activists like to act quickly, get involved and get things done.  Reflectors look at situations from various perspectives and are more concerned with processes than outcomes.  Theorists are known for their thoroughness, solving problems and working alone. Pragmatist’s strengths are getting things done, preferring a more hands on experience with practical application of what they learn.

I can relate to these results based on the types of questions asked however I know that I adopt all four of the learning styles in a different environment or circumstance on a regular basis without conscious thought.  In a previous blog post I discussed the VARK learning styles which gave very different results and Richard Holme pointed me in the direction of this article suggesting that there is no empirical evidence to suggest instruction based on learning styles are effective. The results from the two said learning style surveys actually contradict themselves.  The VARK suggests I am predominantly a read/write learner however Honey and Mumford learning style questionnaire suggests I am more of an activist.  Theorists are described in the Honey and Mumford questionnaire as enjoying being taught in a didactic way which would agree with the read/write method of VARK however this was my lowest score in this questionnaire.

So are learning style questionnaires reliable? I do understand that the point of doing the Honey and Mumford questionnaire in relation to my module was to apply a method to explain and reflect my thinking. I believe that I know what my strengths and weaknesses without doing such learning style surveys. Tasks assigned for us to do such as the Online Unit and thorough reading and reflection of The Study Skills book will help identify how to strengthen my underdeveloped skills to become a more rounded and effective learner.  I appreciate in my profession as an educator, understanding learning styles is important however as previously mentioned there is no absolute way to learn and basing teaching on style-based instruction for a whole class in not practical and some subjects are best taught in a collective way.  Learning is an individual processes however knowing how you process it can help maximise skills that fit your strengths.

Professional Attributes

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Integrity and conscience I think are the most important and have shared meaning. Professional integrity means having strong moral principles in the job you do and you want to do the best you can for yourself and for your students. Not only do we need to meet the standards within the GTCS, we need to maintain them through continued professional development in our careers.

Compassion, empathy, kindness, justice, fairness, patience, self-control and moral courage I feel all come under the same category as they all have similar meaning. All of the terms are subjective and can be hard to define by different people e.g. pupils, parents and colleagues. For example, teachers need to be open-minded and patient to allow equal opportunities for students to speak. We need to be concerned about all of our students and be empathetic to their emotions or feelings and also morally courageous to act on something if we feel that child is at risk. A just attitude, a fairness in rewards and punishments are just as important; we have all been through school before and know how unfair things can be. A “that’s just life” approach is not acceptable in the classroom.

All qualities are essential because we as educators need to adapt to the ever changing daily environment. I believe integrity is the most important as it comes in to question if we are not passionate and proactively striving to improve ourselves professionally – we can’t rely on experience alone.