What are the most effective aspects of teaching which emerge for you?
Actively using numbers as opposed to writing down
Asking the children what they already know
Peer assessing each other’s work
Effective use of technology
Lesson linked to children personally
Included all children
Recapping on what had been learned previously
Effective use of visual tools
Cross-Curricular learning – maths and Spanish
Teacher took on the children’s ideas
Worked individually, in groups, in pairs and as a whole class
Final activity to consolidate what had been learned
What are the least effective?
Potential for some children not to be following the lesson
Some children may just be copying each other
What are the factors contributing to success or problems?
Temperamentality of technology
Children’s ability to work independently
Children’s ability to work unsupervised (ie. without the teacher sitting with them)
Respect for each other
Individual personalities
Engagement with the lesson
Level of interest in the lesson
Willingness to cooperate with the lesson
How could you use some of the success factors?
I think that the teacher here used a very effective method to start the lesson. I think that to use the numbers where children had to actively be the numbers worked really well, I imagine that this is a recap of something that they had learned before, which I think would be an effective way of keeping up with past learning. I also thought it was good to have the other children to peer assess what they were doing and correct each other’s mistakes, I think they will have remembered their mistakes and not made them again. I think that when I am teaching, I am going to try to use this idea and use starter activities to help to focus on learning and to remember previously learned knowledge.
I also think it was a really good idea to link the children to the lesson, to make the data for the lesson the children themselves and their characteristics made them feel more involved. To use all of the children meant that they all felt included in the lesson, which would mean that they pay more attention and learn more. When I am teaching, I think it could be an effective method to include all the children and to use them as the subjects of the lesson.
I think that the way that the teacher has included Spanish in the maths lesson is a really good idea. I think that to include another subject in a lesson is what the Curriculum for Excellence is all about, so when I am teaching, I will have to try to do this. However, I can see how effective this is in the video and will be very active in my attempts to do this as a teacher.
I also think that it was effective to use different groups. I think that using groups, pairs and working as a whole class allowed children to learn from each other as well as the teacher allowed them an opportunity to consolidate their knowledge, and helped to improve confidence, which I think is very important. When I am teaching, I am going to remember this, as I think to do this is very important and it can also improve social skills, which is a valuable skill to have in children.
What are the most effective aspects of teaching which emerge for you?
Choice of what to do
Stations
Some children were outside while others were inside
Teacher did not do things for the children – got them to try themselves first
Teacher did not give the children the answers – the children had to think about it first
Stickers, star chart, ‘happy face’ board – positive reinforcement
Use of the specialist teacher
Pairs work
Hands up
“1,2,3” – method to get children quiet
Actively involved in the story
Going back through the story at the end
Realising that the kids were thirsty and bored, so changed what they were doing to accommodate that
Mixing with the other classes
What are the least effective?
Children working on their own – could lose focus and start wandering around
Took a long time explaining/getting started
What are the factors contributing to success or problems?
Respect for each other
Individual personalities
Engagement with the lesson
Level of interest in the lesson
Willingness to cooperate with the lesson
How could you use some of the success factors?
I think that the teacher here used some very effective methods to teach. I think that by giving the children a choice of what they wanted to do, she was engaging them better as they had an interest in what they were learning, which I think would make them more focused on their task and likely to take more from why they were learning. When I am teaching, I am going to remember the idea of having stations and letting children choose between them, as I think that it was a very effective method of teaching.
I think that when they read the story, and all the children felt like they were a part of it was a good idea. When I am teaching I am going to remember this practice, as I could see on the video that the children were enjoying it, and that they were not sitting passively listening, so they were taking more in, which I think is really important, as it gives the reading of the story a point during the lesson.
When I am teaching, I am going to remember the resilience of the teacher in the video. When she realised that the children were all thirsty and becoming bored, she changed the plans and sent them to get a drink and to find an activity to do. I think this is very important, as I can imagine that it is very easy to want to stick to your plans, despite how the children feel and how they are acting – especially with the inspector there.
Before I start, I would like to make a few points. First, I am not attempting to write a scathing report on the UK Independence Party, nor am I even planning to demonstrate my opinion on any matter than education. Also, this is not an attempt to convince anyone to vote in a certain way, simply, it is my own reflections on the policies of the party, both positive and negative, and anyone is completely welcome to disagree with anything I say! I know that education is devolved to Scotland, so is unlikely to affect my education or my future career, but I do believe that my reflections are worth making.
I have copied some of the main points from UKIP’s manifesto from their website:
Ease teachers’ workloads by cutting down on assessments, data collection and appraisals
Scrap teachers’ performance-related pay
End sex education for primary school children
Bring back grammar schools and support a range of secondary schools including vocational, technical and specialist schools
Waive tuition fees for science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) subjects at university
Make First Aid training part of the national curriculum
“Ease teachers’ workloads by cutting down on assessments, data collection and appraisals”
I can see the point that they are trying to make, which is to reduce the bureaucracy and allow teachers to spend their time planning and teaching. However, I believe that assessments, data collection and appraisals can all be of value. For teachers, these things can be used to set targets and improve practice. I think that they key is in how individual schools and individual teachers use these things so that they are not aimless uses of time, but rather it is extremely meaningful. Assessments are not the be all and end all within education, but I can see that they can be beneficial if used correctly, so they should not be cut down. Ultimately, I can understand what this policy was attempting to do, but I cannot agree with it.
“Scrap teachers’ performance-related pay”
I am aware that we do not have performnce-related pay, but I think this point is worth consideration. Basically, it is saying teachers should not be paid based on their performance as teachers. A survey on the opinions of teachers in Wales about performance-related pay, it was found that “it would be problematic to isolate the performance of individual teachers and deleterious to collegiality and teamwork in schools” I agree with these points, I wonder how teacher would be assessed. Would it be based on attainment within their class? The problem with this is that children develop at different rates, so children who take longer to develop would bring a class average down. This could potentially result in a teachers trying to avoid having certain children in their class. I also wonder if teachers who are low on the pay scale would perhaps give up, and not put in as much effort. Of course, the counter-argument is that performance-related pay could be highly motivating to some teachers who would strive to be the best, but that begs the question: would they simply do it for the increased money, or would they do it because they loved it and they enhanced pay be a bonus? While I can understand this argument, I do not agree. I can see that performance-related pay could become a negative tool and therefore this policy is a sensible one.
“End sex education for primary school children”
This one speaks for itself, it means that many children will reach 12 years old with no understanding of sex education. I believe that it is essential that children know about sex and relationships, but also about their bodies. For me, the aim of sex education is to promote healthy habits in the future, not teaching children to do things that they are too young for.
“Bring back grammar schools and support a range of secondary schools including vocational, technical and specialist schools”
This is an interesting concept to consider. They are advocating the use of grammar schools, which are “the only state schools… that are allowed by law to select all their pupils on the grounds of high academic ability”. This means that children can be put on a completely different track based on whether they do well in the admissions test. To me, this is wrong as it limits the opportunities offered to children, and I think it could be detrimental to their confidence if they fail to gain entry. “The specialist schools programme is a UK government initiative that encourages secondary schools in England to specialise in certain areas of the curriculum in order to boost achievement.” I also have a problem with this, it is all very well to join a specialist school but I do not feel that it gives children enough opportunity to change their minds. They may want to be a dancer or performer when they are aged 11 or 12, and then decided they want something entirely different from their lives by the time they’re 16 By then it would be too late to change their minds.
“Waive tuition fees for science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) subjects at university”
This could seem like a positive move, but to me, I see strong bias in favour of people who are more academic who would be most likely to study a STEMM subject. This would mean any creative subject would require the payment of tuition fees, such as: Art, Music, English Literature or Performing Arts. These people on lower incomes may feel pushed to apply for STEMM subjects just because they would not have to pay for them and go on to struggle with the course content. This means that creative or arts subjects would only be accessible to those who could afford tuition fees, limiting the choices for those from lower income families
“Make First Aid training part of the national curriculum”
I do not see any problems with this policy. The number of people I know my own age who have no first aid skills is very high. St John’s Ambulance’s research says that two-thirds (59%) wouldn’t feel confident trying to save a life. This is a huge number of people with no skills in this area, and that does not account for the number of people with out-of-date skills. If every child had this as a mandatory part of their education it would allow them to build up a highly useful skill set which they will be able to use throughout their lives. Also, I believe that it may be something that children who struggle with academics may find they are good at and could be a means of building up confidence in some children. It goes without saying that any training would have to be age appropriate.
My final point comes as a result of a group activity. We had to get into groups and research a political party and I was in the UKIP group. Something that I became aware of was that some people did not even try to be impartial and talk about their party without also giving their opinion. While this was in a peer setting, as opposed to a teaching one, I have become aware that there will almost definitely come a point in our careers where we have to teach about the political parties. It will be essential at that time to be completely impartial. On 1PP1 last year, I taught a bit about politics around the time of the 2015 General Election. I had to be very careful, even not to agree with anything children said. This is something that I think will be very important to remember throughout our teaching careers.
Before I start, I feel I should point out that this post is about me, not the tutor leading the workshop or the other students that are part of it.
I went up to the room feeling normal, walked into the room and the tutor greeted us by saying “bonjour!” and I could feel myself begin to panic. I am not ‘bad’ at French, I got an A at Int 2, and I still remember quite a lot of what I was taught. The second that the tutor started speaking French, however, I was transported back to sitting in French class in high school feeling awkward, uncomfortable, and wanting to hide under a desk the whole time. It may sound dramatic but that’s how I’ve always felt about French. I hated speaking it in front of anyone or doing anything in a french class to draw attention to myself!
This workshop was particularly stressful. The tutor had us doing actions to go with some of the vocab, I avoided joining in as long as possible, then when I had to I put in as little energy as possible. When she was asking unto say things out loud I found myself pretending not to know things, or pretending to write just to avoid making eye contact and being asked to participate by speaking out loud.
Looking at the workshop objectively, I thought what we were learning was very good, I thought that all the games and speaking out loud would be fun to most people. I think it is probably a very effective way to learn a language. I wonder if my reaction to French could be similar to ‘Maths Anxiety’ (explored in another post), do I have some kind of a phobia of French? If so, then it will need to be sorted. As a teacher I cannot pass my own feelings about the subject on to the children that I work with. If I do not come across confident in teaching a language, then the children will not be confident in my ability to teach them, which would significantly impact on their education.
I decided to look up my feelings and came back with ‘Foreign Language Anxiety’. It is described as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the (foreign) language learning process” which makes a lot of sense to me. I also found the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLACAS). It is a questionnaire which asks participants to read statements and rate how much they agree. Questions include “I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in language class.” and “It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class.” Looking at the questions, almost all of them apply to me!
So what should I do now? Realistically I think that languages are always going to be the cause of some anxiety for me. Now that I am aware of it, I have to deal with it. I think that I should start participating more often in class, there are only 20 people, and realistically they are not there to pounce on me if I speak and make mistakes! For all I know, many of them may be feeling the same way that I do. I think knowing this will make it easier for me to teach languages to children who feel nervous or anxious too. I will be able to differentiate better as I will be able to recognise children who feel this way and perhaps allow them to do slightly different tasks, for example working with a partner as opposed to a large group.
I feel that this small amount of research and reflection has been very useful to me. I now know that I am not alone in panicking over learning a language and I am confident that I can overcome the worst of such feelings to be an effective teacher in the future.
Out of 5, I would give my anxiety levels a 1.
Al-Saraj, Taghreed M. (No Date) FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY: WHAT IS THIS? Available at: https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ssemme/file67903.pdf (Accessed: 16 October 2015)
Horwitz, Elaine K., Horwitz, Michael B., and Cope, J (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. Available at: http://www.studyabroad.purdue.edu/Resource/InterculturalLearning/ForeignLanguageAnxietyScale.pdf (Accessed: 16 October 2015)
I am Katie Doyle, in the University of Dundee studying for an MA (Hons) in Education.
I have always wanted to go into teaching, as far back as I remember. Back then it was because I saw teachers everyday and admired them as role models and wanted to be a role model for children myself when I grew up. In recent years, however, I have worked with children and been able to reflect on the experiences which shaped my plans up until I began the course.
In my journey to teaching, I spent two years as a peer mentor for the Ripple Project, a community hub in Edinburgh. I found the whole experience very challenging, while I was there and dealing with the kids, but it was also difficult to deal with on a personal level. I found it hard interacting with the children, knowing their backgrounds and details of their personal lives. One child in particular who was ‘my’ child, was dealing with problems which I genuinely thought only happened in ‘Tracy Beaker’. It made me reflect upon my own experience growing up and how different my childhood was to hers. I had never experienced any real difficulties at all: my parents are still happily together; I’ve never wanted for anything, money, clothes, food etc; and I have never experienced violence or conflict in my home. Her life is so different to mine, and that makes me sad, but it also makes me determined. Determined to take full advantage of every opportunity offered to me, to study for the career I really want, and determined to use that career to make a real difference to the children that I work with.
Throughout my primary years, I found school very difficult. Often, I simply could not keep up with the rest of the class academically. I was always in the ‘Extra Spelling’ or ‘Extra Maths’ class, and was always in the bottom set of these classes. For me, this used to be very demoralising. I have considered my experiences more recently, and my goal in teaching is to look into helping struggling individuals similar to myself, as I know what a horrible feeling it is to struggle in school like that, something I would very much like to prevent future generations of children from experiencing in school.
I went through the private school system and I had both access to and the benefit of academic tutoring throughout my school career. While I am very grateful for these opportunities, I do not think that my parents’ financial situation should have dictated whether or not I had access to academic resources and private tutoring. I believe that all children should be able to access a high quality education, and my ultimate goal is to leave this course qualified to provide just that.
Having completed 1PP1, I have seen education from a different side, that of a teacher as opposed to that of a pupil, and it has given me an appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into being a teacher. I spend the whole time exhausted, eating at odd times and getting an average of 5 hours sleep, and all that was on my mind was the class I was working with. I was obviously doing significantly less work than that of a full teacher, which shows me just how much they do! The amount of work that they do is incredible! I also had the benefit of working with a very good teacher, who was very willing to put in a lot of time with me and also allowed me a lot of freedom within the class which made me very motivated and gave me the chance to really use my own skills, and I am very grateful to her for such an experience.
Children should know that their thoughts and feelings are valued by adults, and that they can think and speak for themselves without worrying about being wrong or of anyone making fun of them. Education should be for developing self confidence and self worth in order that children feel comfortable with themselves whilst in the school environment.
The aim of school should be to produce well rounded individuals who have a creative and critical way of thinking. I believe that high quality teaching is the most effective way to achieve this. From the 1PP1 placement, I found that as long as children are interested in the lesson, then they are learning, so we should all be making sure that what we teach is interesting to the children we work with.
Education should always be inclusive of all learners. If somebody is making an effort to turn up to school, then they deserve to be included fully in the education system. Saying this, if children are not, or do not want to make the effort to come to school, then we should look to the education system and see what may have disillusioned the learner and look to make changes as opposed to blaming the learner. I believe that school should promote a disciplined approach to education. I do not think it is a massively important point to make, of course teachers should be aware of behaviour management techniques, but they should not be a main focus.
Schooling should offer as many subjects and experiences as possible. The aim of education, in my opinion, is to produce well rounded individuals. I think that the best way to do this is to give them knowledge and experiences. They should study the basics in order to understand the more exciting specific subjects, ie. should be able to read so that they are not focusing on the reading but engage with what they are actually reading. In my opinion, the Curriculum for Excellence does this really well, the idea of one topic spanning several curriculum areas is a really positive one. I think that all children can benefit from such a system.
Teachers were some of the best role models for me throughout school, I always admired them for the way they seemed to know everything. Despite this, I remember one occasion while I was in high school when somebody asked the biology teacher a question and he answered it, but the next lesson he told us that he had given us an incorrect answer and that he had asked another teacher and found out the correct answer. I remember this as, I can imagine, being a teacher it must be difficult to admit to not knowing an answer, and certainly to come back having made an effort to find out the correct answer was admirable to me. This particular teacher, to me, was an example of a teacher who is willing to go the extra mile and therefore was a role model to me.
School should offer the opportunity to achieve academically, but for me there should be more to it than just passing through a system and come out the other end with a certificate of exam results. Of course children should learn some academic skills, they should have developed language and mathematics skills, and plenty experience of RME, Social Subjects, Technologies, Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing and Science. They should be able to experience so much more from their time in school: experience success, critical thinking skills, creativity and social skills. They should be directed, but be given enough space to develop in their own way and at their own pace.
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