3.4 Prof. Reflection & Commitment

Reflection

Reflecting upon our work is important in order to allow us to pick up on the things we have done well on as well as highlighting the areas we may need to work on. Taking the time to look back over past work we have done will help us to progress as learners as it will show us our strengths and weaknesses. It is beneficial for us to try and learn from our mistakes in order for us to improve and therefore not replicate these errors in further work we do. As teachers it is crucial for us to always endeavour work to the best of our ability in order to set a standard for the children we are teaching. Although we must accept that not everything we do is going to be flawless and 100% correct; we must always strive to perfect any glitches we come across in our work so that the information we are providing is accurate and the example we are setting is one we are proud of. It must be remembered that we going to be the main source of information to these children and so buy providing them with false facts or an improper way of doing things we are letting them down.

However, making sure we take the positive aspects of our work into consideration is also vital for our progress too. By also taking your strong points into consideration this helps your confidence in your work grow; giving you assurance that you are on the right track and have the ability to produce work of the same quality again. The reassurance of knowing that they are on the right track may be what some people need who lack confidence in order to prevent them from holding back from producing work in the future. Therefore, I believe that reflection is vital in allowing our work to mature as it allows us to identify where we thrive and struggle. Where some people struggle to point out their strengths and weaknesses this is where comments from peers come in handy. Sometimes having an outsiders prospective on your work allows you to evaluate your work more clearly and so gives you a better outline on where you may need to improve or even strengths that you can continue to build on.

What does it mean to be an enquiring practitioner?

I believe an enquiring practitioner to be someone who is always keen to seek the answer of something which has a logical explanation and can be defined. They would always go out to find the solution which has the most solid evidence.

What does this imply for us as a student teacher?

It is important for us to be enquiring practitioners as student teachers due to this helping us to ensure that we striving to always give our students the correct facts. By ensuring that the information we are supplying to our children is backed up we then guarantee that they are receiving genuine materials. When children come to school there is an expectation that they will leave with a bounty of palpable knowledge that they can build on through life. We, as teachers, would be letting the children down if the information we taught them wasn’t based on fact; hadn’t been researched or couldn’t be proved. It is highly important we supply them with an assortment of knowledge to make sure that they have a diverse insight into many areas of the curriculum. I believe by providing the young people with as much of a rounded understanding as possible this will help discourage ignorance due to them gaining a knowledge of things they may never have come into contact with or be aware of in their normal environment.