Monthly Archives: November 2015

Developing Professional Skills and Abilities: Online Unit 3

Words/phrases relating to professionalism:

Competent
Knowledgeable
Calm
Skilled
Respectable
Punctual
Motivating
Encouraging
Enthusiastic
Constructive criticism
Passionate
Collaborative working
Going above and beyond

I chose to watch One Born Every Minute and believe that the midwives displayed all the characteristics I associate with a professional. I believe that the midwives displayed a great deal of commitment and dedication which was seen when encouraging the ladies through their labour regardless of their situation. There were no situations within the programme that I thought the midwives acted unprofessionally, they done everything in their power to ensure the best start to life for every individual child.

This level of professionalism offered by the midwives made a lasting impression on all the families, I believe. For years to come the mothers especially will remember how motivating and encouraging the midwives were and without their help it would have been a very difficult situation.

I believe that it is important for the midwives to wear the uniform that they do as they all look the same and can easily be recognised. By wearing the uniform also the midwives also have a sense of authority. Also, the colour blue, that the midwives wear, is known to be calming which I think is important for the mothers to be in their situations.

If designing the midwifery degree I would arrange the following;

Attending lectures – 10%
Background reading about relevant subjects – 10%
Practical skills based training such as role play- 30%
Work based learning- 20%
Other (Placement0 – 30%
What have you learned from the programme that you can apply to your own professional development?

From watching One Born Every Minute I have learnt that within the professions of teaching and midwifery that no two day are the same. Our professions are dynamic and we must have the level of enthusiasm and commitment to the profession to be able to adapt to all the different situations we will find ourselves in.

From looking back at my UCAS Personal Statement my opinion on the personal values that we as student teachers must posses has not changed. I believe that it is fundamental for teachers to display professional values as we are the role models that children will observe and mimic. I believe that it is important to have the personal value of considering everyone as an individual and that everyone’s situations are different. I also believe that it is important to sympathise with children by showing a great deal of empathy and not to judge the children within our care. I chose teaching as throughout school I noticed the lack of passion displayed by the teachers, and wanted to change this for the better. Teaching to me is one of the most challenging, dynamic, yet rewarding professions. I am eager to get into the classroom and observing children flourish as individuals of the future.

To me, to commit to this course a professional commitment must be made. To support myself on the course, I have decided that I will spend more time in the library and make use of the resources available to me. I have also committed myself to engage in all the relevant reading to continue my self development.

Born but not wanted…

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From various inputs I’ve realised that the topic of the ‘Romanian Orphans’ was brought to our attention several times. I decided to have a look into the topic as I’d never heard of before and reflect on what I found out.

The term ‘Romanian Orphans’ raised due to Nicolae Ceaușescu forbidding both abortion and contraception all increasing birth rates. Many children along with people who were mentally ill or disabled were dumped in orphanages. These vulnerable groups of people were subject to abuse and neglect including; physical abuse, sexual abuse and controlling their behaviour through the use of drugs.

The orphanages also lacked washing facilities and medicine. The conditions of the orphanages declined again in 1982 when Ceaușescu decided to use all of Romania’s economic wealth to pay off foreign debt. However, many of the children within the orphanages were recollected by parents at the ages of 12,13,14 – when they were old enough to help their family earn a living.

Within the orphanages, there were often 10 people crammed into a room with 2 sharing a mattress, which were often rotten, lying in their own waste. Many children looked much younger than they were due to malnutrition and suspected, undiagnosed condition.

In the adult rooms there could be up to 160 adults found up to the age of 80. Those that were disabled were often found in isolated parts of the orphanages with no protection against the cold as their clothes were often thin with several holes. Many of the orphans never experienced the basic human right of sanitation and many of the investigators reported a stench of rotting flesh and gangrene.

Over the years, many orphans lived for very few months, years in these conditions contributing to the exceedingly high death rates. Those who did eventually escape the orphanages had to learn to deal with the altered brain structure, brain damage and disabilities they had developed through living in such poor conditions.

Little Minds

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We know that everything we learn contributes to our memory. However what many are unaware of is the different types of memory. For example, there are many types of long term memory including;

Episodic – specific things – personal experience- where/when it happened
Semantic – all world knowledge
Procedural – knowing how to do something – riding a bike/driving a car
Mix of all these e.g- a trip to the market

Also, automaticity is a very important aspect in increasing efficiency of processing information. Automaticity is achieved through practice and reduces the ST memory capacity. A classroom example includes, reading – children will often not be able to tell you what they’re reading (without automaticity).

Other factors that influence the development of knowledge include;

Knowledge – increases as a function of age
Strategies – rehearsal – repetition in various forms, organisation allows information to be stored more easily, elaboration – making links to aid memory

There are many different aspects to our minds and especially the way in which we memorise things.

Metamemory development refers to the monitoring, regulations and awareness of the memory’s contents. There are two parts – Awareness of how memory works (what’s easier/harder to recall) and memory monitoring (what strategies to use).

Metacognition – refers to the knowledge and understanding of our own thinking process. It is the knowledge of what one knows and how one learns. As children grow up they become more aware of their own abilities and are better able to assess when a strategy will be effective.

False memory – Refers to they way children, usually young, reconstruct a memory falsely due to not tracking information as they encode it.

Phineas Gage became a key interest of psychologists’ work after his personality changed after his brain’s left frontal lobe was mainly destroyed after and accident at work in which a large iron rod pierced completely through his head.

This started a worldwide focus into the theory of mind. The theory of mind refers to the ability to take perspectives of others and understand their mental state i.e – beliefs and desires.

The theory of mind develops across the world at roughly the same age regardless of cultural influences. However, children below 4 years old are unable to reflect on the mental state of themselves and others and their beliefs – This can be seen in the Deceptive box test. The development of the theory of mind can provide children with new realm of information on which they can draw from.
It has been discovered that children develop this theory between the ages of 3&5 then at the ages of between 6 and 8 children develop the send stage in which the theory of mind allows other skills to develop including the understanding of jokes, sarcasm or bullying.

At what age a child develops this theory of mind depends on various environmental factors including;

The number of older siblings
The likelihood children are exposed to adult and peer interactions and communication on a daily basis.
Extended family

The failure to develop the theory of mind has been linked with the autistic spectrum disorder. The lack of theory of mind produces many impairments affecting many aspects of a child’s life including; social relationships, communications and a lack of imagination. However, autism is not a product of the failure to understand the mind.

What are they thinking?

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Everything that we do comes down to our brain and the way we think. It has been at the heart of psychologist’s fascinations for years.

Ivan Pavlov was the first psychologist to focus upon behaviourism through his ‘Classic Conditioning Test’ His conclusions were that we can change the natural reflex of human and animals. Furthering Pavlov’s findings, B.F.Skinner concluded that all behaviours are learnt through experiences, operant conditioning, through his experiments in the Skinner Box.

Behaviourism can be monitored through the use of reinforcement, especially in the classroom. We, as teachers can use a number of techniques to increase behaviour for example;

Presenting a positive stimulus (positive reinforcement) e.g- hugs,praise, rewards of some kind from homework
The removal of an aversive stimulus (negative reinforcement) e.g- buying a toddler a treat in the supermarket to stop their whining

Furthermore, there can also be techniques used to decrease behaviour which can be used as part of behaviour management in a classroom. Including;

An aversive stimulus is presented (Positive punishment) e.g – getting burned from touching a hot iron
Isolation fro a reinforcer (Time – out) e.g- asking a child to stand outside the classroom to cool down
The removal of a valued item (Response cost) e.g- TV/gaming/ ‘grounding’

However, there are many implications of these behavioural techniques. For example, If a child is isolated and sent out with the class, this can make the child feel like a ‘big man’ and they can repeat the actions for attention. These behaviour strategies also only dal with the behaviours and not the cores (doesn’t take into account of cognition)- why is it happening? is there any issues as to why the child is acting out? and also some children may start to manipulate the system and only behave until they receive a reward then act out.

However, Albert Bandura developed the Socio – Cognitive Theory and suggested that we learn from: environmental factors such as role models, instruction and feedback and also personal factors such as goals, sense of efficiency, attributes and process of self regulation.

In the 20th century, there was a very teacher led approach to education and children were seen as passive learners. Jean Piaget was a Swiss biologist who believed that children are not in fact mini adults but instead pass through 4 stages of development;

Sensorimotor (0-2 years) – interaction with environment
Pre-opertional ( 2-7 years) – representation of world symbolically
Concrete Operational (7-12 years) – learning of rules – observation
Formal Operational (12+ years) – focussing on the future – adolescent

Piaget also rejected any sense of authority and believed children develop more through peer interact. Of course, this proposed many implications within the classroom including; we must only teach children what they are ready to learn and treat every child individually and differently.

Within the 20th century, Lev Vygotsky also undertook experiments into the way a child mentally develops through thinking. Like Piaget, Vygotsky concluded that children acquire the tools of learning through social interactions. It is these interactions which build an ‘inner speech’ which then becomes thinking.

Neo-Piagetians explain Piaget’s stage theory in terms of information processing – so capacity and efficiency of processing. They have concluded that adults do have more capacity and efficiency and all that you sense you won’t necessarily perceive.