Monthly Archives: October 2015

Being an enquiring practitioner

As stated on the GTC Scotland website, being an enquiring practitioner is becoming a foremost important aspect in becoming a successful practitioner. A professional enquiry is an investigation with a rationale that can be explained or defended, this information is then shared amongst likeminded colleagues to enhance knowledge creation. Professional enquiry’s help professionals gain multiple viewpoints upon topics, methods and theories to ensure single-mindedness is decreased. This approach is vital in the teaching and learning world as it gives practitioners a wider span of knowledge to draw on in situations and allows for a collaborative community of practitioners that are acting as a team, not simply individuals. However professional enquiry’s may cause less confident members of a group to feel overshadowed and cast out, therefore it is vital to take every persons views on board and ensure everybody voices their opinion. Professional enquiry’s will help me as a student teacher as I will be able to draw on others ideas and incorporate them into my own methods and rationales. They will also give me motivation to work, due to my competitive nature, making me want to be at or above the stage of my peers.

Urban child institute

Following my input upon the physical child I wished to gain more knowledge upon the subject and simply Google searched “the physical child”; here I stumbles across an insightful website that explains child development within the first five years. The website is supported by numerous studies and facts and is displayed in an easy to read format. The urban child institute is an organization situated in Memphis that are dedicated to improving issues of children through addressing the importance of the first three years of life.  Below is a link to a publication on the site that I found interesting.

http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/resources/publications/good-start/social-and-emotional-development?gclid=CLiUupn20MgCFQq3GwodRrUMww

Managing My Learning

 

Activity 1

Complete the table below to identify and reflect on those factors and plan actions for each.

Recognition/ Reflection Action
What helps my learning? How can I utilise this?
Discussing the topic with others
  • Set up a study group of like-minded peers
  • Engage with the online community
 Using colours for key words in notes
  •  Rewrite notes in spare time to ensure they are clear
  • Make posters etc. and place around my room to subconsciously engage with Education
 Getting alternative perspectives
  •  Set up a study group
  • Listen and note ideas of others to then consider and/or criticize
 Visual representations of topics
  •  Search the internet for visual representations of subjects, such as YouTube
  • create my own pictorial notes of topics
 Rereading
  •  Read relevant books/chapters more than once in order to reinforce knowledge
 Sport
  •  Engage with sporting activities such as the gym and football to release positive hormones and endorphins.
 Planning
  •  Create a timetable for myself of lectures, tutorials, study time, and sport time to ensure good time management.

 

 

Recognition/Reflection Action
What hinders my learning? How can I address this factor?
I’m easily distracted
  • Study in a place where distractions are minimal
  • Read lecture notes before the lecture and then take notes lectures to keep me focused
 Motivation
  •  Engage with sport to increase positive hormones thus giving me more motivation
  • Set personal goals, and rewards for achieving those goals
 Social functions
  •  Be sure to only engage with social functions after due work is complete
  • Use social functions as a reward for completing work
 Independence
  •  Create a day to day plan of activities to ensure I do all tasks needed throughout the day without getting distracted
 Illness
  •  Join the GP
 Sport
  •  Do not participate in sport if deadlines are not met or if sufficient work has not been completed
 The internet
  •  set limits on how much internet I use for pleasure purposes such as Netflix to ensure work is completed
 

 

OMA

Just completed my first  Online Maths Assessment, with a personal goal of over 60%, to which I happily exceeded reaching 75%. The assessment was useful as it highlighted areas in which I need to focus on such as; identifying data types, and number sequences. I hope to surpass my 75% next time by ensuring I revise the topics in which I struggled. I aim to do a second test next month and follow a routine of testing and revising monthly using the OMA.