Category Archives: 3.1 Teaching & Learning

Revitalising Reflection

Following Derek’s lecture upon our ePortfios, we were asked to review and reflect upon the posts of our peers, and how they structure and present their posts.

For me this was a very enlightening task as I have previously struggled to engage with my own portfolio, for the simple fact that I forget to post when I complete tasks. I was able to see the effort my peers had placed on structuring and presenting their chosen topic ideas in a way that has whole-heartedly motivated me to do the same.

While reading through posts, I noticed that a few things were clearly different between mine and my peers posts. The most engaging posts for me contained; catchy titles, pictures and videos but the most prominent difference between my work and the work of others was the length of posts and the amount of time they have spent crafting each post.

For me, I took this as a kind of wake up call to work on my portfolio more in, order to compete with some of my peers. Following on from this is, and Richard Holmes lectures, I have created myself a SMART target in order to improve the quality of my ePortfolio. in essence I hope these targets I have created for myself will improve quality and heighten my engagement. They are:

S – to write a minimum of two blog posts per week

M – post at least two per week

A – use blackboard posts to help follow up on TDT’s

R – link each post to my development as a professional/teacher

T – weekly evaluation if I have achieved it.

Overall I feel these targets will help me improve my portfolio, and ultimately help me become the professional I wish to be. The benefits of this will undoubtedly help me become a reflective practitioner, something which the SPR guidelines state as a must.

 

 

 

 

 

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.