Category Archives: 3. Prof. Skills & Abilities

The Last Week!

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The last six weeks have gone by so quickly that I cannot believe is it over! When I started my placement six weeks ago I thought this placement would take a very different path than what it has. The start of my placement was very hectic as I thought that I was going to be completing my placement at The Brae Riding For The Disabled. However, after developing an allergy to something there this had to change. This left my placement very up in the air and left me worried for my future. Starting at PAMIS was very scary as I had not had time to prepare for this placement and I did not know where it would go and what my role within the organisation would be. When I started at PAMIS I had a lot of information given to me as well as the little research I had had time to do. As well as this, I was quickly thrown into life at PAMIS. This was scary and overwhelming but also very educational as it forced me to learn as I went. This was incredibly helpful as I will not have time to prepare for every incident in my future career and at university.

This week has been very hectic as I have had to make sure that everything that I have been working on is completed and handed over to the people that need it. I attended a meeting about K’s transition at the primary school. She had had her first visit up to the high school in the morning. This meeting was with the head teacher of the primary school, two members of staff from the high school, the child’s mother; the visual impairment principal teacher plus two other people that work along with K. This meeting had been requested by K’s mum as she felt that having every professional around the table overwhelming. To overcome this, they had broken the meeting down into smaller groups to create smaller but more meetings. The next meeting was going to with only the health professionals. During our interagency module, we learned that when parents go to these big meetings with several professionals, it can be very daunting. The fact that the primary school had recognised this and made changes to try and overcome the family’s feelings is excellent. This is something that I know that I will take into my future practice if I ever happen to be at or run one of these meetings. Helping families not feel as scared and nervous about this kind of meeting is vital to the success of the meetings so if breaking the professionals down into groups help those feeling lessen then it is a fantastic thing to do.

My main goal I had set myself in the placement was to work with disabled children as I had no experience of working with disabled children. This placement has not only allowed me to meet this goal but it has also allowed me to learn about what families with disabled children go through; the challenges that people with disabilities go through to be able to go about simple everyday tasks like getting on a bus and going to the toilet; and the way that children with disabilities are treated in schools. Learning all about the life of children and adults with profound and multiple disabilities has been fascinating. This placement has taught me a lot about myself as well as several transferable skills that I can take into my future professional practice.

During this placement, I have not had anyone watching over me all the time to make sure that I have completed certain tasks. At the beginning, I was told that I would be helping with K’s transition and what needed to be done for this. After this time, it was my responsibility to have these done when they needed to be done. At PAMIS I had to learn to work autonomously as everyone else had lots to do. I was given different tasks throughout my time and different tasks arose as I attended meetings and spoke to the family and other professionals. Being able to have the time to read about the different campaigns that PAMIS are involved in as well as the research behind the multi-sensory stories and different communication methods has been very interesting and educational. This time has been important as it has meant that I know the research and information behind the projects and campaigns which has given me an insight. At PAMIS I have also had to manage my own time. PAMIS were very flexible about where I could spend my time. If I needed to organise meetings then I was the one to contact the person and arrange when it would be best to do this. It also meant that if I needed to go to the library or go to the shops to buy the sensory items then I could do this. Since, it was always me contacting and arranging the meetings that I was attending it helped to build my confidence when I was at the meetings. Previously, if I have attended meetings I have not felt confident to speak up as I was only there shadowing. However, at this placement that was not the case. Most of the meetings that I attended were only myself, Max and the people/person that we were meeting. This meant that I could not hide behind someone else and I had to speak up and share my own ideas. I was also not viewed as a student during my time at PAMIS. I was always viewed as a professional and asked for my opinion in every meeting that I attended. I know that I will carry this confidence on when I return to university and in my future placements. This relates to several of the Standards of Provisional Registration but mostly to do with professional commitment.

I have learned several new skills during this placement that I will carry on to my future practice as well as my time as a student. I do not think that I could have learned these new skills or developed other skills anywhere else. I plan to continue my relationship with PAMIS and volunteer there when I can.

IncludED In The Main?!

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Tomorrow I am going to a meeting at the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. There will be three different speakers at this meeting and one of them will be ENABLE Scotland talking about their IncludED In The Main?! Campaign. I have just read the report from this and some of the facts and figures that they have discovered are really surprising to me.

ENABLE have looked at the bullying of disabled children in mainstream schools and how these people feel now that they are out of school. ENABLE have said that placing disabled children into mainstream school is not always the best for the child as it can equate to bullying. They have published a report that has twenty-two steps for the journey to inclusion. These steps include recommendations that suggest it may not always be best for disabled children to attend mainstream schools. They have several reasons (which they call their steps) for this. One of the most important (in my opinion) recommendations that they have is to embed lessons on learning difficulties into the curriculum. Many disabled children feel lonely at school with 62.5% saying that other people do not understand them. ENABLE have developed resources for teaching these lessons and they will be available in schools this year. Teachers will be also be getting training to help deliver these lessons. Hopefully, once these resources are introduced into schools they will help children to understand different learning disabilities and help to reduce disabled children’s feelings of loneliness and being misunderstood.

Another of the recommendations that ENABLE have in this report is that teacher training does not adequately prepare teachers to teach children with different learning disabilities. However, they also go on to say that teacher training cannot prepare teachers to be able to teach every child’s disability for each different learning disabilities as every child is different. This means that there needs to be continued professional development throughout a teacher’s career where they can receive training to different disabilities as well as have specific staff to help the child. ENABLE found that 30% of education professionals felt that there were not enough specific CPD for teaching young people who have learning difficulties. ENABLE also think the Named Person will help to support families of the children and the children with learning difficulties. The Named Person will make sure that families have the correct information, support and access to the right help. To develop this point further, another of ENABLE’s recommendations is for the Scottish Government to commission training courses on several areas including learning disabilities and Positive Behaviour Support. The main issue for providing this support is also not enough additional support staff and classroom assistants. Nearly 71% of educational workforce felt that there was a shortage in support assistants and that more were needed. I think if there were more support assistants then teachers and schools would be able to support all children with learning disabilities.

These are just a few of the twenty-two recommendations that ENABLE have said are the steps to inclusion for children with learning disabilities. I think that these recommendations show what needs to be done to help children with learning disabilities to feel like they are no difference to any other child. I am looking forward to discovering what is said on this topic at the meeting tomorrow.

References

ENABLE Scotland, (2016). IncludED In The Main?!. [online] North Lanarkshire: ENABLE Scotland. Available at: http://www.enable.org.uk/includedinthemain/Documents/IncludED%20in%20the%20Main%20-%2022%20Steps%20on%20the%20Journey%20to%20Inclusion.pdf [Accessed 27 Mar. 2017].

 

Logistics and Supply Chain

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Richard’s last input with us was all about logistics and supply chain. Is there any maths behind these two things? Well yes of course there is! Logistics and supply chain is the managing of planning, implementing and controlling the process of the shipment of goods. This includes how far the food had travelled to how the food is travelling.

 

Food miles

Food miles is vitally important when it comes to our food. How far has your food travelled before it gets to your plate? Food miles is the distance all of your food has travelled before it gets to your plate. That includes every single ingredient. So has your chicken came from 40 miles down the road or has it been flown over from New Zealand? Are your vegetables from your local farm or Europe? These things are all important. Food miles includes every mile that your food has travelled, from producer to the supermarket and then to the consumer. However, other factors can come into play. For example, Saunders, Barber and Sorenson (2006) did a study that compared how much energy it took to produce lamb in the UK and New Zealand. She found that New Zealand were using less energy to produce their meat then the UK. This included the energy used to get the lamb to the UK as well. But why is this important? This is important because of climate change. Climate change is a massive thing worldwide with big companies wanting to do what they can to decrease their carbon footprint. If importing lamb from New Zealand is actually better for the planet than producing it here than is what supermarkets are going to buy. This shows that food miles are not as important to supermarkets anymore as they are concentrating more on their carbon footprint.

Food miles are important to a lot of consumers though as many people like to buy locally produced food. This will be a challenge for supermarkets as they will need to work out what products are better to get from local producers and when it is best to import them. What will the consumer buy? This is the role of Demand Planners.

Teaching children about food miles is important. If a child knows where their food is coming from then that might help them with knowing the right things to eat. This emphasises the fundamental understanding of mathematics as it shows connectedness between mathematics and health and wellbeing. Profound understand of mathematics’ concept of basic ideas can also be shown when looking at food miles. Children can learn about distances – miles, kilometres, metres and centimetres using the context of where their food comes from.

 

Shipping

When shipping products many different factors have to be considered – mass, distribution of this mass (the truck or ship needs to be evenly packed), size, temperature requirements, distance travelled and time taken to travel this time (shelf life of the products), and shape and volume. All of these things need to be taken into consideration when products are moved about. Food tends to be moved in shipping containers. The creation of these shipping containers has changed international shipping. These containers can be filled with different food products. Each different container can be a different temperature so that the food inside can stay at its best as it travels. This solves the problem of food going off while in transport because of the temperature it is stored at. Shipping containers also solve the problem or shape and volume. Shipping containers are all the same size and shape which means that they fit together and can be pilled high on the back of a boat. Since they can be stacked together with no space that means that companies are not shipping air and the boats can be evenly packed to distribute the mass evenly.

Who knew that so many mathematical concepts are needed to import and export food! This relates to the PUFM basic concepts. Children need to learn about the basic idea of volume, shape, weight, size, temperature and distance. These are all basic concepts that underlie primary school mathematics. Yet, here they are in a real life setting. This, again, shows me how much math is needed in the real world. The fact that there is so many mathematical ideas in something that seems simple has left me shocked.

 

References

Saunders, C., Barber, A. and Sorenson, L.-C. (2006) Food miles, carbon Footprinting and their potential impact on trade 1 food miles, carbon Footprinting and their potential impact on trade. Available at: https://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10182/4317/food_miles.pdf (Accessed: 21 November 2016).

Math is linked to Music!?! What!!

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Every input in this module I realise how much math is laced through nearly everything we do. I did not realise how much math interlinked with so many other curricular areas.

“The astronomer Galileo Galilei observed in 1623 that the entire universe ‘is written in the language of mathematics’, and indeed it is remarkable the extent to which science and society are governed by mathematical ideas” (Rosenthal, 2005). This shows how mathematics has been known to run through several different areas for hundreds of years.

 

Music has always been hugely important to be. I have always sung or been sung too. When you are learning to read music and play an instrument math is not something that you think you are doing anything with. But in fact you are! Apart from the obvious mathematic part of music like how long notes are held for; how many beats are in a bar or how to pitch a piece of music or a song. There are many ways in which maths runs through music in ways you would never realise.

Patterns are an important and huge part of maths as I have already spoken about (see Maths is Pretty!). They are a huge area in which math can be used in the real world. However, math and music can also be linked through patterns. Many different musical pieces are made up of different patterns of notes. These do not tend to be called patterns though as musicians tend to call them motifs, melodies or sometimes rhythmic patterns. Pieces of music consist of these patterns.

Maths also comes into music when you look at octaves. An octave consists of eight notes. Notes are an octave apart when they are the same named note but played in a different frequency. A note played an octave higher is played at double the frequency while a note played an octave lower is half the frequency than the middle note. For example, High C and Middle C are an octave apart but when played together they sound great. This is the same for all notes. Several famous songs play notes together that are an octave apart – the initial “I’m singing” of “Singing in the Rain”; the first two notes of “Somewhere over the rainbow”; and the first two notes of the third line of “Happy Birthday”. (Rosenthal, 2005) This is a perfect example of how these pairs of notes go together.

The Pentatonic scale is made up of five notes. If you are playing a piano these five notes are your black keys. Every piece of music will have these five notes in it somewhere. It is suggested that we are genetically programmed with these five notes just as we are language (Goodall, 2008). These five notes are innate within us. Several famous songs use the pentatonic scale including, “Mull of Kintyre”, “Auld Lang Syne”, “Swing Low” and lots of rock songs use the pentatonic scale in their guitar riffs including “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppella. If you are using the oentatonic scale to write a song you are not just stuck with these five notes but they can be used to develop from.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates how this scale is genetically within humans.

He does not tell the audience what is the next note to play but they are able to sing the next note in the scale.

The Pentatonic scale is the perfect notes to give children as they will always sound good together no matter what order they are played in. Is that how these five notes become programmed into us? By music teachers who want children to create a nice sounding piece of music, who knows! 

Fibonacci Sequence

The Fibonacci sequence (mentioned in a previous post, Maths and Art) can be seen throughout musical sequences as well. Including all notes in an octave there are thirteen. In a scale there are eight notes, the fifth and the third notes make up the basic foundation for the chords. On a piano keyboard scale there are thirteen keys, eight white and five black, these notes are then split into groups of two and three. All of these numbers are from the Fibonacci sequence.

The Golden Ratio and Phi can be seen in music instruments as well. Violins are designed using the golden ratio.

violin-phi

 

References

K. (2012) Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the Pentatonic scale. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Irii5pt2qE (Accessed: 13 November 2016).

Rosenthal, J. (2005) The magical mathematics of music. Available at: https://plus.maths.org/content/magical-mathematics-music (Accessed: 13 November 2016).

ScoobyTrue (2008) Howard Goodall on Pentatonic music. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpvfSOP2slk (Accessed: 13 November 2016).

(No Date) Available at: http://www.goldennumber.net/music/ (Accessed: 13 November 2016).

Math is Pretty!!

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Even though I have always loved math I did not realise how pretty maths could be. Symmetry is what we use to make this ‘pretty maths’. This symmetry is the most significant area of math the makes a connection between science, art and maths. Symmetrical patterns can be used in several different areas. Artists use symmetry to create patterns and use maths to help create these patterns. By using simple fractions and a computer software symmetry can be used to create amazing intricate patterns that artists put on anything from canvases to items of day-to-day use.

Islamic tiling is a unique way the symmetry is used to create fascinating patterns and designs. Islamic art is created by using extravagant geometric decoration expressed by using texture, pattern. colour and calligraphy. These patterns are not just used for a decorative purpose they are used to represent a spiritual version of the world – “Unity of God”. These Islamic tilings are always created of three simple shapes – the square, the hexagon and the equilateral triangle.

15565322-mod-le-traditionnel-maroc-banque-dimages This is an example of Islamic Tiling,

This kind of pattern is called tessellation and is a great way to show children how math can be fun. Using Islamic Tiling, pattern and symmetry can be taught through a series of lessons starting with showing the children examples of Islamic tiling, showing them how they can be created on the computer and the history and meaning behind these works of art. After the children have learned about the history they can move on to create their own designs. This is showing the children how math and art are linked and how math is not always about numbers.  This lets the class have fun with this new area of math and lets them try and use simple shapes to create intricate designs. Tessellation can also be shown to children through looking at buildings and all over the world. Tasks can be set as homework for the children to find tessellation around their city. A programme could also be downloaded on the computer and this can be used with real life pictures to create patterns

The concepts in this post relates to Liping Ma’s principle of connectedness as whilst the children are learning how to make symmetrical patterns and how to use simple shapes in these patterns, they are also learning how to fit these patterns together in tessellation. This means that the children are learning more than one area of knowledge and not just the topic of tessellations. This allows children to see how all of their learning is connected.

References

Liping (2010) Knowing and teaching elementary mathematics: Teachers’ understanding of fundamental mathematics in china and the United States. 2nd edn. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Emergent Reading in Real Life!

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I witnessed some fantastic emergent reading this weekend. I bought a book for my three-year-old little sister. She sat down with the book straight away and started “reading” the book. She began to say sentences and “read” describing the pictures that were on the pages of the book that she had been given. Obviously, since my sister has just turned three in the last few months she cannot read. However, she showed how she would read if she could. She was holding the book correctly and following the words with her finger as if she was reading it.

When I sat down with her to read it she was desperate to tell me what the words said and how that was different to what I was saying. This was my first time seeing the signs of emergent reading developing in a child. It was incredibly interesting to me and it It showed me what I had to look for when I am working in the early years in children.

Enquiring Practitioner

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Practitioner Enquiry is defined as a professional whom is constantly doing research to better their understanding and knowledge of their profession. The research is based on your practice and it is beneficial to reflect on the research you have done previously to better you as a teacher. It can be done by the professional on their own or in a group. If it is a group then they collaboratively share a common research question that can be investigated in different ways.

Practitioner enquiry should be an aspect of a normal day-today life of a teacher and should be done consistently throughout a teacher’s career. This supports the growth of a teacher within their career and helps to create different ways of working. You do not just train to be a teacher and then you are qualified, your learning continues, being a teacher is a continuing journey. Being an enquiring practitioner is about moving beyond your usual way of teaching and discovering other ways to teach and help the children learn.

The most successful education systems invest in developing their teachers and helping them reflect and enquire on their practice. Benefits of practitioner enquiry can include encouraging teachers to challenge and transform education; provide a way for teachers to reflect and develop from their own teaching and to discover new strategies for teaching. Practitioner enquiry also supports teachers and helps them gain a better understanding and show how the concept of teachers is constantly changing.

 

Working Together Visit

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As part of our Working Together module we get to go out on a visit to different agencies to see how they work together across different disciplines. We had been preparing for this visit for a few weeks and had prepared questions to ask when we were there.

My group visited Baldragon Academy in Dundee where we spent the morning with their Pupil Support Department. They had two pupil support workers or as they were referred to from the children “The Toast Ladies”. Both workers came from different disciplinary backgrounds, one was social work trained and had worked in social work for several years prior to joining the school twelve years ago while the other came from a Community, Learning and Development background and also joined the school twelve years ago. They also both agreed that their job was the most rewarding job they had eve done. They both agreed that their disciplinary did not matter within the school and they just worked to help the pupils the best as they could. They were happy to be known as the “Toast Ladies” and even joked about going to university for four years just to end up making toast.

They are known as the toast ladies because they make toast during break every morning for as many pupils as 200 pupils every day. This is because where the school is located is the fourth highest deprived areas in Britain. They fund this entirely themselves and rely on bread being reduced at the end of the day in supermarkets and donations from teaching staff and their families. The women also run nurture clubs that focus on the most nurture deprived pupils in the school and they give them breakfast as well as a little task to help them focus on the day ahead.

I found this visit highly fascinating and could have stayed all day if I had the choice. The way the women worked with the pupils to help them the best they can was amazing to see and showed the support that pupils have within the school. It was also very obvious how trusted they were by the pupils and were even brought gifts from the pupil’s holidays.

Another highly interesting aspect of the visit was how the pupil support workers work with other people within the school as well as outside agencies. They had a CLD worker who came in every week and worked with the children and took little groups. They also worked closely with the teaching staff, the guidance team (so much so they said they felt part of the guidance team) the school nurse and the senior management staff within the school. Outside the school they work with KIKO and Fairbridge who support the pupils and give them different areas to work within. They also work with primary school teachers and primary sevens in the move up to secondary school, giving some pupils that extra support they need. The staff within the school constantly pop into the “Toast Room” to speak to the workers or sometimes to just grab a slice of toast. They also spoke about how the senior management team are very supportive and if they pitch an activity or idea well them they will most likely let them do it.

On follow up we spoke to some of the agencies and people within the school. All of them reported a great working relationship with the pupil support workers that had next to no barriers to working together. They also have regular meetings with everyone they work with which include monthly meeting with the guidance team within the school; three monthly meetings with all CLD workers across the city and regular board meeting which include the school nurse, CLD workers and people from outside agencies.

 

Professionalism

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U58EFAwnKpw

What makes a teacher who makes a difference?

I think a teacher that makes a difference is someone who will go above and beyond for their pupils. The teachers in this video are teachers that make a difference as they take it upon themselves to better their teaching styles so that they are the best teachers that they can be. They do this all in their own time as well as hold groups so that they can discuss  different teaching styles. This means that everyone receives the best education that they could because of these amazing teachers. If these teachers had not taken this time, then their pupils would not be getting the best education they could which could harm what they go on to do in the future.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ychgs3rrdA&feature=related

Do you agree with what these teachers call professionalism?

I agree with every point that these teachers make about professionalism. Professionalism is the way you talk and your attitude towards the pupils. It is also about how the pupils see you and how approachable they find you. Pupils should find their teacher to be someone they can go to with they have any problems as well as someone they can look up to. There are also different levels of professionalism. You do not use the same level of professionalism with the pupils as you would with the parents. Communication is also extremely important skill for teachers to have which is mentioned in this video.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDf2oLt96O8&feature=related

What is the message here?

The message in this video is who values teachers as professionals? There are two very different talkers in this video.

The first is Chris Christie and he talk about how teachers should be highly valued and should be carried up high within society. He also talks about how teachers should be given what they deserve in pay as they carry our children through the educational system.

The second talker in this video is Karen Lewis. She talks about teachers being “education workers”. I think this view is a very negative view towards teachers and she makes teaching look like it is not that important a career. I think this is funny as Karen is a teacher herself so this shows how she has a negative view of her own profession

Overall, this video shows how different people look upon teaching as a profession. It shows how Chris who is obviously not a teacher thinks teachers should be valued highly within society, and Karen who is a teacher but sees her profession in a negative light and she does not think she is a professional.

How does gender affect childhood?

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I do not remember gender affecting me as a child. I was and still am quite a girly girl and had lots of dolls and Barbie’s. However, I would not say that I was pushed towards certain gender areas with toys or clothing. I played football and other sports with the boys in my neighbourhood and I had a little cabin in the garden that my dad built for me.
My primary school did not have anything that the boys did, but that girls didn’t. We all played sports together in P.E. and had mixed teams for sports day. I thought this was normal but when speaking about this topic with my peers and friends I discovered that every school was different. I was extremely surprised to discover that different primary schools, even ones in the same city as me, were separated for P.E. and sports day. In these sports days they would have ‘boy’s races’ and ‘girl’s races’. I also found out that not only were they separated by gender but they were also separated by age for these races. At my primary school we had mixed sex teams with a couple of people from each primary year.
The difference between all of these primary schools has really surprised me and shown me that whilst I maybe did not have a gender divide at all in my childhood, quite a lot of people did.