Monthly Archives: February 2017

The Holmes- Rahe Stress Inventory

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The Holmes Rahe test was a table, ‘The Social Readjustment Rating Scale’, with a number of life events marked with a certain score. By reading through these and marking down the score of each of these life events that have happened to you in the previous year it will tell you what your score meant. After completing this test and only receiving 65 points this told me that within the last year I have had,”a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown”.

I feel like this test was directed more at individuals in a marriage, with children or older than me. The majority of the life events included things such as marriage, children, moving house, taking out a mortgage or divorce. All of which I have not experienced yet. Therefore, I feel like this was an inaccurate representation of my stress levels. Other life events such as examinations, studying, managing time efficiently, having a part time job while studying were all not considered. All of which I feel are relevant to my life, or the life of a student.

Stress affects individuals in a number of ways as some people may become stressed much easier than others. It is a very personal thing and every one has their own reasons behind why they are stressed. I feel like balancing my time is the most difficult and therefore most stressful thing for me. As I am a student, have university, studying and a part time job while also trying to fit in time to socialise with friends and family. It can sometimes get too much and I feel that I sometimes put my job before my studying when it should be the other way around. This can therefore affect the relationships that I have with my family and friends as all of my time is spent either at University, studying or being at work. Whereas, it is essential to find that balance in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle and manage stress.

Therefore, these are the reasons why I feel The Holmes stress inventory was an inaccurate representation of stress levels. Not only because they did not directly affect my life but because stress is an individual thing and many reasons behind stress may not have been named on the scale.

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Creating Animation using iStop Motion

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Last week in digital technologies, we were given the task to create an animation to highlight the importance of internet safety to young children.  We were given the choice between iMovie and iStop Motion to create these animations. The iStop Motion app involves taking a series of pictures and placing the sequence of pictures together at a high speed  to create a movie. The iMovie app also allows you to make movies by combining multiple clips, inserting pictures, applying a soundtrack and using other effects. For our animation, we used the iStop Motion app. The experiences and outcomes for our animation were as follows:

Mental and Emotional Wellbeing: HWB 0-01a- I am aware of and able to express my feelings and am developing the ability to talk about them.

Listening and Talking: LIT 0-01c- I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts and sharing my thoughts in different ways.

Technological Developments in Society: TCH 1-01a- By exploring and using technologies in the wider world, I can consider the ways in which they can help.

Our animation was based on a fairytale. We thought by taking this approach children would be more engaged and pay more attention to it. Our animation highlighted the dangers of talking to strangers online. The example that we used was a Princess that thought she was talking to her ‘Prince Charming’, however, it turned out to be a dragon that resulted in her being taken and never seen again. Although this is a very unrealistic example, it gets across the fact that not everyone that you speak to online is who they say they are. It is also a better approach to take when promoting internet safety to young children as real- life examples may scare them.

“Digital storytelling begins with the notion that in the not too distant future, sharing one’s story through the multiple mediums of digital imagery, text, voice, sound, music, video and animation will be the principle hobby of the world’s people.” Porter, B., (2004) Digi Tales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories. This tells us that animation making will soon become an enjoyable activity throughout the world. Therefore, it is an important skill that young people should have as it could also be used for educational purposes and raising awareness on issues, as we did in our internet safety animation. For these reasons, digital story telling should be introduced in more schools and classrooms across the world.

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Importance of Internet Safety: Maintaining a Professional Career

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Maintaining a Professional Reputation Online:

Almost everyone in today’s society will manage a social networking account such as Facebook or Twitter, including teachers, in order to keep in touch with friends and family. However there are a number of precautions that must be taken in to consideration. For example, the friends you have, status updated, the photos you share and the comments you choose to make, if any, on certain individuals such as colleagues.

A recent TES survey found that 9% of teachers are friends with their pupils on social networking sites. It is not a good idea to accept any pupils or parents friend requests as it could damage your reputation as a teacher. If you accept these requests you are unveiling your personal life and information to your pupils, there may be photos that you are tagged in or status updates that could potentially leave yourself open to allegations of inappropriate contact or conduct.

It is vital that you are in control of who can and can not access your social network accounts and what you post online. Including photos, comments and any personal information. In order to protect your professional reputation, you need to be aware of the language you use, even if your account is private. Although it may seem clear, however, it has known to be done in the past, you should never post derogatory comments about your pupils or colleagues. Teachers are not only expected to uphold their own reputation online. They are also expected to maintain the reputation of the school as a whole, both within and outwith their work, in order for the public’s trust in their profession.

Other people’s posts may also have negative affects on you such as the photos that you are tagged in. It is recommended that if you are tagged in any inappropriate photos or photos that could potentially affect your profession, that you ‘untag’ yourself immediately. It is even a good idea to change your name online so that pupils, parents or employers are unable to access your personal sites.

The Argyll and Bute Social Media Policy sets clear guidelines for Argyll and Bute council employees to follow when using social media. After reading up on this and the Argyll and Bute Social Media Policy, I have become aware on the impact that social network sites can have on your profession. I will definitely make sure there is nothing online that could potentially be harmful to my career by taking the necessary steps.

Inclusion and Equality

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What is incusion and why is it important? Inclusion embraces policies and practices that support diversity, giving a voice to certain individuals, groups and communities that have been traditionally marginalised. Inclusion applies to people that have been discriminated against for a variety of reasons. For example, their gender, sexual orientation, background, age and many more.

There are three levels of inclusion in which inclusion has different concerns (Nelson and Prilleltensky 2010): the individual level, relational level and the societal level. At the individual level, inclusion is concerned with giving people control over their own lives and having a say. At the relational level, inclusion looks to provide people with supportive relationships and welcoming communities. At the societal level, inclusion is concerned with the promotion of equality and providing people with the material help that they require.

Inclusion is also important within education. Lani Florian- Bell chair of Education at the University of Edinburgh researched inclusive pedagogy. Her first research question being “What teaching strategies help to increase the participation and achievement of all children, including those identified as having special educational needs or requiring additional support for learning?”. Florian found that for teachers to be more inclusive, they must focus on the learning of all pupils in their class and not only on those that may need additional support. I agree with Florian’s findings as the teacher will spend more time with those that need additional support within the class. Therefore, leaving the ‘more able’ pupils with a feeling that they are not included or that the teacher has not challenged them to their full potential. I found Lani Florian’s research really interesting and it enthused me to look out for this and make sure that within the classroom I am including the whole class and taking in to consideration each pupils learning.

In relation to inclusion is equality. To promote equality is to promote sameness and to provide people with the same opportunities. There are different approaches to equality. The equality of opportunity approach is based on the desire to provide people with a fair starting point in life. This approach appears to be based on the assumption that the solution to problems of inequality are to be found mainly at the level of the individual. Therefore if we can give individuals more and better opportunities, inequality will no longer be a major concern. The equality of outcome approach highlights the fact that there is a need for more than the same opportunities. Focusing on rewards and praise it states that the outcome and rewards will be the same. However, the equality as fairness and equality of condition approaches are more realistic and involve the enabling of individuals so that they can be as equal as possible in relation to the central conditions of their lives.

The Equality Act 2010 specifies nine characteristics as protected against discrimination. The act focuses on eliminating discrimination and advance equality of opportunity for all.

From learning about this topic, it has highlighted to me that as a teacher equality and inclusion are vital within the classroom. When I go on placement I will ensure that I am aware of both of these aspects.

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3D Objects, 2D Shapes and Fractions

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In our mathematics tutorials last week we looked at 3D objects & 2D shapes and fractions. Within the 3D objects and 2D shapes tutorial we were given physical shapes and told to sort them in to groups while having the mentality that we know nothing about them. Therefore, the shapes could be sorted by colour, size, 2D and 3D or whatever way came to your head first. This allowed us to see the different ways in which the shapes could be sorted and perhaps the ways in which your pupils might sort them if you carried out this activity in the classroom. I think this would be a great activity for pupils when they are first introduced to shapes as it allows them to explore the shapes and investigate them on their own. We then looked at the shapes in more depth, identifying the faces, edges and vertices of them.  We looked at a variety of shapes such as a polyhedron, prism, regular polyhedron, pyramid and many more. Although I had previously learned this when I was in primary school, this tutorial was very useful and refreshed my memory as there were some things that I had already forgotten. To end the tutorial, we were asked to make our own 3D shapes, using plasticine and straws. I  thought that this was an excellent exercise to use with pupils as they can make their own shape and then identify its properties, such as the number of faces or edges it has or simply being able to identify and name the shape that they had made.

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In the second tutorial, we focused on fractions. Fractions are a common struggle amongst learners of all stages. We explored ways that could be used to make learning fractions easier for children. We discovered that using physical objects that the children can half an quarter is a great practical activity. Relating fractions to real life objects such as a pizza for example, it may be easier for children to understand. A counting stick is also very useful to develop positional aspect of a number. The use of a fraction wall also gives children a better understanding of fractions. To end the tutorial, we were given a puzzle to do in small groups. The puzzle was lots of little triangles and on each side of the triangle it had either a problem or an answer. The aim was to match all the problems to the correct answer in order to make one big shape. It was very challenging but a great exercise. Below are some pictures of  what it looked like before and after.

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Religion, Culture and Unchurched Spirituality

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In this weeks lecture, I learned about unchurched spirituality, religion and culture and how they influenced each other. Unchurched spirituality is simply spirituality outside the churches and beliefs not necessarily associated with organised religion. Although there are many debates over the true meanings of the terms “religion” and “spirituality”, I learned that spirituality is understood as having a more expansive meaning than religion. We were also introduced to three theorists, Max Weber, Karl Marx and Bruce Lincoln.

In the tutorials we discussed these theorists in further detail. Max Weber was a German philosopher, he argued that one religion, Christianity (Protestantism), contributed to formation and success of socio- economic issues in the Western world such as capitalism. According to Weber, Protestantism enabled the ideological atmosphere in which capitalism could thrive in Europe. Weber called this this idea the “Protestant Ethic”. In Weber’s eyes, religion was an agent of social change.

Karl Marx was also a German philosopher who developed the theory of international communism and was critical of religion. His ideas later developed into a political philosophy called Marxism and its followers being Marxists. He argued that religion gave false consciousness in people and that it is an unnecessary part of today’s society. He believed that God is “man made”, a human creation, therefore, religion was not necessary to him.

Bruce Lincoln agrees with Karl Marx to an extent. He believes that people should believe that religious claims and ideas are there, however not to accept them all. After reading in to these theorists, it has shown me that each of their views and ideas towards religion are slightly different. However, they all agree that religion has greatly impacted culture.

Overall, I found both the lecture and tutorial really interesting. After being brought up and attending both Catholic primary and secondary schools, this weeks lecture and tutorial group opened more area for thought upon religion. I find it a really interesting topic and I intend to do further reading on the topic of unchurched spirituality and the ways in which religion affects culture.