Monthly Archives: January 2017

Reflection

I feel the module I gained a vast amount of knowledge from last semester was the working together module. This is particularly due to the focus that was paced upon working within a partnership and building relationships with those people you need to work with. This was a useful insight for me as it allowed me to experience what it would be like within a working environment and the difficulties that you can face as a professional. Before entering onto this course I had some experience of reflection in practice from college where I had to reflect on lessons and activities that I had planned. I learned the importance of reflective practice though my time doing the HNC as it was vital for responsive planning and understanding the children’s needs. I am excited to begin placement and further my knowledge of reflective practice.

Relationships

The main issue in both the Suzanne Zeedyke and John Carnochan videos is that the early stages of brain development within babies is crucial and the main thing that can promote or hinder the development is the child’s environment and their interactions with other humans. The connected baby was very focused on the biological effects of different environments for children and how they create different chemical pathways within the brain from pre-birth to three. She explained how a child from a domestic violence background could have a high level of stress hormone within the brain which could restrict the level of concentration they have and limit their development. This is important to understand within our profession as we are teachers we would need to understand that not all children will come into the classroom with the same levels of ability. In addition, they will all have very different life experiences which may mean that some children react differently in situations than others and as teachers we would need to find ways to benefit each child’s capacity to focus and learn. There was also mention that the brain continues to develop until the age of 20, therefore as teachers we have the ability to still make a change within an individual’s life by being a positive role model within their life. The John Carnochan video explained the need for focus to switch to early years as changes in early years could be early intervention for some children which he believes could change their pathway in life. He believed that interactions as a baby could mean the difference between important social and physical skills being developed within a child. This is important to think about in practice as it shows the interactions with the children within any particular setting and forming positive relationships with these children could make a change within their lives.

Dance workshop

My own experience of dance is very limited. A years’ experience of dance class, Scottish country dancing throughout high school and dancing to the radio in the kitchen is as far as it goes. Before the dance input I was apprehensive as I only ever dance in front of family and close friends purely to make them giggle. However, the thought of dancing and making a fool out of myself in front of people I barely knew was not something I welcomed with open arms. Leaving the dance session, I still felt a little embarrassed but a lot less apprehensive over teaching dance within the primary setting as I learned that to teach dance you didn’t need to be a professional but instead have the ability to facilitate the children to be able to enjoy dance. The challenges I feel I may face when teaching dance would be to be able to push myself out of my comfort zone of my kitchen to actually joining in with the children and experiencing the lesson with them. This I feel would display to the children that there is nothing to be embarrassed about during a dance lesson. In addition, I feel getting the older children within a setting to get involved with dance would be difficult as from my own experience of being apprehensive within those lessons that it could be difficult to get children who feel the same as I do/did to be able to give as much as they can to the class to get out a lot from the sessions. I feel a way to work round this would be having quick fire warm ups to get the children into the swing of things and to feel less self-conscious before beginning the main bulk of the lesson. My professional goal for the next four years in particular is to be less self-aware when participating in these kinds of workshops or even when delivering them to a class.