October | 2018 | Amy Geddes' ePortfolio

Timeline of the next year.

Important dates and deadlines.

Every Friday: History Elective Journal due.

This may become more hard work when other assignments begin to pile in and need done around the one time.

Monday 3^rd December: Values essay due.

This will be an extremely busy time of year as we will have to balance both this essay and our group assignment for Working together with others from out with our professions.

Monday 10^th December: Working together group presentation.

This will be busy as we will have to allocate time to working together out with our University time in order to produce a respectable end products for the best mark. This will also be a challenge as it is occurring around about the same time as our Values essay is due. Our own individual poster for this module will also be due around this time.

Tuesday 29^th January: Pre Placement visit day.

Lots of preparation and planning will need to be put into this day in order for it to run smoothly and for you to be as prepared as you possibly can be to make a good impression.

25^th February – 8^th March: Observation Weeks of Placement.

This will be extremely busy as there will be a lot of comprehending the notes you have taken in order to prepare and plan for the next stage of your placement – the teaching.

Mid April – Mid May: 4 weeks of professional teaching. This will be our busiest time in our first year as we will need to plan and prepare lessons most nights whilst maintaining a social life and getting to know the pupils in our class well enough to form good relationships, deliver good lessons and pass placement.

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?
Example: “Discussing the topic with others”	· Set up a study group of like-minded peers · Engage with the online community
Looking over resources after class.	· Organise my resources to make them easily accessible.
Turning my written notes into more visual aids eg. mind maps, posters.	· Makes notes more engaging and the use of colours makes notes more attractive – making them less boring to read.

Recognition/Reflection		Action
What hinders my learning?	How can I address this factor?
Example: “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
Only focusing on things that I find interesting rather than things I perhaps need to work on.	· Make a list of things that need improvement and work my way through – encouraging myself to do the things I may usually avoid.
Spending too much time working collaboratively and getting used to relying on other people’s opinions.	· Find an ideal balance between working together to support learning and working independently to achieve an end goal.
Getting too caught up in making an abundance of notes which might not all be relevant – hindering my learning more.	· Work on summarising my notes and condensing them down into smaller, more refined notes that are still detailed in helping my learning.

Last Tuesday involved an extremely thought provoking lecture on racism and patriarchy. Sadly we live in a society where despite there being positive changes to these issues, they are still extremely prevalent. Therefore, in my role as a future primary teacher, these issues will sadly still need to be addressed within the classroom. I hope that by the time I graduate it will be taught as a negative part of history that is far behind us now rather than a current affair.

Throughout my secondary school experience, I thoroughly enjoyed history and a mighty part of my Higher course was the Civil Rights Movement (which obviously heavily focused on racism.) I always “enjoyed” this subject as it is one which makes you think about how harsh they had it and how brave they were to put up a fight for their own rights; something which in my opinion should not have been essential to fight for. Key figures in this time period include Emmett Till and Rosa Parks and this lecture focused closely on the story of Emmett Till. Emmett Till’s story was one I focused on largely at school and is one that every time I hear about it, it resonates with me further. Perhaps it was because of the severity of his lynching, his bravery to stand up for his own rights at a young age but maybe it was his age. Especially now I’ve heard his story once again, as an education student this time rather than a school pupil, I feel a greater deal of sadness. To think I will in the future, be teaching people of just a few years younger and that there would have been teachers in this time experiencing deaths like these regularly saddens me and frightens me. Not only that but to think in a career like my future one would have seen such young, innocent children having to sacrifice so much for a sound quality of life. This should never have ever been a thing.

Moving away from the idea of racism (which hopefully our society today can also do, sooner rather than later) the second half of the lecture focused on patriarchy.

This idea focuses on the idea that women are still not fully equal to men, even in the 21st century and never have been. Women in the early 1900’s had to little to no rights and huge part of British history was the women’s suffrage movement. This resulted in women receiving the vote which luckily we still have today – indicating that society has not taken a step back in time in this case. However, in some ways in society today women still aren’t fully equal. Unfortunately the gender pay gap is still apparent in today’s society. Women are still more likely to enter lower paid work and/or work less hours due to childcare commitments and even in the public eye, the BBC have been proven to pay women much less than the men they employ. This then highlights that society maybe hasn’t come as far as we had originally thought.

In order to conclude, I believe that in my role as a future teacher it is essential we continue to teach how to banish differences like these and celebrate diversity to leave an equal, fair society.