3.4 Prof. Reflection & Commitment | Megan McComiskie's ePortfolio

During semester 1 an important aspect of my professional development stemmed from the working together module. At school I always liked to do individual, written tasks instead of group, practical tasks. The reason for this was not because I did not like working with others or because I was not good at it; it was because I believed that I learned more sitting and doing a reading or written task on my own. I liked the ‘boring’ way of learning as it is often put at school but that is what worked for me.

Considering this, the working together module filled me with a slight anxiety that I do not like to admit. However; I enjoyed working as an active member of my group during this module and my feedback from my peers was all positive in all aspects of being an active participant. I do believe that the presentation we had to create would have been quicker to do by yourself as meeting 10 other people with different schedules was exceedingly difficult. This I realised was not the point of the task. While the task was exploring the theory behind professions working together, the whole presentation was to give you a sense of what it is like to work with other individuals in a professional context.

When you take it out of the university setting and apply it to our professions in practice, the importance of communicating with social workers and community learning development workers is essential for young people’s well-being. The reason for this is because there are things that as a teacher we are not aware of and this may be impacting on a child in a school setting. To gather the information we need to support a young person we need to be able to communicate effectively with the other professions who are involved in that child’s lives. I realise that this is not something that you can do alone because as teachers we do not know most of what will be happening outside of school.

Reflecting on this, there are many aspects of my career where it will be better for me and my pupils’ for me to have worked with other colleagues or professionals. Bringing it into the context of just working with colleagues in the same school; planning can be done collaboratively. For example, if you are teaching in a big school with several teachers per year stage, it is often more beneficial to plan together as it is several ideas and opinions not just one and all children in that year group will be experiencing the same learning opportunities. It also may allow teachers to play to their strengths as you may be a specialist in music and the other class teacher PE, so you can work it so you take their class for your specialism and they take your class for theirs. This is just one example but there are many. If your class has a teaching assistance, it is extremely important to work effectively with them. This should be in terms of involving them in planning and also communicating effectively so that they are clear about what they have to do as well as having an open communication system where they feedback about pupils.

Considering all of this I recognise that my preference to work on my own was okay when I was at school and that while I participated in working with others I always knew I preferred individual task. This however, is different in a professional context. My view on working with others has changed as I would rather now work with others as that is how I am going to develop as a professional. By working alongside my peers to discuss what we are learning about as well as working closely with placement mentors and other professionals. I will learn from others and that is what I believe will assist me in my professional development.

Doctor Suzanne Zeedyk and John Carnochan both discussed how important the first three years of a child’s life are. Prior to our health and well-being input and watching both of the assigned videos I was not aware of how much a child’s environment at this age can influence how their brain develops. It was made clear by both speakers the importance of the early years stages of learning. We heard them speak about various examples of how the environments we present to children influence the way that there brain works and therefore the way that children act or behave. One example which was touched on by both individuals was that if a child is being brought up in a stressful environment; one where there is maybe a great deal of conflict, their brain then adapts to help them cope with that particular environment. Doctor Zeedyk makes the interesting connection that if the child is having to worry about the stress of a threatening environment; they are not worrying and exploring the wider environment as they are too busy monitoring threat. John Carnochan expands on this by saying that if children are used to coping in threatening situations they may struggle to assess risk. This may affect them when they go into the school environment as they may close off and view various different aspects of the school a threat whether that is peers, teachers or anyone else. Young people who are experiencing a threatening environment; may see conflict as a way to approach situations as that is what they have had to cope with. This matters a great deal to myself as a future teacher as each day children may come into school having dealt with a variety of different things on that day as well as what they have experienced from their early years. As a teacher you have to take into consideration that what your class have experienced and the way they think and view things may vary greatly across the entire class. This will affect the way I manage and organise my classroom as well as the way I teach lessons depending on which children I am teaching. This is why it is important for me to get to know the children in my class so that a relationship can be developed where the young person trusts me.

Through all of this, the videos are trying to communicate the importance of relationships. John Carnochan makes the statement that we are all human and therefore have the ability to establish and maintain relationships. This shows the importance of human interaction and relationships as children grow up. Young people may be quiet and try isolate themselves; maybe due to a threatening environment or maybe because they just have a shy personality. Other children may be extremely keen to talk to other children and make friends. It is important that as they go through the early years stages that they learn negotiation; this will be done through learning to share toys. It is important children learn to communicate with one another and with other adults. These are essential at this young age to progress through their education as well as into adult life as we all have such a variety of relationships as we progress through life. As a practitioner; it is important to encourage children to talk and discuss tasks therefore throughout my lessons I will incorporate time for discussion. This will not only encourage communication but also help in their ability to problem solve as often talking to others allows solutions to be found.

In our health and well-being input something stood out to me as being important to be aware of. This was that children will make friendships in different ways throughout their primary school journey. Children in the early stages of school will make friends based on what they like and what they want to play with. It was then discussed that as children reach the age of seven they are usually established into same sex friendship groups. Lastly, as children start to go through the transition from P7 to high school they may then find different friendships groups as they meet new people. As a teacher it is important to be aware that as young people change and develop so will their relationships. The example used from the input was that when children reach the age of 6 or 7 friendship starts to mean something and they will have a loyalty to the people they have built up relationships with.

Professional Development

The Importance of Relationships