Category Archives: 3.4 Prof. Reflection & Commitment

Inspiration from other professionals

After watching an episode of One Born Every Minute on BoB, I feel like I have a better understanding of what it means to be a professional. Although a career as a teacher is vastly different from a midwife, it is still vitally important to act in a professional manner in every aspect of the career.

Throughout the programme, the midwives who worked in the ward, acted in a professional manner by making their patients feel comfortable throughout a very distressing time and talked them through the process, with a calm and comforting demeanor.

It was important for them to ‘let their hair down’ during their break times by chatting to each other and dancing and generally having fun. This, however did not influence their roles on the ward at all as they still acted professional at all times with their patients.

The midwives in the hospital all had uniforms that they had to wear, mostly for cleanliness but also so that they are all equal. This is very different from a teacher’s dress code, as teachers will wear their own clothes, but must remember to be professional and dress accordingly.

I think, as midwives, the best way to learn would be work based learning and practical skills such as role play as every birth could be vastly different and they never know what to expect until they actually have to deal with the situation, which I think is something extremely challenging and in my opinion, something that would terrify me.

From the programme, I have learned that professionalism really is something that is vitally important in my career and without it, I don’t think my job could be done properly and the children in my classroom would not get the best education possible. I feel that over the course of my degree, I will gain a deeper understanding of what professionalism really is and how to pursue these skills in order to be the best professional I can be.

Reflection of peer review

Receiving feedback is a good way to reflect on the work I have already done, and to decide where the strengths and weaknesses are. Receiving good feedback is motivating as it can highlight exactly where your strengths are and is definitely a positive experience. Receiving criticism is also very helpful as it shows where you need to improve and makes you think about how to do this. I liked receiving feedback from my peers as it was nice to see that we had similar opinions and wrote our thoughts in similar ways. Giving a peer review gives me confidence as it allows me to see what other people have been doing and it gives me some ideas that I maybe wouldn’t have thought of before.

I think peer review is a great way to see how I am doing, and is definitely something that I will use in future studies, as the amount of coursework increases as I will be able to review my work with my peers and allow me to see how I am doing.

I feel that peer review is a really good method to use in the classroom with children, and is an activity I will definitely use as a student teacher, and then a teacher. Methods such as ‘Two stars and a wish” is a great way to get children to review their peer’s work and gives them confidence in the work that they have carried out and also a criticism which will allow them to improve something the next time.

Reflecting on Professionalism

After watching the Youtube videos, I began to reflect on what it really means to be a professional in education. In the first video, there were many similarities between teachers and doctors and how being professional is so important in both of these fields of work. In the video, the teachers involved also spoke about what it means to be an exceptional teacher. some of these were; team work, enthusiastic, dedicated and those who keep up their own professional development. i very much agree with all of these attributes and believe that these are vital in order to pursue a career in teaching.

In the video, there was a very inspirational woman who went above and beyond what was expected of her in her role of a teacher. She set up support groups for fellow teachers in order to develop each others’ skills and to inform one another of their own teaching methods in order to continue their own personal development. I think this is something that all teachers and student teachers should be involved in, in order to learn from one another and find the best methods that work for them and how to get the best of their teaching career.

In the second video, many teachers spoke about their thoughts on professionalism which was very interesting to hear different points of view. One of the teachers thought there is now more focus on professionalism of teachers in society as many are now benchmarked and are ‘ranked’ on how well their pupils are doing. This can provide some stress for teachers if they feel like they are constantly being compared to others, instead of working together with other colleagues.

Another teacher spoke about how important it is to be a role model, which is something I agree with entirely. Speaking and acting professionally in the classroom, and having attitudes that are appropriate will influence children in a positive way and will hopefully encourage children to model their behaviour around what you have been displaying.