1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment, edushare

What it means to be an enquiring practitioner

October 27, 2015 Amy Lorimer 4 Comments

An enquiring practitioner is one that finds out or investigates in order to enhance their own practice. It is important to be reflective and evaluate your own practice to further ideas and experiences. I feel that it is important to be an enquiring practitioner as it is beneficial to further your knowledge both independently and by working collaboratively as part of a team.

Practitioner enquiry is beneficial to teachers as it encourages teachers to transform education and the way they teach which i feel is very important as teachers should make their teaching their own and make their classes fun and interesting. Also, being an enquiring practitioner allows teachers to expand their knowledge and also helps them to monitor and develop their practice.

Being an enquiring practitioner should lead to transformative learning and should allow you to critically think about their own values, assumptions and educational beliefs, which may change regularly depending on who you work with collaboratively, as opinions may be influenced.

3. Prof. Skills & Abilities, edushare

The importance of active learning

October 26, 2015 Amy Lorimer Leave a comment

Active learning is an important part of university studies and can have a positive impact when studying for exams and assessments. Rather than passively listening in a lecture, a key part of learning is to make notes, and then review these. Reviewing notes after each lecture is a good way of taking in the information that you have learned and helps to consolidate learning and, in turn, increasing knowledge of the subject.

Personally, I enjoy active learning and feel that regularly reviewing notes helps me to have a deeper understanding of what I am studying. Regular reviewing of notes ensures that nearer assessment time, there is no need for cramming, and will therefore be a less stressful learning experience.

I also feel that co-operative working is helpful when studying as it allows everyone to share ideas and perhaps pick up information that they may not have found themselves. Everyone has their key strengths so everyone will have something to bring to the table. However, I feel that co-operative working can also be distracting sometimes, as the conversations can often go off-topic and lead to procrastination.

1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment, edushare, My educational philosophy

5 virtues of teaching

October 21, 2015 Amy Lorimer Leave a comment

I believe that I am a very compassionate individual and feel that it is important to be caring and sympathetic towards those who need it. I am lucky enough to have always helped in schools where the children have come from good upbringings, but unfortunately I know that in placements or in future workplaces, there may be many children who are not so lucky, and I feel that as a professional, it will be my role to make sure all children feel valued and safe in their environment by showing some compassion and care to them.

I feel that as a professional, it is crucial to have respect for others. Respecting others’ beliefs and opinions is important in creating positive relationships and makes others feel valued in their surroundings. Building a mutual respect is something, which I believe to be very important, and enforcing this in the classroom allows children to feel safe and secure in their learning environment.

It is important to have tolerance as a professional, as there will often be times when others’ views and values differ from your own, however it is important to show respect even if you do not agree. Tolerance is something that, as teachers, we should be telling our pupils about in order for them to grow up with a respectful attitude and tolerance of others.

Fairness, of course, is essential in the classroom as all children should be treated equally. No child should feel left out or unwanted as this can seriously affect their learning and development throughout school. Being fair allows for a secure learning environment as all children will feel equal and will not think of themselves as any less than any of their peers. It is important as a teacher to have ground rules for the classroom in order so that everyone knows how to conform.

Displaying integrity is equally important as a professional, and in personal life. It is important to be honest and open with others, as this creates a respectful relationship but also allows everyone’s opinions to be heard. It is important to be professional when others have different thoughts that perhaps not everyone agrees with.

1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment, 2.2 Education Systems & Prof. Responsibilities, edushare

Personal and professional presence on social media

October 19, 2015 Amy Lorimer Leave a comment

What challenges do teachers face when attempting to marry the personal versus professional presence on social media?

On social media, teachers may face challenges of coming across their pupils on popular sites. In this instance, teachers should ensure that their accounts are private so that no child/parent could access any of their personal details. On social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, where many people give their opinion on current events, that they are professional and do not post anything that is inappropriate.

In my opinion, I would create separate accounts for professional and personal purposes in order to keep my personal life private and also to engage with issues that would relate to my professional life.

The GTCS has specific guidelines for social media and how to behave appropriately on social media. It is important to stick to these guidelines in order to be professional and to keep safe online.

How are the challenges/opportunities afforded by social media framed? How will you frame things – positive or deficit viewpoint?

Many of the older generation have a negative viewpoint of social media and believe that social media should not be involved in the classroom, as it may be distracting. In my classroom, I will use social media in a positive and fun way to create a variety of interesting lessons. It is important to educate children on the dangers they may face when using social media and show them how to keep themselves safe by using sites such as NSPCC and Share Aware.

2.2 Education Systems & Prof. Responsibilities, edushare

RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms

October 12, 2015 Amy Lorimer Leave a comment

I found this clip really interesting and really made me think about education in today’s society.

Sir Ken Robinson spoke about how our education system is still working the way it did in the past. It was designed for a different age and was conceived in the industrial revolution. He spoke about how there has always been the idea that there are academic and non academic people/ smart and non smart people, and that people who are non academic do not have the same self confidence to achieve. I agree with this as there are many people who have excellent skills in sport or the arts who can achieve so much with the skills they have, but may not receive the same encouragement from staff in school.

Robinson then goes on to speak about the rise of ADHD amongst children. Children are being given powerful drugs to keep them from being distracted.

“Getting children through education by anaesthetising them”

We live in a society where technology is all around us, and constantly holds our attention, yet children are getting told off for getting distracted from school work, which some may not be interested in. Robinson says that the rise in standardised testing has also seen the rise in ADHD.

Another point I found interesting was that schools are organised in the same way as factories. There are seperate facilities for boys and girls, a bell rings to signify different times and the children are put through school in “batches”. Children go through school based on their age group and not by academic ability. Why do we do this if some children are more academically gifted than others?

Contemporary issues

How did gender affect me when I was a child?

September 25, 2015 Amy Lorimer Leave a comment

In primary school, gender affected me mostly in the playground due to the divide between boys and girls when playing games. There were football pitches painted onto the concrete, which were to be used by the boys who wanted to play football. For the girls, there was a dance zone and skipping ropes for girls. These zones weren’t specifically for boys or girls, but all the boys played football, which meant girls, felt isolated if they wanted to use the football pitches because boys dominated the area.

At sports events, teams were separated into boys and girls to make it ‘fairer’ even though some girls may have been more athletic than the boys in the opposing team.

Other than sports/games, gender didn’t really affect me much in terms of academic ability as everyone was treated relatively fairly in the classroom and by school staff.

edushare, My educational philosophy

What made me choose teaching?

September 15, 2015 Amy Lorimer 2 Comments

I didn’t have to think too much, when everyone at school was deciding what they wanted to do as their careers. This is because I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in primary teaching since I was in primary school. I had such great admiration for all my teachers at school; it seemed that they taught us things that none of us had ever heard of before and filled our young minds with new and exciting information. I feel that in primary school, the bond between a teacher and a pupil is so much greater than that of a secondary school teacher, mostly because they spend so much more time together and work with each other, all day, every day. This creates a nice atmosphere in the classroom amongst pupils. I hope that when i become a teacher, I can build positive relationships with all children, so that they feel that they can trust me.

In secondary school, I finished a week of work experience at a primary school and absolutely loved it. I was amazed at how committed and hard-working the staff were, and that they were always there before I arrived and didn’t leave until after I did – a very long day, I thought. I admired the different techniques that teachers used to teach and control the class, if they were being noisy or excited. I learned so much from observing the class, and learned that children will pay most of their attention to a new person in the room; meaning that I never had a moment alone!

In the last few years, I’ve used a lot of my free time to go into primary schools to help in classes and gain more confidence and knowledge, when working in an educational setting. This really confirmed my decision of what I wanted to do as a career, as I felt that it was so rewarding to see the children in my classes develop and expand their knowledge, all thanks to the help and support from staff at the school.

I really look forward to continuing through the course, and for going out into placement to experience different school environments and work with new people!