Monthly Archives: October 2015

Feedback

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I personally feel that the process of giving feedback is one of great importance. It not only gives the individual receiving the feedback help, advice and praise but it also helps the person giving the feedback. By thinking deeply and commenting on what someone else has done it encourages you to think in more detail about your own writing and also helps you to reflect more on your previous work and notice errors for improvement through looking at other people’s opinions, feelings and work on the same, or similar, topics.

Receiving feedback on your own work can be both good and bad. Feedback allows another perspective on your work, rather than just your own, and may highlight things which you did not previously notice or think about. Receiving and acting on feedback can really aid development and encourage you to re-evaluate your thoughts, feelings and opinions and can also improve a piece of writing, if the feedback is delivered constructively. Sometimes feedback can be quite harmful. If a person is in a foul mood whilst giving feedback they may take the anger out on the person they are evaluating and deliver some destructive or unthoughtful and harmful feedback which could really knock a person’s confidence as they will most likely be unaware of how the person was feeling whilst writing their feedback. It is extremely important to leave personal issues behind and forget about them whilst constructing feedback for an individual. If you have a general dislike or do not get on with the person you are feeding back to, you must be willing to push these issues to the side whilst creating their feedback as they may cause you to create unfair and unhelpful comments on the individual’s work, which, again, may severely knock their confidence.

My personal experiences of receiving feedback have been good, for as much as I can remember, whether it was receiving feedback from a teacher, a tutor, a peer, or anyone else, I have always been able to appreciate and think about their feedback and then put these comments to good use when re-drafting my work, or even just starting a new piece on a completely different topic as some comments can be transferred between different pieces of work.

In my future I will have to use feedback a lot, for example when marking the pupils work, and I will also receive a lot of feedback aswell, e.g. when I am being assessed on placement or handing in assignments. My recent studies, reading and reflecting on feedback have taught me to be careful with how I phrase my feedback and also when I construct this feedback because, if I do not take these factors into consideration, I could unintentionally really upset or dishearten individuals. This work on feedback has also taught me to act on the feedback I have been given as it is there to help me and could really aid my performance in certain areas of the course.

What it means to be an Enquiring Practitioner

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An enquiring practitioner is a professional who continually makes the effort to research and learn about their specific question. It means taking time on a regular basis to find out about new research and theories arising and being willing to constantly be learning new things. It is about having a deep knowledge and understanding of your individual research question. Practitioner enquiry tends to be carried out in groups with other individuals who have the same research question as eachother. Working in groups can have both benefits and disadvantages. Working in groups can be beneficial as it allows encouragement within groups when some people may be struggling, you could also benefit by working in a group if you are not too sure of something as the other group members may be able to explain it to you and help you understand. Even if you do understand something it is always useful to be able to discuss this understanding with others just to make sure you are fully confident and sure of your understanding and knowledge. Along with its any benefits, practitioner enquiry can also have some difficulties. If individuals in your group are not willing to carry out their role to the best of the ability then the whole group will suffer and fall behind, aswell as this, group work can very quickly and very easily turn into idle chat amongst friends or colleagues which will slow work and cause the group to fall behind.

For me, as a student teacher, practitioner enquiry means that I must be willing to carry on my research throughout my career and must be able to make a conscious and active effort to learn new things and improve my knowledge of a specific research question even once I have left further education.

Roles of a Professional

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 Patience

It is extremely important for a teacher to be patient. When teaching your class a new topic it will take time for the pupils to understand what they are being taught, what they are being asked to do and how to carry it out. Some pupils may be able to understand what it is they are doing quite quickly where as others may take a bit longer. It is important that the teacher is able to be patient and understanding with the pupils who may be struggling a bit more than others. If the pupil sees that the teacher is getting fed up or impatient with them they may begin to believe they are doing something wrong or are being ‘bad’. It will also discourage the pupils if they feel as if their teacher can’t be bothered with them anymore or doesn’t have the time for them. If a pupil is left feeling like this they may start to misbehave, muck about and give up altogether which can have implications for their entire learning, not just that one topic.

Empathy

Being able to show empathy is an important trait for a teacher to have. Pupils who are struggling may need extra support from their teacher and if the teacher is empathetic towards them it will make the pupil feel less nervous and more comfortable about asking for help. Showing empathy towards pupils will also make them feel more appreciated and recognised in the classroom, an environment which may seem quite daunting, especially to pupils who may find it harder to speak up or ask for help. Pupils who are struggling may find it comforting to know that they are not the only person with this issue with the work, which it can sometimes feel like if you have no-one to talk to, so the teacher being patient with the pupil and showing an understanding for how they are feeling and what they are going through could be very useful and encouraging for them and may allow them to proceed further with encouragement and a little assistance.

 

Self – Control

Teachers need to be able to demonstrate and carry out self – control. If a teacher has had a bad day outside of the classroom they need to be able to put these issues aside and not take the feelings of upset or anger into the classroom. It is also vital that  teachers do not hold grudges with pupils due to their past behaviour, it is important to start every day as a new day and not hold feelings of anger or dislike towards their pupils for incidences which have past. Finally teachers must be careful not to get annoyed at pupils for something another pupil in the class has done. For example, a teacher must not get impatient and angry at a pupil who is simply struggling with a piece of work because another pupil in the class has been being disruptive and misbehaving all day.

Tolerance

Much like patience, it is extremely important for a teacher to have a high level of tolerance. Teachers need to be tolerant of pupils who find it harder than others and struggle more as getting angry with them or becoming impatient may cause them to become upset, worried (more than they already are), or start to misbehave as it is easier for them to refuse to do the work they are struggling with than sit and look their work and be able to make no sense of it when they are getting no help from a teacher. Teachers must also be tolerant of pupils who are misbehaving, it is ok to tell them off and teach them that what they are doing is wrong by taking away certain privileges such as minute of golden time etc. but if a teacher is constantly screaming and shouting at pupils for misbehaving it may act as encouragement for those misbehaving as they might find this funny or entertaining, and it will also create an unpleasant classroom environment meaning that even  those who are behaving and trying hard will not enjoy their learning either.

 

Justice

I believe that one of the most important traits of a teacher is to be just and treat all pupils as equals. Singling out pupils and treating them differently to others for any reason will promote inequality within the classroom and pupils may pick this up and then go on to treat people outside of the classroom unequally and unjustly which will build up an unpleasant and unhappy society. Treating pupils differently for reasons such as their academic status may also make pupils feel unhappy or uneasy as it singles them out as different to others and may cause them to be teased or bullied by their classmates and could also make them unhappy at school and stop them from trying with their work or even coming to school atall, which will severely impact their learning.

Reflective Writing

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I believe reflective writing can be very useful after learning. By thinking back on what you have learnt you allow yourself the opportunity to think more deeply about certain aspects of what you have learnt, doing this can allow you to notice things which you may have not realised at first. Reflection also allows you to look at things in your own time rather than at the pace of your class or lecturer, this allows individuals to delve deeper into certain topics and gain a better understanding of things which may be of interest to you and also allows people to look over things which may not have been clear to them at first, improving their knowledge.

Reflective writing is a very handy way of gathering all your thoughts together in one place after learning. Managing to gather all your thoughts whilst learning can be difficult so carrying out reflective writing after learning allows the opportunity to do this. You don’t necessarily have to do it all at once, over time new thoughts and realisations may occur and having reflective pieces and thoughts saved in a central place allows you to easily build on thoughts, feelings and opinions as they occur over time.

Social Media

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Social Media is a very powerful thing. When used in the right ways it can be fantastic but if it gets into the wrong hands or is mistreated it can become a very destructive material. Social Media presents many opportunities in a professional sense, it allows people to stay connected whilst outside of the school environment and this can be very useful, especially higher up the school. If a pupil is struggling with work social media can allow them to receive help from their peers or teachers almost immediately, rather than waiting until the next day, or sometimes even longer, to ask for help. Using forms of social media within the classroom can also be very effective as it ties the home and school together as social media will most likely be something that the majority of pupils use actively in their life outside the classroom. This connection may engage some pupils very well as it could make their learning more fun and more related to their interests, more than the usual activities used in schools, such as reading and writing. I believe social media should be viewed as a positive aspect of the school system, but this is not how the media portrays it and it is true that if social media is not used in the correct ways it can have some very bad outcomes. Pupils in school need to be educated about the dangers of social media and taught safe and appropriate ways to use these sites, for the safety of everyone. Everyone needs to be extremely careful whilst using social media in both a professional and private way. I believe it is awfully important to have clear lines between personal and professional accounts, and to be cautious of what you are posting on both accounts. Privacy settings need to be monitored on a regular basis to ensure both accounts are safe and only people you wish to be able to interact with you on each account have the ability to do so. If these privacy precautions are not put into place problems can occur with pupils or parents/carers contacting teachers through personal accounts etc. Being aware of what you are posting on your accounts and the effect each post could have is also extremely important. It is vital that you think through a post and double check it before you post it anywhere because once it has been posted it is out there forever, even if you delete it. Any post published in the heat of the moment may come back to bite you later on and it is crucial that everyone remembers this whilst using social media so that it can be used carefully and safely for the benefit of individuals and the progress of education.