I feel that Active Learning is very beneficial, it encourages you to engage with the work you are doing rather than just trying to memorise it for an exam. By actively making an effort to involve yourself with your learning I believe that you are more likely to do well as you can personalise it to yourself and make it fun and appealing for you to revise and study. Carrying out active learning throughout the entirety of the academic year will also benefit you in the long run as you are constantly looking over and revising topics rather than leaving everything until the last minute. Doing this will stop stress when it comes to exam periods and will allow you to keep on top of what you are learning and also see how you are coping throughout the whole year.

Working Co-operatively is also extremely beneficial; it allows you to get to know your peers and classmates and also allows you to experience new and effective ways of learning. I personally believe that having the opportunity to discuss topics with your peers allows you to get a different view on your learning as you are seeing it from another person’s eyes and can reveal things to you that you may not have noticed before when being taught by teacher or lecturer. Not only can co-operative learning improve your knowledge of topics covered in classes, it can also build social skills. By being put into working groups you are developing teamwork skills and also being encouraged to build up good communication skills, skills which can be carried with you throughout your whole life.

As a child I never really thought my gender was affected me, but thinking back now I can see how maybe, for me and my childhood, it could have.

From the ages of about 5 to 10 or 11 I was such a tomboy, my best friends were all boys and I loved going out and playing football or mucking about in my garden and my street, which usually resulted in me coming home covered in mud or some sort of dirt. I loved searching in bushes and under rocks for snails or slaters or any other type of bug that I could take home with me as a pet and I hated anything that was pink! At the time it seemed totally fine for people to say I acted like a boy or wasn’t very ‘girly’ but now I can’t help but wonder why it is that people class boys as the ones who enjoy playing out doors and getting messy and why people assume that all girls want to stay clean and tidy and love the colour pink. Surely these things are more a matter of personal choice rather than whether you are a boy or a girl?

Looking back now, I wouldn’t say my gender necessarily ‘affected’ me as a child, I was never upset or bothered by people saying I acted like a boy and it certainly never made me want to change myself and become more ‘girly’, but thinking about it has made me wonder why these stereotypes are here and where they came from and makes me want to find a way to help break them down for the future generations I will be teaching.

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