Category Archives: 1.4 Prof. Commitment

Field Trips Within Social Education

Thinking back to my own primary school experience, school field trips were a rarity and at the time I seen them as a free day, in many ways completely unlinked from learning and school.  At the time 9 year old me thought this was great however, thinking back now with my teacher hat on, I can see the problem with this thinking.  If all children believe that school trips are not linked to the learning taking place within the classroom, are they even learning anything at all?  However, after discussing the benefits of field trips in the teaching of social subjects during lectures and workshops and by even going on one myself to Verdant Works in Dundee, I have began to realise the sheer importance of these practical experiences on the learning of social studies within the primary curriculum.  In addition to this, I feel it is essential to emphasise the importance of the link between the field trip and the learning within the classroom.  If this link is not meaningful and relevant, the field trip may not reach its full learning potential.

Through my own experience of the university field trip to Verdant Works, which is an old jute mill which has been converted into a museum which exhibits information on how the jute mills were ran, the machinery involved, the transportation of jute and even the social history of the time within Dundee, I feel as though I had the opportunity to look at the learning opportunities through the eyes of both a learner and teacher.  Due to the fact I had not visited this attraction for many years, I found much of it had been renovated which meant in addition to the information that I could remember there were also many new learning opportunities for me to expand my own knowledge.  Through gaining this knowledge I was also able to begin thinking about how I can include aspects into my teaching.  The rich environment allowed me to ask questions about what could be used within a classroom and what links could be made in order to make the learning as meaningful and relevant as possible.  A place like this can be used in a multiple of ways and can also be a good starting point for a variety of activities.  While I was walking around the grounds of Verdant Works I began to think about what topics or activities I could devise linking to the available resources.  One idea I explored was the possibility of a scavenger hunt where the children have to search throughout the museum for the answers to the clues they have on a worksheet.  I feel as though this sort of activity can be particularly beneficial because it allows the children to independently investigate and find out information as well as giving them a goal to aim for which could be a form of motivation.

I personally feel that field trips are a great form of learning as getting out of the classroom can be an effective way to getting children motivated and engaged with the learning.  It also provides a real life context in which children can gain and improve on a variety of skills such as analysing, investigating and exploring (Catling and Willy, 2009).  I particularly feel as though Verdant Works is a great resource to take classes to due to its Dundee location and history which makes it local for the children and therefore, makes it more relevant and relateable to them which is suggested by Turner-Bisset (2005) as an important factor in fieldtrips.

In addition to this, the Verdant Works website also provides a large variety of different workshops which can be used within the classroom which link to the Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes which can be found at http://www.verdantworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Verdant-School-Nursery-Guide-copy_Layout-1.pdf  I believe this could be a very beneficial resource for teachers wanting to extend the learning of the field trip.

References

Catling, S. and Willy, T. (2009) Teaching Primary Geography. London: Sage Publications.

Turner-Bissett, R. (2005) Creative Teaching: History in the Primary Classroom. London: Routledge.

Reflection on Examples

I put my hands up and admit that over the assignment and Christmas break period I started lagging behind on posting in my ePortfolio.  However, we were encouraged to read and reflect on our fellow students posts.  I feel like this really gave me the push of encouragement I needed to get back into the swing of posting, commenting and reflecting.  After reading my peers’ posts I noticed that each post was written in a way which provided a great amount of depth on the topic of the post.  In many cases the posts were written in such a detailed way that even as a reader you could get a vast amount of knowledge and information out of it.  On the more visual aspect, I noticed that a variety of media such as images, videos and hyperlinks had been used which I feel made the posts even more intriguing and interesting as it provided a visual aspect.  I feel that the hyperlinks were particularly helpful as they gave me the opportunity to read up further on the issues raised within the posts.

Photo from morguefile.com

Photo from morguefile.com

After reading everyone’s posts it as given me a lot of information on how I can improve my own posts and what I can add in to increase the interest of my posts.  I also noticed that a lot of the posts I read were on topics which the writer found interesting and relevant and were not necessarily TDT posts.  This has inspired me to put forward my own opinions on topical issues in my own blogposts.

Maths and Me

I recently attended my first couple of maths inputs and I would be completely lying if I said that the thought of them previously did not make me feel nervous, anxious and quite frankly down right scared.  My relationship with maths for as long as I can remember has never been great.  I just scraped by in maths and done what I had to do.  Without a doubt I was one of many that suffered with the notorious – maths anxiety.

Photo from morguefile.com

Photo from morguefile.com

I can trace my fear of maths all the way back to primary school and from then it has just continued to grow stronger, taking my confidence in maths and numeracy with it.  During my primary school days I can specifically remember never putting my hand up to answer a question, never getting involved in maths tasks and whenever I heard the words “we are playing around the world” I could instantly feel the lump in my throat.  My dislike of maths continued well into high school where I remained completely uninvolved and just done the bare minimum that was required.  As a result my attitude towards maths was always either “I don’t like it!” or “I cant do it!”.  However, looking back on this I now know that that wasn’t the case it wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, it was that I didn’t want to try because I didn’t believe I was capable.

Despite this, throughout the years of trying to overcome my case of maths anxiety, I cannot say I am completely over it.  However, I feel that the introductory maths input has really helped me to change my attitude as well as slightly boosted my confidence in teaching maths.  I think this is because it presented maths in a way in which I had never previously thought about.  A prime example of this is a quote by Ollerton (2003) mentions that “Mathematics is beautiful, intriguing, elegant, logical, amazing and mind-blowing; a language and a set of systems and structures used to make sense of and describe the physical and natural world”.  Originally I was completely shocked by this statement as I would never have personally described mathematics as intriguing, never mind beautiful or elegant.  However, after the input with Tara and after witnessing her enthusiasm for her subject I can quite happily say that my opinion of maths is slowly changing for the better and I can only hope that it will continue to do so until I feel a sense of complete confidence in my own ability and my teaching of mathematics!

Reflection on the process of feedback

The thought of giving feedback at first really intimidated me. I believe I am the type of person who doesn’t like to say anything that could possibly offend someone and therefore, was very nervous of what to say at first. Also I feel that as soon as I heard the word feedback my head went straight to the idea of ‘judgement’ which frankly make me a little anxious. However, now looking back on this experience I see it in a much more positive and beneficial way. I am also now aware of the fact that it is not judgement at all, but picking out the areas in which you could improve in order to grow and progress further.

I feel that the feedback I have received has been very beneficial to me as well as increasing my confidence in my work, it has also reassured me that I am on the right track, which was something I was a little worried about. I feel that the constructive criticism I received in some of the comments have been very helpful as they have given me ideas of where I can take my blog next, what I can include and have also made me question many things I had never even thought about previously.

I believe that by being given the opportunity of commenting on others’ work and providing constructive feedback where appropriate has been a very positive experience for me. Even though I still find it difficult to pick out areas of improvement in someone’s work and question points that are made, I feel like if I continue to provide feedback I will continue to get more confident with it.

Overall, I feel that this experience was very beneficial and feel that it has given me a good insight into the intentions behind feedback, such as the benefits you can get out of it. I also feel that the lessons I have learned throughout the processes of giving and receiving feedback are ones that I can take with me throughout my years at university and also when I progress into the role of a teacher.

 

The Virtues of Teaching

The virtues which I have chosen to talk about are:

Patience, Kindness, Respect, Honesty and Self-control.

Patience – The ability to have patience is one of mass importance in most aspects of life. However, I feel it is emphasised further in the role of a teacher as it is something which needs to be used every day. Patience provides us with the ability to take our time and take a step back. This is in order to try and understand where others are coming from. I feel like helps us to develop our professionalism as we have to think of professional ways in which to respond to certain situations and by being patient, this allows us to fully examine the situation and provide the most appropriate and professional response.

Kindness – Kindness is the ability to show compassion and empathy but could also be as simple as being understanding and polite. This is an area of which I feel is often overlooked but I feel it has a massive impact especially within the role of a teacher. If you show kindness towards the children in your class not only are you giving them a positive role model to look up to you are also presenting yourself as someone they can trust and someone who they can hopefully open up to or ask for help.

Respect – Respect is one of those terms which I feel are extremely important with whomever you are dealing with whether it be in a teaching setting e.g. Pupils, parents, other teachers, or within your personal life. I have formed the opinion that everyone should be treated with respect and that this is the only way in which you can gain respect back. Just like the good old saying “treat others as you wish to be treated”. I feel that respect within the role of a teacher is essential and that mutual respect should always be one of the main areas of focus within the classroom. I feel that respect is also a huge part of being a professional as you will often come across opinions that you do not agree with, however, in order to deal with this matter in a professional way you need to be respectful of others.

Honesty – By being honest it allows you the chance to express who you really are and show people what you are truly like. In order to be a professional you have to be honest with your peers and within a school context with your class. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and if you do make sure to own up to them as it is the only way in which you can learn from them. Also by showing that you have the ability to be honest it will more than likely gain you more respect which can lead into many positive consequences within your profession.

Self-control – Self–control is an area in which everyone struggles with. However, within the profession of a teacher it is one you have to firmly have under your belt. Every day you will come across situations which will make you angry and annoyed but it is how you deal with these situations which is important especially when it is dealing with children. When working with children you have to always make sure that what you are saying is appropriate and can’t let your emotions blur that.