Reflection on feedback.

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In my opinion feedback is very beneficial and is key in personal improvement. If you never receive feedback in any shape or form you may never realise problems or areas you could improve on. I personally believe we should actively seek feedback on all academic materials we produce so that we can further improve it and receive the best outcome possible. I also see the benefit of giving others feedback. Not only will you help the other person improve, but you will become more critical in your own work. Overtime you will be able to look at work you produce in a constructive and critical way that you may not once have. This will allow you to self-improve.

Receiving feedback on my previous posts have all been positive experiences. I felt appreciated as a person because someone took the time to read my work and comment on it. I not only received comments that my work was good, but also areas to improve on. These suggestions were all done in a positive manner and I did not feel put down by them. I believe I have actually become more confident in my writing through the receiving of areas to improve. I know that it is not just myself who is receiving feedback, and we all have areas to improve on. In a way, I feel less worried about making mistakes because if I do, I know it can be addressed and fixed in the future.

At the task of giving feedback I was somewhat perplexed. I know that giving feedback allows others to improve, but I was worried about how they may take the feedback. I know that some people can be self-conscious with their writing and a bad comment could lower their moral significantly. To combat this, I not only was very careful in my wording, but I thought about how I would feel if I received that feedback. If I would be happy with my feedback, I would post it. If not, I would find an alternative way to word it so it came across in a friendly and non-accusatory manner.

From giving and receiving feedback I have learned that it is something I wish to continue receiving throughout the entirety of this course and my professional career. I hope that my peers will continue to comment on posts I make, and I will offer feedback in return. In my future placements I will actively seek feedback from my placement teacher so that I can improve in any areas they see fit. I hope this will help me become a great student and future teacher.

Being an Enquiring Practitioner.

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To be an Enquiring Practitioner means to take part in the process of your own progression as a professional. It means taking responsibility for your own improvement, may this be in your teaching styles, presentation, interaction or any other aspect of the job. An Enquiring Practitioner will take part in many ways to evaluate their performance and use the results to better themselves.

pe-cc-wheel

This is a diagram of 10 factors that should be considered when taking part in practitioner enquiry. These factors influence how successful the enquiry project is. A description of why each of these factors are improtant when considering practitioner enquiry can be found through this link by clicking on each section.

http://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-update/practitioner-enquiry/critical-considerations.aspx#expert-partnerships

The benefits of being an enquiring professional are plenty. It allows you to better your practice meaning your students will be better off. You will gain knowledge of new initiatives or methods of teaching that could benefit individuals you are teaching which you may not have come across otherwise. Enquiry allows a teacher to assess where they are and critique themselves. This is a fantastic skill to practice because it means you are actively engaging in bettering yourself and are not finding yourself stuck in the same old ways of practice. Professional Enquiry can also help you work collaboratively with other practitioners. This could open up a whole new range of possibilities for a teacher such as access to new lessons, styles of teaching or joint learning opportunities.

Enquiry can be a difficult thing for some professionals as some people find it hard to be critical of their actions. I think it is very important however for professionals to get past this challenge because so many benefits can arise from professional enquiry.

As a student teacher I think for me, professional enquiry is something I will benefit from looking into. It has helped me realize that you never stop trying to better yourself as a teacher, and although I am at the very beginning of my professional journey and may feel like teachers I work with are so far ahead of me, they are still themselves learning new things and bettering their understanding of the field. This is inspiring to me because I know that teachers I will be working with will understand my learning journey and are still taking part in it themselves. I will continue to critique myself in all aspects of becoming a professional teacher and try my best to work on the areas I find lacking.

Identifying my skills and abilities

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Activity 1

Below are a list of skills and abilities. Complete an audit of where you are now. Record this in your learning journal/portfolio.

Rate yourself (1=Not very well developed; 3=very well developed)

Skills and Abilities	1	2	3
Work under pressure		x
Take responsibility			x
Self confidence	x
Team work			x
Problem solve		x
Manage time			x
Take Notes		x

Activity 2

Complete the audit below, using the information from the table above.

Recognition	Reflection	Action
Skills already developed	How I will use these	How do I know (evidence)**
Take responsibility	I will use this to complete my tasks on time, within a time space that allows me to work to my fullest capabilities. I will not leave tasks until the last minute and will do my best to continually be responsible for my online progression and assessments. I will also be responsible in the way that I will try to always set a goal to achieve more in the areas I am less confident in.	I know I am capable of being responsible from my previous years of study. Particularly in the past year (studying HND Additional Support Needs). I somewhat surprised myself at how responsible I was when it came to assessments. In no way am I trying to suggest that I expected to be irresponsible with my learning, but I found that I completed my tasks at least one week in advance and never felt rushed to complete a task. This is evidence of being responsible for my work load and not rushing assignments to finish them in short periods of time.
Team work	I will use this in any instance where team working tasks is presented to me. This may be to plan lessons, share ideas or take on practical activities.	In past education courses I had to make group presentations. We decided to split the topic up into small sections, each taking a part and researching it. We then came together as a group and the presentation fell easily into place. This is an example of my team using resources and coming to unanimous agreements. There were some individuals who did not complete their part of the task so myself and the others in the group pulled together and decided how to deal with this effectively. This shows I have come across conflicting situations in group tasks but have managed to resolve the situation accordingly.
Manage time	I will use this skill in order to complete all my tasks on time and attend classes without showing up late.	Throughout my whole life I have always been a person who gets rather nervous being late to events. I remember crying the whole way to school when I knew I was going to be late. Throughout my years growing this has stuck with me and I find being on time to lectures, classes, meetings, etc, on time a very important thing. I am rarely late as I manage my time to ensure I am not late. In the past year or so I have managed to time manage particularly well within my studies and never had a late submission or extended deadline at college, even at pressing times. I play two instruments, work and enjoy taking part in multiple exercise clubs out-with my studies. This means I have had to manage my time effectively so that I do not fall behind in any of these areas. I feel like I am managing rather well at the moment, but perhaps when the course gets more intense I will need to reduce the hours of my hobbies to allow efficient study time.

Recognition	Reflection	Action
Skills to be developed	How I will develop these	How do I know (evidence) **
Working under pressure	I will develop this skill by setting myself deadlines for tasks and trying my best to stick to this. In a way this will put pressure on me and will force me to come up with ways to work through the pressure. In addition to this, when I feel pressured in any form I will attempt to stay calm and not panic. I will work out the best way forward and calmly work towards this.	In the past I have let myself get flustered in times of pressure. I persuade myself that I am incapable of completing the task which effects my overall performance.
Self confidence	This is an area that is hard to develop consciously. I will attempt to focus on the positive outcomes of my life and the moments where I get praised for my actions. I will not dwell on things I may find embarrassing and if I do feel like I am letting something get to me to the point of it effecting my confidence I will talk to a close friend. This will help me put things into perspective and grow within myself.	I have always battled with self-confidence and seem to focus on all the negatives. If I get an answer to a question wrong I can feel as if everybody thinks I am less of a person or stupid. In recent years I have grown far more confident in my skin and do not think this affects me as much as it used to. I would still like to grow my self-confidence as a student and as a person as a whole. Self-confidence is very important as a teacher and I do not want to let this get in the way of my career. Although so far my confidence in placements has been high and I am not particularly worried about it. Over this course I am sure I will become greatly confident in my abilities as a teacher and practice will allow me to forget about some of the things that make me nervous.
Problem solving	I will develop problem solving by always trying to think of the best way to solve an issue. If something arises I will think of all possible outcomes. I will do so in a calm manner so that I do not get overly stressed and make the situation worse.	Sometimes problem solving is difficult and stressful. In the past, I have felt like some problems are un-fixable. An instance being when a teacher did not have time to complete a questionnaire that I needed for a college task. I was able to work out when the teacher had free time and we resolved the situation by her simply emailing me the completed questionnaire at the weekend.
Taking notes	I am unsure at this time on how to develop in this area. I find it difficult to keep up to the speed of the lecturer when taking notes. I often find myself taking down half a sentence to realise I cannot remember the last half. One way to remedy this would be to develop a short hand that I can later expand.	In previous years I have not found it so difficult to keep up, but the pace of university is much faster than college or school. I have hope that I will adjust in the next few months and progress.

** This section should be completed as you identify when/where/how you have used/developed these skills.

How gender affected me as a child.

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In a recent lecture I was asked to reflect on how gender affected me when I was a child.

When I was a child gender was very Black and White. I was terrified of men, especially those with any sort of facial hair. I was scared of men to the extent I would hide in my buggy and cry if I came in contact with them. It took me a couple of years to grow out of this but I soon began to realise that there was a difference between the two sexes. I grew up believing girls behaved better than boys, although this was simply based on my behaviour compared to my brothers. My ideas on this changed however when I began Primary School and the most mis-behaved child in my class was a girl. I started to see that both genders can behave the same.

I started to notice that the men in my life all had ‘jobs for men’ like Builders, Engineers and Mechanics. Similarly, the woman had ‘jobs for woman’, backed up by my mum being a Beauty Therapist. It took me quite a few years until I realised that occupations shouldn’t be based on gender or sex.

When I started school all of my classes were significantly outnumbered by girls than boys. All the boys seemed to flock together and not communicate with girls unless they were required to by the teacher. This created a barrier between the two genders. For this reason, I believe I grew up thinking boys were too different to be friends with. It was as if they were another species. It wasn’t until later school life near Primary 6 that I began to see a more gender neutral side to life. I began to realise that gender isn’t something that should be compared and we certainly should not be judged on our gender.

The Study Skills Book

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‘The Study Skills Book’ by Kathleen McMillan and Jonathon Weyers has been an intriguing read for me so far. In just 32 pages I have been asked to reflect on all skills thinkable ranging from my social skills to my organisational ability. The book also made me ponder what I want in my future life. I will now discuss some of the things I found out about myself in relation to my abilities as a student, my skills as a trainee teacher, and where I wish to be in 5-10 years.

‘The Study Skills Book’ outlined some important points about setting goals for yourself at University. I paid particular attention to the following questions:

What career path do you have as your aim?

I am quite certain in my career path in the way that I know that I want to become a teacher. However, this question did lead me to think about what type of teacher I aim to be. I decided over all I simply want to become a teacher who provides an excellent education for all children regardless of their needs. I realise this will take a lot of hard work and dedication which I am willing to aim high for.

How might University limit your options?

University will limit me in the way that once I have achieved my course I will be limited to the field of teaching primary children. This is what I aim to do so I do not see this as a potential problem. If in the future I decide I want to go down another path I can return to education and work towards this new aim.

Apart from a qualification, what do you want from your time as a university student?

I would like to become more independent. I have already contributed to this goal by moving away from home. Although I am finding it difficult to be away from my family, I am coping well with looking after myself.

I would also like to take this time to do more fun things that I have always wanted to do. So far I have joined a gym and I aim to join a sports club. I have also taken a step in a new direction and signed up to be a Marrow Donor until the age of 60. This is something I would never have done if it wasn’t for attending the Freshers week events. I look forward to helping raise money for charities and any other way I can help save someone’s life.

The book also outlined points about university that I must keep in mind. I have made the mental notes to take notes at every lecture, take notes of my tutor’s emails, prepare my timetable every week and be punctual. Although these things are mostly common sense it was helpful to be made aware of them in the book.

Some of the advice in the book will be very helpful for when I become a teacher. The advice to keep up with work deadlines is very valuable. If I get used to completing all deadlines on time I will be more prepared for the busy schedule of a teacher. I was also made aware of skills I possess such as meeting deadlines and negotiating. This did however lead me on to thinking of skills I need to develop more over the next 4 years such as learning how to motivate others, giving clear and manageable instructions and participating in more activities.

In the next 5 years I hope to be finishing my probationary year as a teacher and securing a job for myself. I also hope to start my financial journey to own my own home. In 10 years time I hope to have a family and a secure job as a primary teacher.

Overall I have learned a lot about myself from this book. I have learned about the skills I possess, ones I must improve on and ones I must gain. I learned that to succeed in university I need to work hard and keep on top of my workload. I even learned about the person I want to be in the future – something I had not thought so in depth about previously.

Why I want to be a Teacher.

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I haven’t always wanted to be a teacher. My first dream was to be a Vet. However, this quickly changed as I got my first pet rabbit and discovered I’m deathly allergic to fur. How heart-breaking. I soon moved on to the idea of becoming a Doctor, then an Author, then a Marine Biologist, then an embalmer-yes, I know that’s strange. Finally, when I started High School I began to think about becoming a Nursery Teacher.

For years I was told not to go down this route as there are very little jobs, but the thought of settling for a second best job was not one that I would consider. I soon set up a week’s placement at a nursery and although I had fun and enjoyed it greatly, something didn’t feel right. It took me a while to realise what this was. I knew I loved interacting with the children and working in a nursery felt very rewarding, but I didn’t feel like I was meeting my full potential. Inside, I knew something was missing. After much thought I finally realised what this was. Nursery is a very play-based environment and I wondered to myself if I was more suited to the structured learning that takes place in a Primary School.

In my 6^th year of High School I decided to set up a placement at my old Primary School. I visited once a week for an hour and a half. This soon became the highlight of my week. As soon as I stepped into the classroom and saw the artwork on the walls, the Alphabet posters and Maths diagrams scattered all around I knew I had finally found my place. This felt right. If I wasn’t 110 per cent sure by then that I wanted to become a teacher, I knew I was the minute the children stepped in and exploded into excited chatter with me. Unlike the Nursery aged children, the Primary aged children were much more inquisitive to my presence. I enjoyed interacting with them and understanding the minds of children this age.

All in all I would say I was influenced to continue down this path by the fact that I can teach children all subjects and broaden their knowledge of the world. A Teacher is a gateway to a child’s future. Without good Teachers how can we allow children to grow into the person they want to be? I am hugely influenced by the fact that I’m shaping a child’s future and giving them the tools they need to achieve their future dreams, just like I am achieving for myself now. I want to be a Teacher who my Pupils look up to, can approach when they need help, and who supplies everything a child needs to have the brightest future possible. The future they are dreaming of. Whether that be becoming a Teacher themselves…or maybe even an embalmer, I will provide that for them and become a successful Teacher.