Category Archives: Professional Studies

Gender and My Experiences At School

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There are many discussion points around gender which I discovered through my Higher Modern Studies course in sixth year. This includes the pay rates for women, top positions in jobs and the typical careers most commonly known for women.

However, during our input from Jill regarding gender, she asked us questions which really got me thinking. I suppose I hadn’t really ever thought about it before but how exactly did gender affect me as a child growing up?

My answer is that I believe it never really had a major affect on me. My primary school always encouraged equality and opportunity or everyone, no matter who they were. The only difference for gender I can remember is the separate toilets and changing rooms that we used. But when I discussed this with peer sit gave me a different perspective and really made me think.

A typical sports day: races for boys, races for girls; having to partner up with a boy for Scottish Country Dancing; asking for boys for task that involved lifting heavy objects. One thing that really stood out, however, was the fact that boys always seemed to get into more trouble than girls. After some thought, I agree with the last point. Many boys in my class got into more trouble than girls did and so the stereotyping seems to be true of both sides.

Overall, my gender and experiences of school weren’t really affected as I still got an education which has gotten me to the place that I am today.

An Understanding of My Academic Skills

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Getting the Basics

Punctuation has always been part of education for me and probably the majority of people reading this too. Reading ‘The Study Skills Book’ by McMillan K and Weyers, J has really helped me to further my understanding of the importance of punctuation and how it can really effect your writing.

Looking at a University situation, it is extremely important to get punctuation and grammar correct for your writing to make sense, especially with assignments and essays that you will have to complete. I believe that grammar and punctuation is not only important for your studies but also for taking part in your ePortfolio. Although it is, I feel, slightly more relaxed and gives you more freedom to express your thoughts in your own way, it is still relevant to have correct grammar and punctuation.

Vocabulary, I believe, is also an important factor to add to your academic skills. Having a variety in your vocabulary can really benefit you. I admit that vocabulary is probably something I should look at and develop more as my studies continue over the next four years at University.

Having a basic understanding of punctuation, grammar, spelling and vocabulary is extremely important with a profession such as teaching because a lot of their learning is focused around developing their literacy skills. If I have difficulty with spelling or explaining grammar and punctuation, it would make it far more demanding and tough to teach young children as they will get confused and will not develop the right understanding.

It is crucial to have a good knowledge and understanding of the above topics in order to teach children correctly and to make things a lot less demanding within your profession.

Important Factors to Consider

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Engaging With Learning

Cooperative Learning:

Cooperative learning is something that I have always been aware of as it was included from a young age at Primary school. At University there is an expectation for you to take control of your own study and learn things for yourself based on what a lecturer has used in an input. However, this doesn’t always mean that you have to be completely by yourself and I agree that it can sometimes be easier to work in a group of peers from your course.

I believe, and I’m sure many others will as well, that working as a group is an effective way of learning because of the many different personalities that there are and the learning styles can be varying too. There are many advantages of working in a group and incorporating cooperative learning within your studies.

  1. Learning from one another: This is very beneficial as you are able to identify how other people learn and it may help to clear any difficulties that you may have had before.
  2. Opens up debates that you would not have thought of before: This allows you to see what other ideas people have and also lets you develop other ideas that you hadn’t thought of during an input or lecture.
  3. Additional notes: Working in group and getting other ideas from peers will allow you to take additional notes that will complement what you have taken down in your lectures. This also allows you to use additional ideas to do further research helping with any individual tasks or assessments.

However, it is important to remember that you are a member of a group and so you should respect the views and opinions that are stated. It is also extremely important to ensure that no one person is dominating the discussion. After all, this a group task and so everyone has to have an equal opportunity to express their views.

Active Learning:

I believe that active learning is important at all stages of your education. It is particularly useful when you are teaching young children as it allows them to engage with what they are being taught. Active learning is also important for splitting up a child’s day rather than having them sit in the classroom not paying attention and struggling.

Much of the active learning in Primary schools, I have witnessed, is used to support and extend the children’s education and is supported through the Curriculum for Excellence system throughout Scotland.

Active learning allows children to develop their imaginations and creativity and encourages them to develop new skills which will benefit them when it comes to literacy and numeracy in particular.

Overall, cooperative working and active learning are two extremely important factors to keep in mind when thinking about the way in which we learn.