Reflection On Teaching

Reflection on practice has different meanings, in my view it means constructive criticism: being honest with myself, becoming aware of and understanding my own strengths, and being able to review activities and constantly test assumptions related to our work. These have been my approach to critical reflection throughout the year. This is supported by Brookfield, he says that "Critically reflective teaching happens when we identify and scrutinise the assumptions that undergird how we work” (Brookfield, 1995, pg. 11-13). This is further supported by Ghaye, T & Ghaye, k (Ghaye, 1998); he argued that many teachers have benefited from learning through reflection. Their teaching and understanding of what is possible and less possible, impacts of activities on children’s learning and its boundaries have risen as a result of reflection.

Hudgins, B.B., & Riesenmy, M.R. (1994). Teaching self-direction to enhance children’s thinking in physical science. Journal of Educational Research, 88(1), 15.

This assignment will critically reflect and analyse a microteaching session I presented to my peers in a clinical placement regarding Nursing management of chest drains. I will define reflection; teaching, learning and the rationale for choosing this topic will be clearly outlined in this paper. The preparation, planning, implementation and evaluation will also be incorporated. This assignment will be structured using Gibbs (1988) reflective model cited in Modular Training Course, 2003 because of its simplicity. Analysis will permeate through each stage of the Gibbs reflective model. Finally I will conclude by reflecting on my role as a joint practitioner outlining areas of personal, professional growth, identifying my strength, weakness

This movie, The Classroom, which was very interesting to watch, discusses all that goes on in the school system, the good and the bad. But it also shows how things at home can affect the way the student acts during the school day. This movie definitely makes you look at students that act out differently, instead of punishing them maybe we should all look deeper into the issue and find a way for the student to thrive and use school as an outlet.

Since my time at Sparks Elementary I have only been able to observe two routines that my mentor teacher has done with the other 3rd grade teacher’s. To start off the morning, Mr.Locklear meets his class in the cafeteria to greet them before the day get’s started. The teachers then instruct the student’s to set their backpack’s in their designated area and take the materials needed for their first rotation of class. When the student’s have set there belonging’s down, the teacher’s line up the students in the middle of the common area, where the student’s will be lead to their special’s classes like Music, P.E and Art. While the student’s part take in special’s, Mr. Locklear takes care of any last minute assignment’s or note’s he need’s before he start’s teaching his first class. He also take’s part in a weekly meeting the 3rd grade teacher’s conduct to go over any announcement’s or strategies. Once the student’s come back from special’s, Mr.Locklear starts off his math lesson with Mrs. Sanchez classroom. As soon as the student’s enter the class, they are instructed to take out their journal’s and engage with what the teacher is teaching for the first 10 minutes of class. In those first few minutes of class Mr. Locklear introduces the topic or objective that the students will be learning and engages them to participate in the examples he places on the permithian board. He then has the student’s break up into group’s to do their daily math station’s. While some student’s do

Throughout my reflections as previously discussed I have felt under confident and lacked experience which I feel I have developed positively. In feedback I have received from my tutor and mentor in relation to the course has been positive on the whole. There were highlighted areas for development such as varying the techniques I use such as pair and group work. This I will try and do but it has been difficult to address as we have the students for a short about of time and a lot of work to complete. It is something I am trying to work on and will endeavour to achieve these aspirations in the coming months. The second area of development was given to me by my mentor, it was that I talk very quickly while heading the class and do not allocate enough time for students to answer my questions. This I think is down to nerves when being observed. Hopefully with the further experience I have achieved I have slowed myself down for the next observation I have.

Part IV: The Position Statement (Week 2=red; Week 3=orange; Week 4=green, Week 5= blue, Week 6=purple.)

First and foremost, I am impressed with Mrs. Smith’s first-grade classroom and her educational style. I am fascinated by her ways in encouraging the students to learn to think critically, to be confident, and to be creative. I interviewed Mrs. Smith about how she successfully manages to teach, to encourage, to discipline, to reward, to care and to show respect to the kids in her classroom. In this interview, she was very humble to relate all of her success to loving her job, and to have gained her experience from many years of elementary school teaching. Additionally, she said that she loves the kids in her classroom as if they were her own children. She added that she treats them the way she would want any teacher to treat and

Please think about and answer the following questions about your lead teaching experiences. The answers should be thoughtful and reflect the ability to evaluate your instruction. Instructions to clarify some questions are written in italics.

As a teacher, our responsibility is to plan effective lessons for our students to learn from. Although, the hardest part of being a teacher is grasping the student’s motivation to learn. Therefore, the educational philosophers Borich and Wong have different approaches to make us effective teachers motivate our students to learn new and exciting teachings. These different methods may include a wide range of how teachers run their classrooms, or what specific standards are being targeted, and maybe even how effective their planning techniques are. Not to mention, students may also expect positive expectations from the teacher and ways to help them succeed. On the other note, inviting students to learn may be easier than thought, in which may result in positive student behavior. Thus, my opinion of what Borich and Wong have to say about student learning is very beneficial to me so, that one day I may use their techniques in my very own classroom.

Furthermore, as I read the assigned articles and viewed videos, I realized that my teachers obviously, followed Piaget’s, Vygotsky. Dewey, and Bruner constructivist view because they used the theory of assimilation and accommodation, e.g., the learning of a new experience and changing of a person’s worldview. I also discovered after deep reflection on this week’s assignment, how much of an impact my teachers had on my teaching style. Before retiring, I taught based on what my students needed. Therefore, much of my teaching mixed the theories of, Constructivism, Social Constructivism and Cognitive-Behavioral depending on the student.

For my lesson, I used your instruction feedback to change the meat of my lesson. I kept your ideas because I really thought they would help my teaching go a lot smoother. I really liked how you choose the words beginning, middle, and end to describe to Ellie what I expected from her when comprehending what I read to her. I also thought that your wording was a lot better than mine. I thought that your feedback helped make my lesson become a lot stronger than it was before.

In the words of Zephe and Leach (2010, 171), my preferred teaching style is aimed to “create learning that is active, collaborative and that fosters learning relationships”. It is quite common for my student to comment and describe my teaching approach as highly interactive. It was important for me to reflect on the usefulness of web-based resources as a tool of engagement in bringing about improvement in the individual learners at my annual appraisal, as well as how it can expand participation for part-time and distance learners and other with additional needs.

For any profession, you need to continuously seek knowledge to see growth and better yourself in order to be great at what you do. This is especially true for education. Our society and students are forever changing meaning that their way of learning will continue to change as well. Like Pat Riley said “If you’re not getting better you’re getting worse”; thus, it is important to be engaged and committed to looking for ways to improve the classroom, myself as a professional or to learn new strategies.

I was given a year 10 BTEC IT&C class to teach. This class has a mixture of abilities and behaviour. Talking to the students over the term the students that could be said to be “disruptive” would happily tell me that they “did not want to pick this option” and felt they had no choice but pick the subject. This gave an interesting challenge of trying to engage these students with the subject and improve behaviour and the environment of the class in general.