Key Moments Reflection

1000 Words Reflection on Professional Practice 2

Choose three key moments where you had critical learning insights into your teaching
practice. Discuss these in terms of the following:

1. What was significant? What were three key learning moments which transformed
your thinking about teaching and learning practice? Describe the teaching moment
and its significance to you.
2. What you learnt. How have these three key learning moments changed the way
you think and practice teaching?
3. Why did it work/didn’t work? What strategies worked well in your teaching? What
strategies did not work and why. Support this section with reference to
pedagogical theory.

For my professional practice 2, I was placed at Bossley Park High School. With my key
learning area (KLA), for this placement being PDHPE, I was able to truly connect and
develop as an educator. Bossley Park High School, incorporates many sporting extra-
curricular programs within their school timetable, including their Talented Football
Program. There were many moments within the classroom and outside of the
classroom, on the sporting field, where my teaching philosophy was transformed.

The first key learning moment which transformed my thinking about teaching and
learning practice, was outside the classroom and on the sporting field. Student
engagement, especially outside in an open space, is absolutely critical. I began my
placement, planning my practical and sports lessons based on my choices in
relevance to the syllabus. Student engagement was somewhat evident throughout
my planned lessons. However, after a few lessons, I noticed that the students that
weren’t taking part wholeheartedly, were complaining about the sport/activity,
rather than being active. I then decided to give students an option of what
sports/activities they would like to do in their practical lessons. I made sure that
their chosen sport or activity, was in relevance to the syllabus, and planned it in
accordance to their next practical lesson. The incorporation of student ideas and
interest, incorporates an inquiry based learning approach, allowing for student
engagement to reach maximum potential. After implementing this approach,
competitiveness, motivation and engagement increased exponentially, allowing for
deep learning and understanding to take place. This approach changed my
perception of the implementation of teaching strategies. In accordance with the
constructivist theory, allowing students to choose and/or design their learning
activities, allows for students to learn through an inquiry based learning approach
(Van Driel & Berry, 2012). Inquiry based learning is a student-centred approach
which was incorporated throughout my practical sports lessons in my practicum. I
(as the classroom teacher) acted as the facilitator, allowing the lesson to be student-
centred, resulting in significantly higher student engagement and student
responsibility (Hmelo-Silver, Duncan & Chinn, 2007).
The second and third key learning moment, which transformed my thinking about
teaching and learning practice, was the method in which the school separates
genders in grades 9 & 10. All year 9 and year 10 classes incorporated ‘boys only’
classes and ‘girls only’ classes. I was fortunate enough to teach both boys only and
girls only classes, recognising the vast difference between them. Boys classes,
showed to be actively engaged throughout practical lessons, with a high level of
competitiveness and participation. However, throughout theoretical lessons, boys
classes showed difficulty to focus on syllabus content, thus resulting in
misbehaviour. In order to receive the best outcome from both classes, I immediately
tried to incorporate an active approach to theoretical lessons. With my boys only
classes, I removed all textbook work from our theoretical lessons, and minimised
tedious writing tasks as much as possible. Instead, I wanted to approach this class
with active tasks, in order to stimulate engagement and deep understanding. I
incorporated tasks that are usually deemed ‘inappropriate’ for boys. Under the
module ‘Relationships & Resilience’, I asked the boys to walk around the classroom
and write positive comments about each of their peers on their personalised
posters, in order to bring out confidence and positive attributes of each and every
student. On another lesson, after learning about resilience, I split the boys into small
groups and gave them specific scenarios, in which they had to role play resilience.
These tasks are some examples of activities, that some deem inappropriate for a
boys class, however I came across a great experience through this approach. I found
that active tasks, allowed the students to engage in the work, and understand the
content through an interactive approach, resulting in minimal disruption and
misbehaviour. In relation to teaching and learning strategies, the Pedagogical
Content Knowledge (PCK) framework accentuates the importance of the approach
that teachers bring to the classroom (Van Driel & Berry, 2012). The PCK framework
was implemented through the teaching strategies I used in my boys only classes.
These strategies allows for the students to subconsciously learn, understand and
retain information, rather than memorise and regurgitate the information
(Kleickmann et al., 2013). The implementation of the PCK framework, gives students
the ability to develop critically and analytically through IBL (Shores & Smith, 2011).

On the contrary, girls only classes showed disciple in both practical and theoretical
lessons. The girls only classes, put little difficulty in relaying syllabus content,
allowing for deep understanding to take place for all students within the classroom.
The girls only classes, showed a split perspective to sport lessons. In relation to the
girls only practical classes, I implemented modified sports, that would better suit the
physical level of that class. The implementation of modifications, allowed for
students to take part in class practical’s, allowing them to feel confident in their
abilities. I noticed in my first few lessons, that some girls weren’t participating
because of their confidence in themselves. I approached this by identifying students
that were at a higher physical level, and splitting them evenly into teams for overall
game fairness. This gave students that were hesitant, the confidence to participate
and feel comfortable in a fair and equal game. The girls theoretical lessons, showed
to be the ‘dream class’ from a teachers perspective. All students were studious, and
showed a high level of engagement. There was no misbehaviour. The girls asked
questions when they needed clarification and showed interest by completing their
work promptly. After my first theoretical lesson with the girls class, I came to the
realisation that the students worked well with no distractions, leaving the class with
just enough work to finish the 80 minute period. Due to the low disruption levels and
no misbehaviour, I prepared extra work as extension tasks for the following lessons.
The girls class showed great enthusiasm and academic ability, despite the class not
being named ‘Gifted and Talented’, I provided students the availability to extension
tasks in order to assist students in reaching their full potential (Caraisco, 2007). The
significant level of student engagement and interest allows for students to develop
academically and reach a new level of ability (Caraisco, 2007).

Through the efforts of my mentor teacher, alongside the relationships formed with
the students, my overall experience at Bossley Park High School was positive and has
transformed my overall teaching philosophy, allowing me to further develop and
progress as an educator.