Personal Reflection Professional Placement 18573480

Reflection

My professional practise proved to be a rewarding challenge. I thought I would know

the scope and scale of the workload of a teacher in my experience as a teacher’s
assistant and seeing my mother and sister navigate teaching with relative ease. I was
mistaken. Being in front of the class, managing behaviours, planning and actually
doing lessons, following the syllabus and ensuring learning was a challenge that I am
sure will take me years to master. In my professional practise block, I encountered
many moments of learning that changed my perception and approach to teaching.

The first was with my year seven class. They had just finished their yearly exams and
a lengthy unit on ancient Rome, and were in need of a mental break from heavy
content. All of their exams and final assessments for subjects were due and they were
overwhelmed by the heavy workload. I decided to start the new unit of ancient India
in a fun, calming way including a word search, close passage, map and timeline
exercise finishing off with a title page depicting the Hindu goddess of wisdom that
they were expected to colour in. The first lesson consisted of going through the
climate, geography and chronology of ancient India and completing the
aforementioned activities. In the second lesson, I allowed students to colour in their
title page, offering merit awards to the best and most detailed colouring job. Most
students were silent, working away happily at their colouring, except for two girls
who refused to colour. When I asked why they were not colouring, they replied,
“colouring is for kids, I want to do something interesting.” This statement taught me
the importance of having back up plans for leisurely lessons to suit a range of
learners, especially students who are high achieving and need more challenging tasks.
These extension activities are often overlooked in the average classroom, as educators
feel they need to prioritise those students who need more support (Van Tassel-Baska,
2012). The moment also taught me that things I value and find interesting are rarely
ever interesting and valuable to students. With this in mind, I planned a massive
crossword on key terms ancient Rome, Egypt and India for their next single lesson.
When the class began, I set up the students to finish off their title pages and gave the
option of an ancient societies crossword. To my surprise, ten out of 25 girls put their
hands up. I told them that the first student to finish the crossword would receive a

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merit award. The crossword was sufficiently challenging and required them to look
back at their past work and recall information that was given the previous lesson.

The second learning moment happened in the same year seven class. In Pedagogy for
Positive Learning Environments, tutors stress the importance of the teacher moving
around the room and being present in all areas of the classroom to give them an
energetic and enthusiastic presence. In contrast, on my observation days, I noticed my
mentor teacher stayed sitting for the majority of the lesson and maintained a serene
demeanour. His class was well behaved and he was able to make eye contact the
whole class throughout the lesson. Following my tutor’s advice on my first solo
teaching lesson, I walked around the room to hand out worksheets. In the few seconds
I had my back to a row of girls, one student had thrown a pencil case at another and
hurt her. My mentor teacher stepped in and reprimanded the girl, sending her out for
the rest of the lesson. After the lesson, my mentor teacher explained that I should not
have my back to these girls, and I should keep movement to a minimum. He stated
that the teacher that moves less has more perceived power and a more commanding
presence. From then on, I stuck to the front of the class where I could monitor all the
students and got the students in the front row to hand out work sheets. This taught me
that theories that education experts come up with would not always work on every
class. Given this, I can move around the class a lot more in stage 5 classes as they are
a lot more self-regulated and tend to do a lot more student-directed activities, which
require one-on-one consultation with me as a teacher.

My third key learning moment came during my year eight ESL (English as a Second
Language) class. I team taught this class on Thursday afternoons with another history
prac student and a casual teacher watching us (as their regular teacher was on leave).
The class is made up of 80% refugee students who speak mostly Arabic or French and
contains students of varying English literacy levels. We split up into groups for a
comprehension activity on the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. The language in the
passages was simplified for them, so the girls were able to take turns reading out
paragraphs. The girls were very supportive of each other, correcting mistakes and
complimenting their peers reading skills. We worked away on the following questions
slowly. One girl fell behind and refused to read aloud. She began to speak to her
friend, copied her work and went on her phone. I became annoyed at her behaviour

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and asked the casual teacher (who knew the class quite well) how I should handle her
misbehaviour. He informed me that her English was the poorest in the class and she
does not read aloud or complete activities out of embarrassment and fear of failure.
Without isolating her, I suggested that she use her phone to translate the complex
English words into Arabic so she could understand them. I also told her to choose a
paragraph to read aloud and practise it in her head, so when it got to her paragraph,
she would be prepared. She was able to read the entire paragraph with minimal
mistakes and her peers congratulated her and encouraged her efforts. This lesson
taught me to look beyond simple misbehaviour and discover the reasons why students
might deviate from what is expected, and from their help them break down that
barrier to learning through innovative and simple ways (Harris and Silva, 1993).

All three key learning moments: differentiation, the psychology of the classroom and
rethinking the causes of misbehaviour taught me that teaching is about adapting,
understanding, innovating and planning ahead.

Acknowledgements

My mentor teacher, Andrew Crawford and all history staff at Liverpool girls High
school

Harris, M., & Silva, T. (1993). Tutoring ESL students: Issues and options. College
Composition and Communication, 44(4), 525-537.

VanTassel-Baska, J. (2012). Analyzing differentiation in the classroom: Using the

COS-R. Gifted Child Today, 35(1), 42-48.