Reflection 2

NSW Institute of Teachers’ Professional Teaching Elements:

7 Teachers are actively engaged members of their profession and the wider community (inc. Elements: 7.1.1-7.1.6)

 I had an experience in a Food Technology class that really opened my eyes to the “importance of involving parents and caregivers in the educational process (NSW Institute of Teachers’ Element 7.1.3).” I had management to create lesson that seemed to engage all the students in a 9/10 composite elective, or at least I thought I had, so technically all students should be experiencing beneficial learning (Killen, 2003). Until one lesson I decided to collect workbooks from a handful of students to observe development. I notice one student, we will call her Anna, had a work book full of incomplete work. Anna wasn’t exactly disruptive during lessons and having just given her the 3rd highest mark for an assessment task, I was a little confused.  Luckily I was given the opportunity to meet, what I assumed would be her parents, at parent teacher interviews. As I sat waiting for Anna’s family to arrive, I was a little thrown when a women sat down in front of me resembling, what I would see as the exact opposite to Anna. She introduce herself as Anna’s foster-mother and then suddenly the reason behind Anna’s behaviour seemed obvious. Her carer explained to me that Anna dealt with a lot of confidence issues due to her unstable life. I was also told that she attended the schools homework centre each afternoon and highly benefitted from one on one instruction. This background information on Anna explained all of her behaviour. Straight after the interview I went to my desk and began revising my lesson with her for the following day. I altered worksheets I had developed to ensure they contain explicit information with step by step instructions. At the beginning of the lesson I handed back the assessment tasks and hoped that her high-grade would be the confidence boost Anna needed. I began the lesson with a discussion and ensured that I used prompting and clarifying to encourage her participation (McBurney-Fry, 2005). I wanted to make sure I was still providing an effective learning environment by ensuring I was a facilitator rather than a director. In doing this I was hoping to retract from a teacher centred approach and place the focus on the individual student, where they must take control of their learning (Hirumi, 2002). I found this strategy to be successfully as the discussion stimulated the need for complete student involvement.

 

 

Killen, R (2003) Effective teaching Strategies: Lessons from research and practice (3rd ed). Australia: Social Science Press

Hirumi, A (2004). Student-Centred, Technology-Rich Learning Environments: Operatioanlising Constructivust Approaches to Teaching and Learning. Jl of Technology and Teacher Education (2002) 10 (4), 497-537

McBurney-Fry, G. (2005). Improving your practicum: A guide to better teaching practice. Thomson: Social Science Press: Victoria