6.1 Identify and plan professional learning needsIn order to achieve at a graduate level against the Professional Standards for Teachers, I ensured that I was constantly reflecting on and improving myself in accordance with these standards. My post-lesson and post-unit reflections focussed on the first five of the seven standards (see Samples 3.1 and 3.2) and how to ensure that I am meeting these standards. In areas where I felt there was room for improvement, I sought out professional development opportunities that would enhance my practice. One such opportunity was the Geraldton Network of Schools "Big Day Out", which say all local public schools come together and attend a multitude of professional development session to improve their practice.
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Sample 6.1 - Professional Development Receipt |
Sample 6.2 - Scratch Presentation |
6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practiceContinuing on from Standard 6.1, the sessions I chose to attend at the "Big Day Out" (Sample 6.1) were areas that I believed would have enabled me to create richer tasks and a more engaging classroom for my learners. I took the information I learned in these sessions and altered my teaching plans to create more engaging tasks for my learners. One such task was the "Create-a-Game" task (see Sample 5.2) which saw students linking their probability knowledge covered in maths with the design and technology curriculum to create their very own board game.
Furthermore, I have also been lucky enough to run my own professional development session. Interested in ways to introduce coding into the school, the principal asked me to run a session with the staff about visual coding languages that they could incorporate into the school. For this session, I created a Scratch presentation (Sample 6.2) and answered very questions about visual coding languages and other alternatives to Scratch. This led to staff often coming to me for support when they had difficulty with coding. |
6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practiceThroughout my practicums, my mentor teachers have always given me pertinent and reliable feedback that has allowed me to improve my practice. Sample 6.3 is an example of the feedback that my mentor teacher has given me. This feedback is taken while I am delivering my lessons and then discussed with me during the next available free time. Using this feedback, I critically reflect on my lessons (see Sample 3.1) and think of different ways to apply this feedback and improve my practice.
6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learningAs explained in Standard 6.2 and Standard 6.3, I am constantly looking for ways to improve my practice. The knowledge I had gained from completing the professional development sessions on maths assessment practices and iPads in the classroom (Sample 6.1) allowed me to consider and create rich maths assessment tasks that were not simple tests (Sample 5.2). The input from my mentor teacher was also integral to my development as a professional. In her notes (Sample 6.3) she identified that a particular student was calling out over his group several times throughout a lesson. We discussed why this may be and came top the conclusion that it was just attention seeking tactics, as his behaviours had changed since coming back from the holidays. In response to this, he was shifted when the seating plan was created to the back of the classroom (see Sample 1.1). Before this change, he was seated in the group up the front. This change resulted in the student showing attention seeking behaviours less frequently.
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Sample 6.3 - Mentor Teacher Feedback |