Serial Days

Right, as part of our course we have to do school placements, and at the end of each week we have to write a reflective learning journal. Now the week before last was our 'serial week', in which we go in and get to know the setting, work out the routines and become familiar with the staff and children, before.  

So, here you have it....

I'm in a school in Hull, it's an hour drive which isn't great, but its a lovely school. I'm in a Year 1 class, and the children seem lovely. The class teacher is male, which is nice, as they are less common than females. My serial week was a bit chaotic due to me or the teacher not being in, as a result of meeting, car troubles or illness, and then obviously we've had half term, where we've been in lectures, so hopefully when I go in on Monday, we should be able to start sorting things out, working out what I'm teaching and when etc.

Over the 2 weeks I have to:

• Create a teaching timetable
• Log 12 hours of Science-be it lesson observations, activities, teaching, discussion or questionnaires, through a variety of ages
• Chose 2 children from my class and gather reading evidence for them, consisting of work, observations, and discussions & questionnaires
• Do a 'miscue test' on my 2 chosen children
• Do high frequency & tricky word tests with aforementioned children
• Discuss planning with the class teacher
• Plan and teach 5 whole class sessions
• Plan and teach 5 small group sessions
• Observe & take part in school activities such as assemblies, break times & staff meetings

So nothing much then....

I'm excited, especially having been to the school and met people, though I'm nervous also :s *eeek*

Now we are provided with prompts for our journal, so here you have it:

Identify one area of significant learning for me this week as a teacher

The importance of complete observation: Of stepping back and just watching, not interacting, or assisting, or doing some things...just doing nothing but watching, especially in an unfamiliar environment, with new children and unknown rules

Identify one area of significant learning for an individual child, a group of children or the whole class

I guess this would have to be Child H, whom I worked 1-1 with during Numeracy time one day. I had number cards 1-10 and I was getting the Child to order them and then show me the right number of beanbags that matched whichever card I held up. In terms of intellectual development, I'm not sure there was significant learning, but from what I could gather, it was quite good that Child H came and worked with me, quite willingly, that he participated and was engaged for a short period of time.

Discuss the implications of this learning for both my professional development and my teaching and learning

I'm going to look more at my learning, as I think its more relevant at this point, considering I didn't really do much in terms of developing Child H's learning, I guess I just seemed nice enough for him to feel comfortable around, which is lovely :)

I guess in terms of my own learning, well I knew observation was important, but I guess I've been reminded to think of things from other peoples point of view, by watching, and listening, by absorbing what is going on around me.

How has my CPD (continuing professional development) time this week linked to my professional development and theoretical knowledge?

Basically during my CPD time I observed a Year 6 Science lessons, I took photos of displays around part of the school, I read the schools Health & Safety Policy, Handwriting Policy and looked at information on the boards in the staffroom. I also wrote up my 'to-do' list, and planned the Science activity that I am going to do, with children from Foundation Stage up to Yr 6, as part of our Science assessment, and possibly my Research Project. I also looked in some of the children's work books, and at the resources in my classroom and the storeroom. These things are all helping me to create an overall picture of the school and how it works.

Music

As part of our Music module, we have to look at the QCA schemes of work and chose one to make notes on and look at in more depth.

The schemes can be found here: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100612050234/http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes2/music/?view=get

I've chosen to look at Unit 2-Sounds Interesting: Exploring Sounds. This is a Year 1/2 unit.

'This unit develops children's ability to identify different sounds and to change and use sounds expressively in response to a stimulus.

During this unit, children make a variety of sounds with their voices, bodies, found objects and instruments, and explore how these sounds can be changed and used expressively in response to a stimulus. They use this knowledge to select sounds that reflect the mood of chants and songs. This leads to the creation of a class performance that uses sounds to heighten the effect of a chosen story.
This unit could be revisited using a different story, poem or play'
 

 Introduction: What sounds can we hear?

The purpose of this section is to get the children to recognise different sound sources. It suggests discussing with the children about what sounds they know, what they can hear, and how they can describe them. This links to Unit 1:Listening.

It talks about introducing musical vocabulary to the children and encouraging the use of it. Also included are extension activities, such as getting the children to record different sounds around and replaying them to other children, to see if they can guess where the sounds come from.

Exploration: How can we make and use sounds expressively? (1)

This section is about the children using the different parts of their bodies to make numerous noises, and being able to describe the sounds they are making. It talks about making sounds at different speeds and different volumes and seeing what messages they create.

For extension activities it suggests getting the children to group instruments according to the sounds they make and seeing if they can draw a visual representation of the sounds they hear.

Exploration: How can we make and use sounds excessively? (2)

This section is about getting the children to focus their listening. This can be done by letting the children chose intructions about how to play, and then seeing if the other children can guess what their instruction was.

'Take the hat and pass it around
Pass it around, pass it around
Take the hat and pass it around
Stop, read, make a sound

A child picks out a piece of paper, reads it, chooses an instrument and makes the sound requested. The listening children guess what was written on the card.'

It stresses the importance of getting the children to listen and really focus on what they can hear, one what the noises sound like. For extension ideas it suggests playing hide and seek with paired sound cards, so when the children find a card they have to make the noise and find the other person making that noise.

Exploration: How can we make and use sounds excessively? (3)

This section looks at introducing instruments to children and letting them explore. This involves passing an instrument round and letting each of the children make different noises and describe them. It then talks about suggesting sounds and getting the children to chose the method or instrument that would best make that sound i.e a triangle would make the sound of a doorbell, better than a drum. It is important to offer instruments of a variety of types, including ones which children may play at home, but not in school such as the violin. Instruments such as an electric keyboard are fantastic for offering a vast array of sounds, however they need to be used in conjunction with 'real' instruments.

Exploration: How can we make and use sounds excessively? (4)

Now, having introduced instruments to the children, this section looks at helping them have control over the sound. For example stopping and starting when given the appropriate signals or changing pace accordingly. For a bit of extra challenge, children can be given multiple instructions such as fast and quiet, or they could be given the instructions in a different manner, by using symbols etc. Also suggested is a game in which the children pass an instrument such as a tambourine around, making little or no sound.

Exploration: How can we make and use sounds excessively? (5)

The objective for section 5 is for children to 'explore expressive use of sound'. This involves looking at how instruments are use to create mood and emotions, often used in films. Take a loud & jolly, familiar childrens song, and get them to play along quietly with instruments. How does it make them feel, can they see that as a result of the different sounds, they may no longer feel jolly? To extend this, try asking the children to chose a song and how it sound be played, using which instruments.

Bringing it all together: How can we use sound to describe events, feelings, moods?

This section takes all the knowledge and skills the children have acquired and combines it. The aim is for children to be able to use music expressively to illustrate a story. Chose a story that contains multiple images and events, and preferably one which the children are already familiar with. Read it to the children and get them to talk about how sounds could be added to make it more interesting. Which sounds would they add, where, and why? Would the sounds be loud or soft, fast or slow? Can the sounds be combined, or not? Record the story, re reading it, with the children adding in the sounds they discussed. Play it back, what sounds work best, why? How could it be better? Try using pictures, signs of symbols to aid the children with which sounds to play when.

And there you have it, QCA, Unit 2 Sounds Interesting: Exploring Sounds.

Although each section of this unit isn't very detailed, it gives enough information as to the purpose and aim for the children. This is enough to use as a starting point or base line when planning. It gives you lesson objectives, descriptions of how to touch on the basic ideas, sample activities or games, and links to other units.

Id love to say that I'm going to do this for each unit, because I think it would actually be really useful, as it would help me to absorb the content...however I probably don't realistically have time....who knows, you may see some other units in the future.

 

 

Maths

Part of the assessment for our Maths module is that we are given 3 questions to answer in relation to what we observed during our school experience. Its suggested that we have approximately 750 words per question response, and then an introduction and conclusion. In our Maths lecture the other day we were given 2 examples of past one in which to look at, analyse and evaluate.

For the purposes of this blog pose I'm going to refer to the writer as 'she' at times, this is no indication of my feelings or opinions of female students writing in comparison to males writing.

The first example we were given was a response to the question:


'Analyse a misconception in one aspect of calculation (addition, subtraction etc) observed during SE2 (school experience 2) placement and suggest strategies for remediation, with appropriate resources'


The example starts of describing the lesson that was observed. It briefly mentions what the lesson was about, and then explains how it was taught, what the teacher did and what the children had to do. Here it states that 'the children were then asked to help the teacher as she pretended to struggle placing certain coins'.

It seems reasonable, its explaining that although the teacher was competent at the task, and able to do it independantly, she was 'pretending' to require help, thus causing the children to get involved. However, 'pretending to struggle' could be interpreted in a million and 1 different ways. The phrasing used here is unclear and wooly.

Moving on...the lesson appears to be about 'hundreds, tens and units' however the writer does go on to say that once working out these things the children had to figure out the specific amount of money, selecting which calculation/operation to use to find the answer. It then goes on to explain that the children, when writing down the monetary answer, were writing £1.502 instead of £1.52, and it is explained that this misconception has come about due to lack of initial teacher explanation.

So, we've identified a misconception, which we have to do in order to analyse it...however, this misconception isn't about calculations, its about place value-the value of the '0', its about money in the written form. Thus automatically we can see that this example isn't going to answer the question asked.

Another issue with this is the structure, regardless of the misconception being inappropriate for the question, it should be stated at the beginning, and then go on to explain the context. Upon reading, you should be able to see straight off what the issue is that the writer is going to address.

Anyway, the writer goes on to further discuss how and why the children have developed this misconception, although she uses statements which are opinated as opposed to factual, for example 'the children had not made the link between these themselves as expected therefore wrote the wrong answer'. This statement is an assumption made by the writer as to how the children have come about their misconception. The writer cannot claim to know and understand how the misconception came about, nor can she presuppose that they all reached the same one via the same route.

Having discussed the misconception, the writer then goes on to talk about how it could be remedied, or prevented in the future. She states that the misconception could have been prevented had the teacher explained appropriately at the beginning of the lesson, however this implies that the teacher was aware of the misconception before the lesson. If this was the case, then why would the teacher not have addressed it?

She then goes on to talk about how, had the teacher been unaware of the misconception, it perhaps could have been picked up using AFL (assessment for learning) during the lesson, and then addressed through a 'mini plenary'. However, a plenary is usually a way of drawing the lesson to an end, often discussing what has been learnt and whether or not the learning objectives have been met. I feel, the use of the word 'mini' implies that this is something that has been inserted part way through the lesson, in order to deal with the issue. Therefore, how can 'the conclusion' be inserted, in a 'mini' way, during a lesson?

Another remediation method mentioned is that the teacher could have demonstrated a way of teaching which would have avoided the misconception arising to start with. However, once again this infers that the teacher was aware of the misconception before the lesson started. If the writer is trying to say how other teachers could teach in a way so as to avoid this misconception then she needs to write this using future tense and a different subject pronoun.

Next she mentions that the teacher could have used some scenarios in which the children were physically using the relevant skills and information. Again, this implies that the teacher was aware of the misconception, as opposed to saying what could be done in the future.

It is during this point that the writer mentions the possible use of place value cards, and how they could be used to address the misconception. Unfortunately, this goes back to the initial point, in that the misconception is regarding place value as opposed to calculations.

Another thing I have noticed is the lack of paragraphing in the writing. The first sentence of a paragraph should introduce something new, and then the paragraph itself should discuss it, however in this example, the lesson description and misconception are combined as one long paragraph. In addition to this, the sentence structure is poor in some places for example 'she could have used scenarios getting the children to physically act out putting it into context as some children might have already had experience of these situations'.

As a result I can conclude....answering these questions is harder than I thought :P haha I guess I just need to make sure I employ good writing strategies and proof read my work a million and one times!!

I've got a better example to compare it to, but I'l blog that later.

Itsy Bitsy Bumble Bee

Itsy Bitsy Bumble Bee, can you find the sound for me?

A class of Reception children are sitting in a circle, with the teacher. One child is given a dice with phonemes (sounds) on, and another child is given a bumble bee finger puppet. The child with the dice has to roll it, and then everyone says 'Itsy Bitsy Bumble Bee, can you find the sound for me?' The child with the puppet then has to tell everyone what the sound is. The children then do the action and the teacher asks if they can think of any words with that phoneme in. The children are also able to say whether the sound is at the beginning, middle or end.

When 'ff' comes up, the children try to describe how it is different from 'f'', one child states that it has 2 sounds, which the teachers corrects by saying "good try, it has 2 letters doesn't it, but only one phoneme". When asked what these are called, another child is able to correctly answer with "digraph". This shows the children have obviously had the correct language modelled and taught to them. This game is good, as if a child gets it wrong, its 'Itsy Bitsy' that got it wrong, oops, can we help Itsy bitsy have another try? However if a child gets it right, then in principal, it should be Itsy Bitsy that actually gets it right, else it creates a misleading rule.

Children who are shouting out, even if they have their hand up, are 'dismissed' as teacher is looking for people with 'quiet hands'.

The teacher then gets the class back to normal seating space and introduces a new sound. She shows the letter card to see if any of the children know the sound already. She then introduces the action, and discusses with the children any words they can think of with the 'l' sound in them, be it at the beginning, middle or end. Uses the jolly phonics big book page to help, using a 'pointing hand' to give clues. Also looks at children's names-who has an 'l' in their name, and where?

Then the children form a circle again, to play, 'What's in the Box?', as found in 'Letters & Sounds (pg 59 amongst other). Teacher has a box in the middle of the circle which has words in, there are corresponding pictures on the floor, around the box. The teacher explains to the children that when they get a word they are going to "blend and segment using your robot arms". This is modelling the appropriate vocabulary for children, and reminding them what they have to do. The teacher then demonstrates, so she chooses a word and sounds if out, using her 'robot arms', l-e-m-on (she hasn't sounded each phoneme, she has blended them together) She then chooses a child to say the word, and another child to choose the picture. They discuss where the sound is in the word-at the beginning. She then places the word card and the picture card by her side, reminding the children that she going to"put it right there, I'm not going to touch it or fidget with it". The game continued, with some children having turns, talking about whether their word had the 'l' sound in or not.

Once the children have had a few turns, the teacher brings out 'Philippa Phoneme', a hand puppet, who helps the children count the phonemes in words. Teacher shows Philippa a word the children found l-i-d and reads it out, the children are asked to show their 'phoneme fingers' i.e how many fingers for how many phonemes. The teacher has a look at them, and then praises the class-"well done everyone, 3 phonemes". Philippa wants to have a go at writing the phoneme, but asks class not to shout if she gets it wrong, as that will scare her, so they are to put their hands up instead.

Some children put their fingers up to draw in the air, so teacher says "you've got your hand up to show her first, that's a good idea". Gets them to demonstrate the writing. Now asks children to help Philippa with where to start-at the top. So Philippa writes the phoneme, starting at the bottom. Teacher asks '"whats the problem"? Reminds children to put their hands up (using whispering tone), one child says 'she started at the bottom'....so teacher reminds Philippa that she has to start at the top, and gives her another try. Starts from the top this time, but takes pen off, then puts it on again for the flick-children point this out, teachers agrees-"she lifted the pen up, but its got to be stuck, stuck, stuck hasn't it?" The teacher is using humour and fun in her lessons to help lighten the mood and also making it more likely to children to remember things as opposed to just remembered what has been said, they are remembering the song, or the chant etc.

Playing a game called 'Yes/No'. All the children are given a card with 'yes' on one side and 'no' on the reverse. The teacher has a question on the screen such as 'Can I lick my lips?' The children have to hold up their card showing the correct side. The purpose of the game is to get the children thinking about the sounds, blending them together to read words, and then being able to understand the meaning of the words.

Overall, I think this was a fantastic phonics lessons. Phonics is often seen as auditory, however the teacher has the children getting involved physically, with hands on activities,for those kinesthetic learners and she also has word cards and pictures for visual learners.

I basically have an awesome 20minute phonics session, just from watching this video, it was awesome...I'd love to analyse more, but I'm off to get cake!! *om nom nom*

Cross the River

As part of our English module, there are various phonics videos we can view, to show us what effective phonics teaching looks like and how it is implemented.

I've just watched one, in which Foundation Stage children were playing a game called 'Cross the River', taken from 'Letters and Sounds' (pg 43). This activity is in the 'Oral blending & segmenting-tuning into sounds' section and this sections objective is to: Develop oral blending & segmenting of sounds in words.

There was a row of children on one side of the carpet, and a parallel row on the other side, in between these rows there was a blue blanket. The teacher had a troll puppet, whom the children needed to get permission off, before they could cross 'the river'.

The teacher handed each child an object such as a 'duck', 'peg', 'cup' or 'ship'. The children then all said "Please Mr Troll, can we cross your river?" To which the troll replied "only if you have a c-u-p".

The children had to listen to the sounds and think about them, then if they blended together to make the name of the object they had, then they got to jump across the river. The idea being that all the children get a turn to cross the river eventually, however sometimes this may mean repeating an item if a child hadn't recognised it the first time.

A good thing about this game is that it can be adapted easily for children of differing abilities, for example by including digraphs such as 'sh' for sh-i-p, and also trigraphs such as 'ear' for f-ear. For children of a lower ability, who are unable to either recognise the sounds, or blend them to form a word, pictures could be used in correlation, so the child hears the sounds and connects these to the image shown, which will match the object they have. This makes it an all inclusive activity which can be done with mixed ability children.

However a negative point, is that children of higher ability might get bored or frustrated as they have to sit and listen to the 'easy words' whilst waiting for their own, this could be solved by playing in ability groups, however it does mean that the 'lower ability' children won't, in this instance, benefit from the further knowledge of their peers.

Its amazing how much more beneficial it is watching a video of an idea or a game, rather than just reading or talking about it. It creates a much better visual in your mind, which you can recall on when required. I'm totally going to play this game when on placement!!

I'd like to think of how I could liven it up a bit though, as it was a bit repetitive, with the children and the troll using the same phrases each time...but then I guess, children need repetition...hmm!!

Next video...coming right up!!

Because we all love phonics...

Ok, so for English we have various articles to read and take notes on, so I'm gonna do that here, because...well that's what my blog's for!!

So we had to read 'What is phonics and which type is the most effective?'

An overview: the article discussed analytical and synthetic phonics and compares how these styles differ. It looks at the advantages of each one, linking in with research to provide proof.

Analytical phonics starts by children learning some words by sight, followed by letter sounds at the beginning, end and finally middle positions of words, then learning to sound and blend.

Synthetic phonics has children learning a few letter sounds and then sounding and blending straight away. According to research, children learn to read and spell much better with this approach.

There is a combination of these, which is funnily enough described as 'analytic then synthetic' phonics!!

I'm going to use a mixture of the the format I used last time, and just my general thoughts and notes.

Why am I reading this?

Basically, I want to improve my phonics knowledge so that I am a more effective teacher of this subject, and have a better understanding of how and why it works. For those that don't know, phonics is pretty complex to start with, especially as it basically has its own little language-full of weird words that take a while to become familiar with. Once having taught it though, it's much easier, which is good, as I spent the whole year teaching it with my little Reception kiddies in Kuala Lumpur.

What are the authors trying to do in writing this?

Quite simply, they want to inform people about phonics, so that they go away with a better knowledge and understanding of what it is and how it works

Moving beyond the questions....

There is a lot of discussion over whether children need to be able to decode and sound out words, or whether it is more important for them to understand what they are reading. Well how can you understand it, if you can't read it? However, what's the point in being able to read the words, if you don't understand them? The whole language approach was developed as a result of these issues, this basically means that unfamiliar words are to be identified and 'read' aka understood from the context or pictures, rather than from breaking it down into sounds etc. The problem with this however is that children may guess incorrectly and therefore are giving themselves misleading information as they will then recognise the printed word incorrectly next time.

Analytical phonics was often used and became a 'drill it in' method, by providing children with lists of words. It appears that children were shown words with the same starting letter, such as 'milk', 'mum', 'man' etc, with emphasis placed on the 'm', this developed a sense of usefulness of letters, once all the letters had been looked at, they then selected the letter sounds at the end of words, then the vowels in the middle of CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.

With regards to segmenting and blending, it was argued that children be taught segmenting first as they are generally better at this, so it fits the process of development, however it has been shown that teaching blending early on is very effective.

With synthetic phonics the children are taught the letter sounds, which mean they are able to independently pronunciate things, thus being a self teaching approach. Its been shown that children learning by analytical phonics read and spelt age and stage appropriately, however children using a synthetic approach were ahead of were they would be expected for their age. It was also found that at the end of a particular time period, the 'synthetic children' could use their knowledge of their word ring, to be able to decode 'sing', however the 'analytical children' were unable to do this. Synthetic phonics has a better long term effect, also proven by research, also boys perform better than with analytical phonics, and with synthetic phonics they were better than girls in some parts.

Synthetic phonics is better for boys, possibly as it is more structured and has a 'constructional element', which may suit boys more. It has also been shown that synthetic phonics help children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

And that's pretty much it...in conclusion, synthetic phonics is great!! haha I have decided, that although teaching phonics is actually quite fun...reading and writing about it is not!!

Hope I haven't bored anyone to death!! Now it's time for bed...looking forward to an extra half hr in bed in the morning, as I don't have lectures until 10.30!! :)

Informal reflection

I would just like to state that everything in this blog is the personal opinion of me, Laura Dawson, the blogger, and should not been seen as a reflection on my university, lecturers or fellow student teachers. I do not aim to offend, insult or upset anyone, I am simply stating my opinion.



So, the crux of this whole thing: an article called 'Informal reflection in pre-service teacher education' by Melanie Shoffner. I have had a quick scout on the Internet and I couldn't find a link for you, so if you wanna check it out yourself...well, why bother when you an read my blog!! ha ha

We were given this article and told to read and critically analyse it as part of one of our modules, partially I feel to make us think about our own journey of reflection throughout this course, and partially to develop our critical reflection skills.

A bit of background-Basically the article is about reflection and how its not done enough once student teachers leave university, and enter the real world of teaching. It talks about the purpose and advantages of reflection, and in this case, how it can be done informally through the medium of 'weblogs'.

What is reflection?
Before we even started analysing and reflecting upon the article, we first had to look at what we though reflection was...we came up with key ideas such as personal, flexible, varied, adaptable, critical and both positive and negative. When comparing my thoughts to the definitions given in the article, I was surprised, as the article makes reflection sound very clear cut, very boxed and rigid, like it can be done this way, for this reason, whereas to me, reflection is more like a fluid process.

We also discussed whether we thought everyone was reflective and if it could be taught. This was interesting, I feel that maybe everyone is a reflector, just to different degrees. Some people reflect upon everything, be it the smallest or largest thing in their life, others reflect at key times in their life, or on important aspects, whereas I imagine some people, rarely give a thought to reflection...but that doesn't mean they're not doing it. When was the last time you told someone 'you'd had a bad day because....' that's reflection, perhaps in its simplest form. I do think however that people can be taught how to be 'better' reflectors-I'd say that this task is aiming at doing just that.

Moving on from this, we were given a 'suggested framework for the critical synopsis of a text', and the first question on this was:

Why am I reading this?

Now this I actually found a tricky question to answer, as my automatic response was-'because I was told to', which I'm sure you'll agree isn't actually very useful. Usually, when reading an article or doing research it's for a specific purpose...because you want to find the answer to a specific question, or you want to compare and contrast ideas on a topic. Perhaps you simply want to find a quote that is of relevance to your work, so that you can prove you've done some reading!! Whatever it is, it's a starting point, something to work from...I found that 'being told to', wasn't a significant starting point, and therefore I was behind before I'd even begun, so to speak. In the lecture today, after having previously read the article, I was able to see that even though I hadn't chosen to read it, perhaps Id had to, so as to continue our awareness of reflection and how this can be useful as a tool for professional development .

What is the author trying to do in writing this?

Reading the abstract of this article, it sounds as though the author is merely presenting informal reflection as an option for reflective thinking, as an 'approach to assist in the formation of reflective practitioners'. In theory I would say this article was written to inform others of why and how reflection can be helpful. However having read the entire article, it sounds to me, like the author feels she has 'created' informal reflection, and is trying to prove to everybody how good her idea is...

What is the author saying that is relevant to what I want to find out?

This was an easier question to answer, and I can imagine, that will probably be the case with a lot of reading. The author describes the benefits of informal reflection, which is helpful, the more positive points for something, the better. I'm not going to be keen on reflection if I keep reading things that tell me it is an unhelpful waste of time.

How convincing is what the author is saying?

Not very.... The author makes some good points, and I don't think the article should be dismissed, however I feel there are a lot of broad, sweeping statements, which are massive generalisations, such as 'reflection is not a common professional behaviour among teachers'. Now having been in numerous schools, and worked along side multiple teachers, with different experiences, opinions and backgrounds, I would disagree with this statement. Nearly every teacher I know, in a professional context or not, has demonstrated reflection to me on some level or another. Obviously, I, like the author, have only met a small minority of the worlds teachers, and therefore with no evidence, how can I back up a claim about them....I can't!! Another key point, is that the author does a study...on 9 people, one of whom drops out, so that's a study, about teachers, on 9 'pre service' teachers. Now, 8 isn't a very big sample, especially 8 people who know each other and work alongside each other, therefore this automatically makes me unsure as the reliability of this article. Like I said, I think the author says some useful things and makes me think, but I'd have much more faith in something which had hard evidence, with regards to its study done, off 200 people, at different ages, stages, and places in their teaching careers.

In conclusion, what use can I make of this?

Well, I have to say, although I don't think it's a very good article, it did persuade me to start this blog, which has got to count for something. It created a good discussion about reflection, which made me think and has sent me off on tangents, that's perhaps I never would have looked at. It also made me look at formal reflection in comparison, and how that can be affective, or not. It made me realise that sometimes we need a structure for reflection, depending on context. A critical reflection for an essay, may well require a structure, such as the one I'm using now, a quick after lesson reflection however, could be done just as easily, and effectively as a few scribbled notes and mental pointers. Another key point that I would not have thought of, without having read this article, or more it's attached appendix (a blog 'rant' from one of the study participants) is that there is a big difference between reflection and reaction, and they vary immensely in there helpfulness.

So...is reflection helpful, I think so, be it formal or informal, or both perhaps, it all depends on the context.

That's all for this post, stay tuned!!

R & R...

For most people, R & R means rest and relaxation, however, 2 weeks into my PGCE I have decided it stands for reflection and research...or rabbits and rollerblades, as they happen to be two things which I like....(my pet rabbit would probably disagree, but thats another story...)

I started my PGCE at York St John's University about 2 weeks ago, and it's been a whirlwind of new faces, places and information. I've been to literally, about 20 billion lectures already, written more notes than I can shake a stick at,  and been given a reading list that is longer than myself...and for those that don't know, I'm 5'8...so relatively 'long'.  However I've also made some lovely friends and have remembered how much I enjoy learning about children and teaching, so although this year is going to be busy, intense and quite frankly, knackering, I'm hoping its going to fun filled, educational and most definately worth it!!

Alongside my lengthy reading list, we have also been given various articles to read and make notes on...basically, research that we are to reflect on-see where the title comes in??

So I figured, what better way to do that, than on a blog...that way:

a) I'l have less pieces of paper flying around
b) It's much easier to refer back to, in 10 days, weeks or years
c) Maybe, just maybe, it will feel less like 'doing work' and more like...well, blogging!
d) Funnily enough I was inspired by an article, about weblogs, that we have to read and reflect on!!

So there you have it....now at some point I will actually post something of importance, but right now...I've got work to do ;) haha

P.S-I didn't eat my pet rabbit or anything like that, in case you were wondering, I just bought him, and then passed him from friend to friend due to my unsuitable living arrangements-I did think about taking him as hand luggage when I went to Malaysia, but he weighed too much ;) haha