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Ackoff, R., & Greenberg, D. (2008). Turning learning right side up (1st ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall.

McDonald, E. (2010). Teaching Special-Needs Students in the Regular Classroom | Education World. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/columnists/mcdonald/mcdonald022.shtml

High Impact Training Strategies. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.education.vic.gov.au/documents/school/teachers/support/highimpactteachstrat.pdf

Christen, A. (2009). Christen, A. (2009). Transforming the classroom for collaborative learning in the 21st century. Techniques, 81(1), 28. Retrieved from http://mercy21stcenturyresearch.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/4/24241889/transforming_the_classroom_for_collaborative_learning_in_the_21st_century.pdf

Bucholz, J., & Sheffler, J. (2009). Creating a Warm and Inclusive Classroom Environment. Planning For All Children To Feel Welcome, 2(4).

Osiris Educational. (2012). Dr Bill Rogers- Managing the Difficult Class [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqIXB1RG-Vg

Mizell, H. (2010). Learning Forward. Why Professional Development Matters.

Weale, S. (2016). Almost a third of teachers quit state sector within five years of qualifying. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/24/almost-third-of-teachers-quit-within-five-years-of-qualifying-figures

Sharkey, C. (2018). Code of Ethics for Educators. Retrieved from https://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/about-us/aae-code-of-ethics

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Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

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Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

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As a teacher, regardless of our own personal beliefs and ideologies, we must adhere to the rules and regulations of the school and follow its codes of ethics. I worked In a school which was from a Brethren Christian community. Throughout my placements I respected the rules and followed the guidelines that had been set out.

There was a meeting I had been involved in which was between the school, the year 10s and their parents. This was a significant meeting, as the year 10s had been called up on their misbehaviour and demotivated work ethic. The meeting touched upon how the three parties can work together to get the students ready for VCE. The document for the meeting is attached as artefact below. This was a significant turning point for me as a future teacher as it showed that, yes students will behave bad and become demotivated. But that should the a reason for us to give up on them and lose hope in them becoming future ready. Rather, collectively a plan should be formed in which the students will be guided into  becoming ready for life after school

“Abdul was warm and open from the beginning, seamlessly fitting into the community and our staffroom.” This excerpt from my mentor shows that I was able to conform with my surrounding environment and conduct myself in a professional and competent manner (Sharkey, 2018).

I was also given the opportunity to take care of some of the administrative roles, this included me taking morning class roll as well as class attendance within each period.

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I used a variety of different resources that had been developed by other educators to assist in the learning of my students. For the year 9 and 10 English class I used a resource known as a theme wheel. This allows the students to group up the themes that are in the book and list them with synonyms, examples from the book and quotes which will be extremely beneficial when completing their writing task. The theme wheel resource has been attached as artefact below. Another resources that I used was Visible thinking. This is allowed me to expand on the thoughts of the students in relation to the topic being taught, which is done through questioning their responses. This cultivated their thoughts and added depth to their knowledge of the content.

In regards to my own personal development, I was given the opportunity to attend serval staff meetings, both subject based and entire staff based. I gave my input in the meetings with some of the OH&S issues I had noticed. In the English meeting I discussed how using role play or using a word bank would make reading Shakespeare a lot for enjoyable and engaging for the students.

It was intended for me to go to a VCE development excursion, however due to the flood warnings and bad weather it was postponed to a later time which was extremely disappointing as it would have been a great learning experience.

As a future teacher it is essential that I take any, and every opportunity which arises in training and developing my abilities to strengthen my practice throughout my career. Thus allowing me to manage any unfamiliar issues effectively (Mizell, 2010).

Prior to the commencement of my placements I attained the certificate in asthma training as well as completing the epi pen course.

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Bill Rogers and his different clip on youtube aided me significantly in the development of my classroom management skills. Within each video of his, he dissects how to manage different scenarios where students within the classroom are misbehaving.

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Dr Bill Rogers - Managing the Difficult Class

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Create and Maintain Supportive and Safe Learning Environments

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Create and Maintain Supportive and Safe Learning Environments

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The classroom is an environment where students should feel safe and protected. It is the duty of the teacher to create and encourage this type of learning environment to ensure that the students feel comfortable as a member of the classroom (Bucholz & Sheffler, 2009).

Managing classroom behaviour was something that I found extremely challenging throughout my time as a pre-service teacher. I would be so focused on delivering the content and following the lesson plan, that I would completely ignore what is going on in the classroom. I was not aware of what was going on however, it was reported to me by my mentor that the students would be playing on their laptops and not listening whilst the lesson was proceeding.

Another common occurrence in my classroom was the constant rocking of the chairs and yelling out of the answers in the classroom. In particular, I had one student who was extremely fascinated by me. This fascination would cause him to persistently ask me personal question mid class, which would really catch me off guard and cause me to lose my train of thought.

The image that is attached below shows that whilst i am teaching the classroom a student is resting her leg on a another chair and the student next to her is on her laptop whilst I am speaking. These highlight the areas which I need to develop in.

To ensure that 4.3 and 4.4 of the AITSL standard where being followed I had many conversations with my mentor as to how I can overcome the challenges I had been facing. I was referred to watching a video by Bill Rogers who is a world renown behaviour expert. The video showed strategies which I could use to manage challenging classrooms. It made it clear to me that the bad behaviour was something common and faced by almost all teachers. The students would behave in this manner to demand attention, therefore it is essential to set the precedent from the beginning as there is no honeymoon phase with the students (Osiris Educational, 2012).

As noted by my mentor, with time I grew confidence and I gained the ability of shifting my tone and controlling the classroom with hand gestures which would allow to me proceed with my lesson without any interference. However, with future classes I need to set the precedent from the beginning and ensure that the students trust me and aren’t put in a situation where they are demanding to receive my attention. It is the difficult behaviour and classroom management that causes one third of teachers to leave the teaching profession within a three year span (Weale, 2016).

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Here on this artefact, it can be seen that i am seeing where the students are at with the set task. This particular student was an advanced student, therefore i would question what she is doing and challenge what she has written to strengthen her understanding of the content.

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Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

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Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

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Through my time in Glenvale, I was able to learn and implement different teaching strategies. I used collaborative learning, questioning, games and visible thinking.  I found that different strategies would work well on some days and on other days it wouldn’t. It was a difficult task to decide what would work best with each class. However, I found that collaborative learning which is where students are provided with the opportunity to participate in flexible groups that collaborate on meaningful tasks ("High Impact Training Strategies", 2017), was a strategy I incorporated in a lot of my class rooms as I felt that it worked best and allowed the students to use their various ideas and come to a conclusion collectively.

As a future teacher, I will be teaching in the digital age, therefore it is of paramount importance that I use technology and the resources it offers within my classrooms. Being placed in a school which heavily relies on the use of technology, I witnessed and experienced what teaching will be like in the future. With the students having technology surrounding them in their daily lives, they aren’t accustomed to sitting in the classroom and taking notes. Therefore, using technology to mirror the learning environment like that of their daily lives will assist in the student’s engagement and also in excelling in their studies (Christen, 2009). Through all of my lessons technology was in use as the school was operating a system known as ‘zoom’ in which I was able to teach students from other campuses whilst also teaching my own. I also used Kahoot, PowerPoint presentations, and also videos that complied with the school’s policies and curriculum to enrich the students knowledge.

The following artefact shows, how i used technology to create an activity which well get the students thinking and writing. It also shows the use of zoom in the classroom. The activity being completed is a creative writing one, in which students are given an image that they will write a short script on.

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Working with Vernon on his comic book strip of Jessica Watson. This was a great learning experience as it enabled me to realise the differing levels of students within each class, and how important it is for us teachers to cater for those who aren't at the same level as their peers.

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Within every classroom, there are students which are at different levels. It is imperative that as a teacher, the lesson that has been planned does not cater for only the students that are at a lower level or those who are only at a higher level, rather to be engaging for all learners within the class. There are also three different type of learners, you have your visual learners, auditory learners and kinaesthetic learners. The lesson plan needs to be shaped in a way where you are able to engage all types of learners.

Whilst I spent the first week of placements observing my mentor, I was given the opportunity to spend time with two students who had learning difficulties. It was a great challenge trying to figure out how I can aid these two students to keep up with the rest of the class. The first was George in year 7. He struggled with spelling and putting his ideas and thoughts onto paper. When working with him, to ensure that he was able to spell the words, I would pronounce the word through the use syllables. This would help him immensely when it came to typing. Getting the ideas he had in his mind, was an extremely difficult task. However, after speaking to my mentor, I was advised to get his thoughts out through questioning. By asking him questions that are aligned with the topic he was able to splurge his ideas onto the computer and finish the appointed task. Georges final Powerpoint has been attached to show how I have used questioning and syllables to help him complete his assignment.

The next student was Vernon in year 8. His reading, writing and speaking abilities was extremely low in comparison to the rest of the classroom, therefore he wasn’t able to do the same activities which his peers where doing. A different program was formed for him where he would still complete the task required but in a different form. Instead of writing with him, I had the task of sitting with him and creating a comic book on the life of Jessica Watson.  Sitting with him was a great experience as it showed that, although the student is not on par with his fellow peers, he can still be part of the class and reach his potential through the use of external resources (McDonald, 2010).

Working closely with these two students in particular made me realised how rewarding being a teacher is. The satisfaction which you get from helping not only special needs students but any student in general is like nothing else. Not only was it satisfying helping these students but it was also an eye opener as to how important a teacher is in the development of a child.

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Being the role models for the students, it is our job to ensure that the students develop and grow into adults who will be of benefit and great service to the wider society.

I believe that as a future teacher, it is imperative that the teacher acts as a mentor towards the students. It is the duty of the teacher to ensure that the students are learning and not being taught or forced into memorisation. A strong belief of mine comes from Ackoff & Greenberg (2008) which is that, a teacher should do what computers and machines cannot do.

Not only is acting as a mentor important, keeping the classroom as a safe and warm environment is also a major requirement. This will aid the students in their growth, as safety will allow to be part of class discussions and question what they are unsure of.

I do not believe that as a teacher we should mould the minds of our students, rather we should use this privilege as a means to allow the students to expand and grow their own individual personalities. Thus, allowing them to become creative.

Most importantly, I come back to a quote from Oscar Wilde, “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.” I will strongly advocate self-teaching in my classroom as I strongly believe that sometimes the best way for anyone to learn is to follow their own differing learning methodologies.