ESS701 - Readings by Joseph Ferguson

Module 1 reading

2025-07-08 08:07:13 UTC

I liked how this article listed some strategies that could work in the classroom, some in which with my limited teaching experience I hadn't thought of before. I especially liked the idea of the mini lessons that were each followed by an activity as well as starting the class off with essential questions to be critical and collaborative. I feel as those these would make learning more meaningful for the students.

When reading this it made me think back to my first observational placement where my mentor teachers suggested I sit in the back most of the time. I felt like I was really shadowing a student on these days, and I too felt it was difficult to pay attention and every not to yawn all the time!

Empathy!

josephpaulferguson — 2025-07-09 01:28:32 UTC

Reading this really reminded of the centrality of 'empathy' in what we do as teachers. Our professional lives as teachers is about relationships with students (and colleagues) and this ought to always start with empathy.

To be a student

2025-07-11 14:10:43 UTC

This article reminded me how important it is for teachers to see things from the student’s perspective. Sometimes we forget how confusing learning can be, especially when we already understand the content ourselves. Stepping into the role of a student — specifically interdisciplinary — helps us feel their struggles and reminds us to be more empathetic and supportive.

Sean

Self-esteem is complicated!

josephpaulferguson — 2025-07-16 02:29:51 UTC

We are often bombarded through various media etc. that there is a causal relationships between self-esteem (whether low or high) and certain aspects of our mental wellbeing and social functioning. But this reading makes clear that many of these links are correlational and not causal. It is a good reminder that common-sense understandings (including about self-esteem) do have their value, but it is limited and needs to be complimented with more scientific perspectives. So, the big question is; how does a consideration of students' self-esteem come into what the teacher needs to think about in terms of working with their students in the classroom?

Research

2025-07-16 10:34:28 UTC

I really liked how this article incorporated a lot of different studies to continuously disprove predicted correlation with self-esteem. I feel like everytime the reader had a chance to second guess the study, the author anticipated it and rebutted it with another studies findings. Thus, I had to keep requestioning my stance on self esteem. I feel like in a psychology class students should always be kept on their toes to critically think everything. A further question I had was how self-efficacy links to self-esteem and education?

Self-esteem (?)

2025-07-18 10:11:30 UTC

I thought this reading was super interesting - self-esteem is often pitched as the solve-all to mental health issues or to boost life satisfaction, whereas this article is basically saying we don't actually have enough evidence to prove this. However, I kept thinking throughout the reading, how are they defining self-esteem? In some instances they seem to talk about self-perceived attractiveness, then self-assurance, then self-worth, self-determination, etc... Sure, these are all plausibly related to self-esteem and maybe I'm being to critical but just my reflection on the piece. It would be interesting to see further analysis/research.

Collaboration

2025-07-21 12:01:48 UTC

I really like the idea of collaborating as teachers, especially as an emerging teacher I feel like it would be really beneficial to improve my practice. I do, however, see how it can go wrong, or, how as an emerging teaching I can be manipulated into believing something against my own values and beliefs in teaching. That's why I think personal critical reflection is extremely important after collaborating with others, as the collaboration process can too be continuously improved. I also think teachers can be great models of collaboration for students in their classroom and can develop their collaboration skills alongside their students.

Discuss about PLC

2025-07-24 12:56:26 UTC

This is a clear-cut article. The author pointed out the isolation, lack of support and formalism in teacher collaboration and criticised the inefficiency of "voluntary collaboration". However, I think the "Professional Learning Community (PLC)" he advocated is still worth discussing.

First, the article's introduction to PLC is relatively abstract, lacking specific practical details, and ignoring the reality that teachers are short of time. Policy-based collaboration to share cases may not be more effective than daily exchanges during tea breaks. The dispersion of student teaching responsibilities may also cause unclear teaching improvements.

Second, with the development of AI and online platforms, teachers' ways of cooperation are becoming increasingly diverse. If we rely solely on the system to promote teacher cooperation, while ignoring technology empowerment and individual differences, we may not be able to achieve the ideal cooperation effect. I think it is more important to create a cultural atmosphere that supports teacher growth.

Collaborating is not so straightforward

josephpaulferguson — 2025-07-24 23:57:29 UTC

This reading made me think about the relationship between teachers collaborating and their status as professionals. It makes clear that while some collaboration is productive (professional learning communities), in others ways it can just be a 'tick the box' exercise. It's also worth carefully considering the different ways in which co-planning, co-teaching, and co-reflection might play out for your and your teaching colleagues (particularly when it comes to psychology)

Reading reflection

2025-07-28 07:26:55 UTC

I think collaborating is fundamentally key to teaching profession, however some teachers are really adverse to doing it and it often feels like a check box exercise. I think this sometimes might come down to collaboration feeling like extra work. In an industry where teachers are incredibly reactionary and complaining of being time-poor and having too large a workload, collaboration must be intentional. Also, as with a lot of things, I think this also comes down to funding (building intentional collaboration time into working hours) and workplace culture (what does this collaboration look like? what are the expectations? who is driving it? is it seen by the teaching staff as a hassle?)

Self-fulfilling prophecy?

josephpaulferguson — 2025-07-29 23:36:11 UTC

Fascinating! Teachers' expectations about particular students significantly impact their interactions with these students. But how to manage and foster expectations that benefit all students? Alter behaviours? How do this in practice?

Having fun can be good for learning

2025-08-28 23:56:58 UTC

A challenge we often face as teachers is how to transition students from engagement to learning. It is one thing for students to be engaged in the content, but quite a different thing for them to be learning this content. It seems that perhaps having fun as a key part of engagement might be critical to make thins next step to deep learning. So we need to have more fun with our students as teachers! How might this relate to inquiry and explicit approaches to teaching?

Engagement is hard to pin down

josephpaulferguson — 2025-09-05 02:56:19 UTC

It is so very true that as teachers, we often frame student engagement in terms of disengagement, and this really is a deficit approach to education. We also tend to consider ourselves as adept at recognising when students are engaged/disengaged, but this may not actually be the case. Are we really tuning into the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural aspects of what is going on in our classrooms? If not, how can we do this better?

Discovery as a class

2025-09-12 05:43:16 UTC

The first point made me think of a student I taught on placement who would ask questions that wouldnt be considered as necessary knowledge for the purpose of their final assessment but was still displaying engagement with the content. For example when looking at factors which influence an areas liveability, she asked quesitons such as "what is the most unliveable city?" "which city is the most liveable?" "why do people stay there if its so unliveable?". I opted to get another student to google the ratings of liveability for cities so we could explore those questions as a class for five minutes before continuing on. I knew it wasnt going to be on their upcoming CAT but it was fun to explore that information and figure it out as a class (myself included!)

Tensions between strategies? Getting the mix right

josephpaulferguson — 2025-09-18 04:22:23 UTC

It's worth considering any tensions between the strategies, or perhaps a better way of putting it is thinking about when and how to employ which strategies (whether concurrently or at same time).