Changes in my Practice

Week 32 - Activity #8:

“…reflective practice is interpreted and understood in different ways, within our discussion, reflective practice is viewed as a means by which practitioners can develop a greater level of self-awareness about the nature and impact of their performance, an awareness that creates opportunities for professional growth and development. As explained in Chapter 1, awareness is essential for behavioral change.”  Osterman and Kottkamp (1993).

I have been on this journey of formal 'learning' for a little while now, starting my Post Grad Diploma of Education four years ago and then beginning my Masters of Ed last year but then, Mindlab came to Rotorua...an opportunity I couldn't pass away.  I thought I would cope with ease however I was wrong!  I've struggled and found parts of this course difficult on many occasions and I can certainly say, I've been 'stretched'.  Even though I began this Mindlab journey with two other colleagues passionate about learning and have benefitted greatly from our interactions, I have also enjoyed the ‘mixing and mingling’ among other like-minded people too.

I found the first 16 weeks of this course exciting as we experienced many ‘hands-on’ activities using different tools while observing different theories and models of learning.  These experiences allowed me to consider practically, how I could best use technology to supplement and support learning in my classroom while understanding some of the research and evidence underpinning these.  The second part of the course has been difficult to find motivation to keep going, but I’ve been lucky to have one of my colleagues still here alongside me as we keep pushing each other (my other colleague has a great job stretching her inquiry and elearning skills and strengths and, she is ‘totally’ happy!).

Additionally to this learning journey, I have always looked closely at myself and at how I could improve my teaching practices to better meet the needs of my students.  But it has been in recent years where this reflective practice has become more critical, more meaningful and at times, uncomfortable.  Using research and evidence to support my learning is more explicit.  Teaching as Inquiry has played a role in supporting my reflective process by creating a cyclic framework of experience observation and review.  The key here, is for oneself to always seek a better way of doing something, to identify weaknesses and strengths and to work towards improving while remembering, there will always be something I can make better :)

Only two?  The PTCs resonating with my learning and personal reflective practice are:

1. Criteria 5:  Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning
2. Criteria 7:  Promote a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment

Criteria 5:  Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning:

Despite not formally having any leadership role as such, I have behaved in different contexts, as a 'change agent', offering support to colleagues when needed and especially during moments of 'just-in-time' learning.  This was evident during my time at a school, while working through our ICTPD contract.  Implementing digital technology in an innovative way to support my learning and the learning of my 5 year olds took time and thought but set me on a path where I was supported by theory and research.  While working towards completing and then implementing the LDC assignments, taking on a leadership-type role among colleagues was exercised in a more practical sense, where I was guiding and leading rather than just working alongside them.  We began to look at how we could implement digital technology into their classroom programmes with the needs of these teachers and their students in mind.  This is an ongoing process and will most likely continue until the end of the year with again, the experience, observation and review process.

Criteria 7:  Promote a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment:

I believe the environment I have created for my New Entrant students is an inclusive and supportive learning environment, engaging and nurturing children into transitioning from pre-school to a formal learning setting, where students become comfortable in taking learning risks.  Even though, my children do collaborate in many tasks, I don’t believe I am enabling my students into collaborating at a deeper level exploring richer problems in a real-life context nor am I empowering my students with a greater sense of ‘student agency’, which through this course, my interests in creating an innovative learning environment and developing deeper student agency has become an interest of mine. 

What Now?

After Mindlab, which in a way, I’m a little sorry to see the end of despite these last few months being trialling to say the least, I will still be a little busy:

•        My immediate future goal is to complete my ACET Portfolio by mid-July, ready for tweaking before submitting in August
•        Continuing to support teachers with their innovations (eg effective ipad use and using Class Seesaw) within their classroom programmes
•        No more study for the rest of the year – I promised my children to be a ‘nicer’ and more ‘attentive’ Mum
•       Pick up where I left off for my Masters of Ed in Semester 1, 2017
•        And the biggie…continue to apply what I have learnt through Mindlab, into my classroom programmes and document everything!  I’ve had the extra support of specialist teachers (ie RTLit) to show and discuss literacy data results with as an outcome of using digital innovations in my class to support learning – stimulating discussions have occurred over this pass year and further observations of student progress is required to make comparisons between 2015-2016 students

Well, I guess this is it.  Thank you for the ‘ride’ and I wish all others well in their journeys.  I’ll be returning to the Google+ community for a while but then soon it will be a little like returning to an empty building…you all would’ve moved out and moved on.  Nevertheless, thank you J

References:

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Registered-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning

Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from 

http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

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