Standards:
S1, S2, S4, S8, S9, S10, S14
For the past few months, I have had the pleasure of observing my mentor in many lessons. It has opened my eyes to what can be achieved after just two years of teaching practice. My mentor came through the same process as myself and this benefits me greatly as they have walked in my shoes and know what I am going through. This type of learning is linked to Bandura’s Social Learning Theory that “Most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions, this coded information serves as a guide for action”(Bandura, 1977). Another benefit of this is that my mentor knows what standards should be hit and how best to approach them. It is well known today that observing other teachers is a form of collaborative professional development. Teachers observing each other can yield its greatest benefits when used as a means of sharing techniques that work, rather than scrutinising one another (educationworld.com, 2017).
Observing my mentor has definitely made me more aware of my own teaching and the techniques I can use that would benefit me in the classroom. A few weeks in I went from observing for my own confidence to asking myself how I could incorporate certain things into my own teaching. A quote from (Borich, 2016) clearly reflects what I was going through:
As you observe in classrooms, you will become aware that the stream of events is not the same in every classroom and that sometimes teachers make decisions simply out of habit. If your observations lead to questions such as “Should I be doing that?””Could that work in my classroom?” or “Would I have done that?”, your observations are beginning to make you more aware of your own teaching.
The first thing I took on into my own teaching was having a more relaxed persona in the classroom. To start with I was quite nervous and formal which then transferred over to the students which made the classroom quite uncomfortable. Watching my mentor not be afraid to get involved in conversations and humour the students, really helped me understand that having a more relaxed persona creates a better environment and more engaged students. As soon as I started getting more comfortable with the students I noticed that teaching became a lot easier. The only downside to this was that students would get too comfortable and start to drift away from the topic. This, however, can be corrected easily by reminding them again what the topic was.
Another great technique that I learned from my mentor was the use of a pre-starter to get the students engaged. My mentor used funny videos or interesting information to get the students ready to learn. I took this information and came up with my own idea of starting the day with brain teaser questions that would get them engaged. When my mentor used the pre-starter in their class I noticed that the SEN students were not feeling included as most students would just shout out an answer or fact. What I learnt from this was to make sure that all students were told to write down their answers which we could then check together. This made sure that the SEN students were comfortable taking part and could contribute to this activity.
My mentor also taught me a valuable lesson on how important student profiles are and made sure that I was building my own group profile as soon as I started teaching. I learnt that I would usually plan according to my teaching style which may not match the learning style of all the students. In our education system today we usually assess students based on memorising information and analysing it. We forget that students may excel in other areas of learning that we haven’t put into our planning. Sternberg’s Triarchaic Theory of Intelligence points out that students who excel in these two abilities will usually get the better grades. But students who are practically oriented and need to know the relevance of what they are doing tend to lose out. He even points out that we teachers are practical learners who will ignore lectures or workshops that we believe do not apply to us. So why should we label our own students in this way (EducationalLeadership, 2017). I have started to use all four ways of teaching in my planning rather than just memory and analysis. I have started to use activities that also allow for creativity and practicality. For example, when writing a letter I advised them that they should write it to an employer or a University, this shows them the real life application of a letter that they will most likely use in the future. Another example is an art student I had that was struggling to write the description of a scene. So I told the student to draw me the scene instead and from that was able to write a very creative description.
Observing my mentor has helped my teaching in many different ways. I feel that it was one of the best experiences so far on the PCET course. I understand now why teachers are encouraged to observe and share ideas with each other. I still believe that my mentor has some habits that I would not include in my teaching but for the most part, I have learned valuable lessons that may have taken me a long time to learn on my own.
References:
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press.
Borich, G D, 2016. Observation Skills for Effective Teaching: Research-Based Practice. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Educational Leadership:How Children Learn:What Does It Mean to Be Smart? . 2017. Educational Leadership:How Children Learn:What Does It Mean to Be Smart? . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar97/vol54/num06/What-Does-It-Mean-to-Be-Smart%C2%A2.aspx. [Accessed 03 March 2017].
Education World: Teachers Observing Teachers: A Professional Development Tool for Every School. 2017. Education World: Teachers Observing Teachers: A Professional Development Tool for Every School. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin297.shtml. [Accessed 03 March 2017].
John McCarthy. 2017. How Learning Profiles Can Strengthen Your Teaching | Edutopia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/learning-profiles-john-mccarthy. [Accessed 03 March 2017].
My journey 