Reflecting on the Practising Teacher Criteria (PTC) and e-learning
This last activity is very
practical in nature and as on line teaching portfolios look to be the way of the
future one of my future goals will be to turn this blog into a working
portfolio with individual pages where I can select resources to evidence each
of the criteria.
This year has been
thrilling. There have been many days where I've walked into my classroom buzzing
and my learners were buzzing and we buzzed together and work wasn't work. At the heart of the teaching profession are our
learners. They are the why in Simon Sinek's Golden Circle . Mind Lab has given me many ways in which to
develop effective professional relationships with akonga, colleagues and the
community.
This year, my relationships
are saturated with opportunities to establish and maintain effective
professional relationships. We are a
Google Apps school; students in my 1:1 digital device classroom all have gmail
accounts tied to blogs. We are striving
to make all of our learning visible.
This transparency lends itself to many opportunities to engage parents
and to foster positive professional conversations.
The feedback I received
from DCL 1, stating that I needed to focus on co-construction, set off a series
of self discoveries about me as a teacher.
I moved from expecting students to guess what I wanted them to achieve
to incorporating them in their own learning, to co constructing what we saw as
success, to allow them to design a programme around their needs.
With a 5 of my 31 students
officially being recognised as having processing difficulties (plus another 3
non diagnosed cases) my new stance on what qualifies as success opened new
avenues for these students. When they
were engaged in taking charge of their learning, they started to take pride in themselves,
they became less anxious, and they experienced success and became more
confident. Once they took on board ownership,
they also had to be more accountable. They
stopped hiding. I stop letting them
hide.
Parents looking for keys to
unlock dyslexic learning or children with processing issues often place them in
device laden rooms. In the future I
would like to delve into how these children best learn and their roads to
success. What are their needs? What are things which create roadblocks for
them? 5:31 is a high ratio and I think it is a poor indication that I as a
classroom teacher have no training in how best to serve the needs of these
learners.
I think that LDC has
created several monsters at our school.
We are a staff of 30+ teachers, 4 principals and 7 teachers who have or
are completing their Certificate in Applied Practice. There is something different about the
seven. We consider how we can most
effect change. We contemplate and
formulate. We are stretching and pulling
at the fabric of our school. I've heard
senior management complain about Mind Lab.
I like it. Am I disruptive? It is something I now strive for in my
practice.
Unfortunately I've also
heard two of my fellow Mind Lab attendees say “I’m not going to shift my
pedagogy until next year. I don’t have
time right now.” Like he has frozen his
brain until a specifically selected date and one of my fellow Mind Lab
attendees actively dissuades others from attending, stating “It won’t teach you
how to run a digital classroom.”
It’s been a big journey. My brain
is full of ideas and to be frank, I am tired.
My learners are tired. We've worked
hard this year and we deserve our break.
Together we've benefited from my professional journey.
Next Steps
- · Creating a digital Practising Teacher Criteria portfolio with supporting evidence
- · Personal professional development on effective teaching strategies for children with processing difficulties
- · Planning and implementing using educational frameworks like : Universal Design for Learning, Assessment for Learning, and Design Thinking
- collaborative planning with colleagues
- team teaching
