Bahrain Teachers College

Bahrain Teachers College

University of Bahrain

Post Graduate Diploma of Education (Intermediate/Secondary)

Professional Practice Journal

Semester 2

Reflecting on Professional Practice

Teacher Candidate Details:

______

Teaching Practice School:

Address:

Phone #:

Website:

Email:

Cooperating Teacher:

Subject Area:

YOU MUST COMPLETE AND RETAIN THIS JOURNAL

TEACHING PRACTICE2: Designing Quality Learning Experiences

The Practicum Seminar is a vital link between your classroom Teaching Practice and the teacher education programme courses at BTC. Discussions with your classmates in the Seminar are based on your experiences and information collected in the practice school setting. The structured writing tasks in this journal will frame the Seminar conversations between you and your peers. In the first part of the semester, you will be asked to document and describe, adding personal reflection. Analysis and deeper understanding become the focus as you become more adept at reflective practice.

Maintaining a reflective journal involves a series of essential tasks that form part of your teaching practice evaluation. These tasks would include such things as thinking about what you did and writing your thoughts down. For specific examples, see both the course syllabus and the observation check sheet completed at least twice in the semester by your BTC FacultySupervisor (FS) and Cooperating Teacher (CT).

Bymaintaining a reflective journal, you not only provide data that show that you are developing as a teacher but also demonstrate competency as a life-long learner.

As a Student Teacher of the Bahrain Teachers College, you are required to maintain a reflective journal throughout the entire professional practice component of your Programme).

Items from this journal should be included in your Teaching e-Portfolio;evidence that supports professional and personal competencies.

Structure of the Teaching Practice 2 Journal

Over the 22 days of Teaching Practice 2, you will complete this journal and a series of teaching tasks.The Journal will engage you through a series of reflective tasks that engage you deeply in a broad spectrum of professional practice. In turn, these richer understandings will also help you mature in your teaching role.

As a teacher candidate of the Bahrain Teachers College, you are required to maintain a reflective journal throughout the entire teaching practice.Each Journal Entry includes a peer discussion point and a reflection prompt

There are different styles to journaling can be approached in many ways: diagrams, dot points with expansion of a key idea, reporting style text, illustrations/photos with analysis. Some of the tasks will be better completed in one style rather than another. You may want to try different approaches with some of the questions.

REFERENCES:

Bullock, A. A., & Hawke, P. P. (2001). Developing a teaching portfolio: A guide for preservice and practicing teachings. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Hardin, C. J. (2008). Effective classroom management: Models and strategies for today’s classrooms (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Khine, M. S., Lourdusamy, A., Quek, C. L., & Wong, F. L. A. (2005). Teaching classroom management: Facilitating teaching and learning. Singapore: Prentice-Hall.

Rand, M. K., & Shelton-Colangelo, S. (2003). Voices of student teachers: Cases from the field (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Tileston, D. W. (2007). Teaching strategies for active learning: Five essentials for your teachingplan. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Corwin Press.

Teaching Journal Checklist Programme: PGDE Stage: TP2 – Semester 2

In a suggested sequence, tasks should be done by the end of Teaching Practice 2. When you have completed the Journal task, tick off the box in the list. Your BTC Faculty Supervisor will then assess your work and add suggestions in the comments section.

Rate: Not Yet Evident = NYE; Competent = C; Exceeding Competence = EC

Task / Included
/ / Quality
(NYE, C, EC) / Guiding Comments
Starting Off! – Prior to TP1 placement /  / 

Getting Started

/  / 

Student Learning Needs

/  / 

Using Differentiated instruction

Mid-point review:

/  /  / Am I meeting my goals? What do I need to work on?

Building Rapport

/  / 

Extending Students’ Thinking

/  / 

Getting away from the Textbook

/  / 

Scaffolding Learning

/  / 

Assessing Learning Progress

/  / 

Teaching File & e-Portfolio Check

/  / 

Journal Entry Pre 1: Prior to TP Placement

Entry PRE A: Read and think about the professional competencies and behaviors describedin the

BTC Prospectus. In this semester and at TP 2 which of these expectations do you think will be the most difficult challenge for you? Why do you think this is so?

Entry PRE B: Review three learning goals from Teaching Practice 1. Identify the main areas for your improvement.

Personal Reflection 2: Write what you hope to achieve during this practicum.

Journal Entry 1: Getting Started

Entry 1.A:

Before your initial school attachment last year, you made a picture (either a photo, or a description) of yourself as you were dressed and ready for your first day at school as a teacher candidate. Is that picture today the same as last semester’s picture of you? Why or why not? Have your feelings about going to school as a teacher changed since last year? How have your feelings changed? What has made your feelings different?”

TODAY …LAST YEAR

I am

I know

I believe

I want

I wonder

Entry 1.B. Collect official information and documents about your school. Ask your principal or head teacher for a copy of the school assessment policy. Did you have a better idea of what to ask for this year? Did this school give you similar documents as your last year’s school?

Entry 1.C: Be sure to make up a schedule of classes with your CT. Which classes will you observe and which classes will you teach? When will you start teaching?

Journal Entry 2: Students’ Learning Needs

Entry 2.A: Classroom Task with Survey. In collaboration with your Cooperating Teacher, prepare a task designed to assess student learning needs. At the end of the lesson, use a strategy such as Question-and-Answer Profiles (reference:Tileston, 2007, p.12) that can be adapted to the current programme topics for different classes.

Pupils’ Task: Construct a simple learning readiness profile (Tomlinson, 2007, p. 70) for your students. You may have to translate this into Arabic. On a lesson exit-slip ask:

HOW DO YOU LIKE TOLEARN?

I study best when it is quiet.
I can ignore noise while I am working.
I like to work at a table or desk.
I like to work on the floor.
I watch TV or listen to music when I do my work at home.
I work hard for myself.
I work hard to please my parents or teacher.
I work on an assignment until it is completed no matter what.
Sometimes I get upset by my work and do not finish it.
When my teacher gives an assignment, I like to have all the steps needed to complete it.
When my teacher gives an assignment, I create my own to complete it.
I like to work by myself.
I like to work in pairs or in groups.
I like lots of time to work on an assignment.
I like a limited amount of time to work on an assignment, and no more.
I like to learn by moving and doing.
I like to learn while sitting at my desk.
I like to learn by listening.

/ Yes / No

Entry 2.B:What did you discover about students’ learning preferences?

Peer Discussion Point: With a peer, discuss what you can do in the classroom as a teacher to help students see and use new ways of learning.

Personal Reflection 2: Outline what you learned about student learning styles and needs.

Journal Entry 3: Using Differentiated Instruction

You are now teaching some lessons in the classroom under the direct supervision of you CT. For one of the lessons or part of a lesson you are teaching, make a small group activity. In the activity, use your knowledge of differentiated instruction to make different tasks for advanced, capable, and less able students. Be sure that all students can complete some tasks. Remember that students also work at different speeds, and make the advanced tasks longer, or make up special tasks for students who finish their tasks early.

Entry 3.A: How did the different tasks you created meet the students’ learning needs? Pretend you are a student at each of the different levels of tasks as you as you write your answer.

Peer Discussion Point: Compare the level of difficulty of the learning tasks you created with the level of difficulty of the tasks created by your observation partner and your CT.

Personal Reflection 3: Consider your CT’s approach to teaching. What methods does she/he use to engage all students in lesson tasks?

Journal Entry 4:Mid-point review: Am I meeting my goals? What do I need to work on?

Teaching Practice 2 is reaching its midpoint. Consider the unique qualities (values/dispositions, skills, knowledge) that you offer the teaching profession. How can you document these strengths for your professional portfolio?

Learning Goals for First Half of Teaching Practice (See Task 3) / Reflection on Progress
1
2
3

Peer Discussion Point: Review the 12 core teaching competencies. Are there areas you need to improve?

Personal Reflection 4: Write three key personal goals for the second half of TP2.

Process Goal 1:

Process Goal 2:

Process Goal 3:

Journal Entry 5: Building Rapport

Over recent days, you have observed lessons and taken increased responsibility in lessons. In your Psychology of Learning course, you examined students’ social and emotional development. With regular contact with their students, teachers get to know them very well. At times, teachers’ past experience with students may lead to pre-judgment: classifying based on past behaviours or on similar ‘types’. This kind of classifying is known as “stereotyping”. Teachers need to be careful not to judge students as a ‘type’ or interact with them only as that ‘type’ of student.

Entry 5.A: Observe a peer /cooperating teacher teach and then exchange roles. On the classroom seating plan, note particularly each interaction with students. Record the students (a) with whom you initiate interaction and (b) who initiate interaction with you and (c) to whom you respond following their initiation; this will leave (d) those students with whom no individual interaction is made.

Next, from your class list make a list of students who are in each of the categories A-D. What are the common characteristics of the students in each category? Reminder: Attach a seating plan.

T Initiating S response / S Initiating T response / S Initiating no T response / No interaction
Group A / Group B / Group C / Group D
Common Characteristics of Each Group

Peer Discussion Point: What are effective ways to establish respectful interaction with students?

Personal Reflection 5: Consider your student interaction pattern analysis. What does it tell you about your behaviour in relation to students in the class? In what ways might these be related to your beliefs about students

Journal Entry Week 6: Extending Students’ Thinking

In your lesson planning, focus on selecting and applying instructional strategies that engage students in active thinking about the content (concepts or skills). Check your lesson plan against student learning objectives in the Ministry of Education curriculum.

Entry 6.A: From your co-planning with your Cooperating Teacher, specifically use a group problem-solving activity. Ask your teacher to give feedback on one lesson. Insert a copy of group’s fishbone and your feedback comments for them.

Focus your evaluation on the following dimension of the Assessing Teaching Performance form.

CONTENT KNOWLEDGE
(Planning) / . Employs a broad range of outcomes
. Teaches appropriate content
. Creates engaging learning tasks
. Links lessons activities with transitions
. Prepares learning environment & materials in advance

Peer Discussion Point: How did you deal with differences in students in the class?

Personal Reflection 6: Consider your subject area content, and write a few points about what you know to extend students’ thinking in content areas.

Journal entry 7: Getting Away from the Textbook

When a teacher sticks too closely to a textbook, the text becomes the curriculum. Teachers’ reliance on the textbook limits teaching on one or two learning styles of their students. One of the responsibilities of teachers is to help their students see different ways to organize and learn content in their subject area.

Entry 7.A: This task focus on ways to extend your teaching by using student interactive learning processes. Tileson (2007) provides a number of ways, such as “Think, Pair, Share”, “Pairs to Square” and “Expert Groups”, other than using the text book, to get students to work with the subject matter. Use or adapt one such strategy in your lesson planning for each different class this week. Attach a sheet showing how each lesson plan includes a different way of learning not given in the textbook.

Entry 7.B: Following the lessons, ask two small groups of students from one class, (a) a group who seemed to ‘get’ this teaching approach, and, (b) a group who seemed more reluctant to become involved, about what makes learning engaging to them and how they felt about the particular learning task you used.

Peer Discussion Point: What is the main point you have learnt about using other strategies not found in a textbook?

Personal Reflection 7: What are ways to vary your pedagogy and also cover the unit content?

Journal Entry 8: Scaffolding Learning

Some of your classes have lessons given by your Cooperating Teacher on the days that you continue with your course work on campus. There may be times when students are not progressing as you had thought between the lessons because there is not sufficient support or scaffolding in between.

You need to scaffold student learning in a number of ways. By linking lesson tasks to the lesson goals, by linking one lesson to another (especially if your CT is still teaching the class from time to time), linking between your lessons, and by linking to the lives of your students (to their interests and experiences).

Entry 8.A: Observe a lesson and ask someone to observe you. Focus on how scaffolding is used to help understand the content and skills. Answer the following questions.

What visual, cues, structure reinforcement or review did you use to link lessons?
In what ways were transitions used to move from one task to another?
How was the lesson linked to previous lesson concepts and skills.
How was the lesson linked to students’ interests?
How was the lesson linked to students’ past experience?
In what ways were the students asked to predict from the lesson to a future situation?

Peer Discussion Point: In what areas do the students need most help in making connections?

Personal Reflection 8:How does scaffolding improve students’ learning?

Journal Entry 9: Assessing Learning Progress

It is important that teachers set reasonable expectations for the quality of student work in regard to the content of their assignments, the format, and the final product itself. Setting clear assignment guidelines is a critical part of assessment.

Entry 9.A: In one lesson, conduct a formative or summative assessment task. Then, do a interview two students (from the same class) who performed very differently on that assessment task. Let the students know that you will tape the conversation, but will delete it after your assignment is over. In your conversation, ask the students these questions:

What did you think was the purpose of the task?
How did you prepare for the task?
How did you undertake the task?
What did you learn from doing the task?
How well did the task let you show how much you know/can do in relation to the topic?

Summarise the main points from the two interviews, and compare student (use false names) similarities and differences in the table below.

How Student A felt / How Student B felt
Similarities are:
Differences are:

Journal Entry 9: Assessing Learning Progress – continued

Entry 9.B: Collect examples of teachers’ formative and summative assessment practices. What differences can you find between the two?

Peer Discussion Point: Analyze the formative assessment examples. How do they help students to produce quality work? How do they allow teachers to give formative feedback?

Personal Reflection 9: What are you learning about yourself in terms of how you encourage quality in students’ work?

Final Review and Ongoing Learning Goals

Taking full responsibility for teaching has placed new demands on you. Consider those demands.

Complete the following reflective statements about yourself and Teaching Practice.

The best part about TP2 was …

An interesting part of TP2 was …

In terms of being a teacher, I predict that …

In terms of my teaching career, I wonder if …

After TP2, I believe that …

If you were sent by the MoE to this school, what would be your professional development goals?

Peer Discussion Point: What are your best memories of Teaching Practice 2?

Personal Reflection 10: How did you improve your teaching over the TP placement?