Bethany Bullman 3A
Emma Price 3C
Laura-May Houghton 3B
Natalie Martin 3A (Beth's question)
Natalie Martin 3A
Carla L Mason 3C
Anna Timms 3C
Melanie Brown 3C
Megan Lewis 3B
Above are all the blogs that have inspired some of my ideas or have made me question my own practice. I have commented on each of these providing my reasons for their inspiration and any critical thinking.
Below is a spider diagram from my journal (of which I got the idea from Natalie Martin's blog above) to help me to reflect and raise any critical questions:
The first question that emerged was about my job sites. Most people have written about 'The stage' and 'agents' etc being some of their important resources. Like I've commented on Natalie Martin's blog, referring to a question by Bethany Bullman, (see above Beth's question) The Stage for me is TES or Indeed.com. But the question that I ask myself is; do I check up on my automated emails that offer new job opportunities from TES and Indeed.com? Well actually I don't. I hardly ever open these emails. Why? Because one, I haven't updated the line of work that I wish to receive opportunities for. Right now, both of these sites are sending me 'Assistant teacher' and 'Retail assistant' positions. Because of this, two, I struggle to find the time to change them. Which raises the next question; are my priorities in the right place? I believe that I do have most of my priorities straight and correct, but one that isn't is within my job. I work as a dance/performing arts teacher at the weekends, but as a retail assistant within the week. I do not wish to work in retail any more, but I am very bad at helping myself. So this is a big realization. I must organize my day and to prioritize my job searching, heading in the direction that I wish to be going.
What is Twinkl? To begin with, I thought this site would be right up my alley, from Bethany Bullman's task 3A. So I went on to google and had a check. It would be a wonderful site if I were focused on teaching in Primary schools. My aim is to teach in Junior and Senior schools. Saying this, I do not know what the future holds. I cannot be small minded and just brush this new resource out of the window. I can either keep it at hand, as if it were part of a network; it could be very valuable some day, or I can sweep it out of the door and forget about it. This is a knowledge that I probably never would have received without participating in the BAPP course. It also proves what sources are out there from just keeping in the know of other people.
My next question is; have I been fully engaged on part 3 in the BAPP course? I have been extremely engaged on this part. I have made extra effort in finding other potentially useful blogs, because I have come to realize how vital this can be, and I have printed out the Reading list extracts and have highlighted what I believe to be the most important. It has been a really intriguing part of Module 1, particularly task 3B which includes cultural differences within the concept of Affiliation. I'm gradually starting to use my professional networks in a more profound way to help myself. Some of this is proven in the comments on blogs, and the ideas that I've gotten from them. My cooperation skills with my teaching colleague has improved greatly, just by being more aware of how we cooperate.
I thought I'd use the question provided in the handbook, outright, for my next part; Are your ideas, position or concerns shared by others within and/or beyond your professional area of work?
As you can just about see in my spider diagram, I asked the question of whether or not I should ask my best friend about her work with younger children. I should, as we share a similar position within my area of work. We both work with children. So, I actually do not know the answer to whether we share the same ideas or concerns, which is something I will work towards, but I know that we share a similar position.
In Bethany Bullman's task 3B, she spoke about status' within a school, and how it depends on that status as to whom you cooperate with. I commented on this as I share similar views on this. I find it a real shame that the system works this way, because everybody can learn a thing or two on anything, of which can be either practical for you or really not that useful at all, but there is always the possibilities. My boss does the same job as everybody else at the centre that I work at, but she obviously has those important things on top of that which makes her job more superior. It's very hard to ask her for advice, especially as she hired me, and I would assume that she would expect me to learn and grow as a teacher by myself from experience. But what I've learned from this course, is that you learn from experience, of course, but we also learn from others' experiences. Some people choose not to, and end up learning from their own experience, but sometimes it's easier to bypass any mistakes that you may make, and learn from others instead. Why don't we? Because we don't believe it would happen to us right? This is something the BAPP course has taught me very efficiently. Learn from others as well as yourself.
Of course my family, (as I've revealed before, are all teachers) is mentioned in the spider diagram. Do they share the same ideas and concerns? Absolutely. I share with my mother all the time about issues and concerns in my teaching. I give her my ideas, and she gives me advice on how to improve them. This then raised the question; should I contact my other family members more? I know that I don't contact my brother and sister enough. Unlike my mother, they both have experience in performing arts as well as music and teaching. Seeing as it's performing arts that I am teaching, why haven't I contacted them more? Affiliating with my family is hard living so far away from each other, but like in the previous tasks, we now have resources and other methods of communication other than just meeting up and sending letters in the post. Referring to Melanie Browns' task 3C (see above), she does share similar views on mobile phones. They are so vital in any career, for keeping up with the times, keeping in touch with important networks and receiving new job positions etc. Mobile phones are a great way to affiliate nowadays, even though I feel it can prevent people from actually affiliating properly by meeting up, which I think being face to face is far more uplifting and beneficial. So, to add to my learning, whenever I feel the need for help within my teaching, I will now make the effort to contact my brother or sister about it, as well as my mother.
Also referring to Melanie Brown's task 3C, it made me bring up the idea about how useful online resources is for the much older generation. Elderly people are so vulnerable and the internet gives the benefits of grocery shopping online. This may have adapted so much by the time we are at that very fragile age, and these sources may be even easier in the future. I have been very negative about technology, especially as I believe it makes people lazy, but this sharing and communicating with others has shifted my thinking which makes me less ignorant and makes me think on a wider scale. Sure it can make the younger generation lazy, but it's less effort for the elderly which I haven't thought into much at all. We see all younger generations on smartphones and tablets etc, everywhere, but what you don't see are the elder generations using their laptops and ipads behind their closed doors. Ipads, tablets and smartphones are pretty useless for the very young generation, and I think it's a real shame that some parents buy them for their three year olds. This also shifts my thinking just by sharing to you now. Experience. Children don't experience things anymore because they are glued to their tablets playing games. Objects and day outs I believe are vital as they offer a better knowledge and gives them experience, as most children learn by doing and seeing.
As I go along with this, and sharing these ideas with you, it also now makes me want to put these ideas in to my professional practice in some way. Seeing as I work with the younger generation, and keeping in mind that they learn from doing and seeing, I need to adapt some sort of learning activities into my dance and music classes with them. I also must exaggerate every dance move and rhythm game. Just from sharing, I have come up with ideas.
Does critical reflection help you decide what really matters and the actions to take? Absolutely! Just from reflecting on my Affiliation in the past, particularly in my working relationships in Israel, I know the reasons why I was so lonely. (See my Task 3B) here I said; "I'm definitely more extrovert on a more personal level, but introvert on a not so personal level". This proves to me why I didn't feel the need to affiliate with my fellow performers, but the downside to this was that I did become lonely and very homesick as my extrovert self missed the people who I felt close to. I also said; "on a professional level, being that bit more extrovert deliberately, would prove to be very useful in any career." I'm now not only thinking how useful it can be on a professional level, like I've mentioned in this post, but also on an emotional level. Hence, from my critical reflection and new knowledge on affiliation I do make more of an effort to be more extrovert even if it doesn't feel comfortable to begin with.
Another way in which critical reflection helps me to decide what actions to take is from Cooperation. Looking back at particular situations where cooperation was involved and competing when working together and not, competing only seemed to work well in competitions when you were to perform a solo. Pretty obvious really. But, cooperating when competing in a duet, trio or troupe performance was vital. If you constantly competed within a dance troupe against your fellow performers it would look messy. I always use to try and kick my leg the highest in a dance duet, trio or troupe. When I critically reflect on this, I ask myself; why did I do this? Because I wasn't cooperating. I was thinking of myself and was competing. (I'm sure many of us have similar experiences of trying to look better than the other dancers). By doing this, the dance trio, duet or troupe wouldn't look very neat and would never get a gold medal. Saying this, even in a solo performance, I had to cooperate with my teacher. She knows best. (again my Task 3B gives my understanding on cooperation) This doesn't mean to say that cooperation doesn't have competition. You cooperate to be a great competitor.
Relating to all of the last few paragraphs, affiliation assists my thinking on my professional networks the most. Second to this is cooperation. One thing that I haven't mentioned is Communities of practice. Thinking about Twinkl, of which I mentioned earlier, this is a community, and it can be a source for practice. Wenger identifies a community of practice as a "mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity." (Reader 3, p9) It's a community to share ideas and debate. Even though I don't feel that Twinkl is for me, this concept has got me thinking and I've asked myself is there a community that I can join that would suit my professional networking? There must be. This is something I can find out through people that I work with or have similar interests with, also, through research on our Web 2.0. With affiliation and cooperation, they have given me a challenge. I am now in the notion of working with the ideas involved in both, such as; affiliating with the use of the Social affiliation model, of which I have mentioned in my task 3B as being believable with the exception of emotions. But, giving this much thought, I think at times we must be able to keep our emotions under control, therefore I will be concentrating on seeing if the social affiliation model can work for me within the workplace and at home when affiliating online or via my phone. With cooperation, I have been very aware of my cooperating skills within my networks. It assists my thinking in a Reflection IN action way. Same goes for the Social affiliation model. I consider these concepts will benefit me somehow, particularly in being more organized and thinking in action within my networks. I believe that they will helpme to grow as a professional.
Are you left thinking differently prior to this part of the module? Everything that I have written above is mostly different to how my mind worked prior to Part 3. There isn't much to say, as I've written it all above. All I can say is that I am definitely thinking in a more professional manner and that I feel more proficient in my knowledge of such things within psychology and why we do things, certain aspects of teamwork and what teamwork actually means, and what profits they have and how I can actually help myself rather than letting people help me. I've also realized what subjects glue me to the screen or paper, and how I can use this in a very beneficial way.
Something that I'd like to add is something Laura-May Houghton wrote in her task 3B [see link at the top]. She said; "how long will it take before we start paying monthly for these valuable resources?" I have commented twice on this blog but for some reason they keep disappearing, so I will write here what I had written;
Hi Laura
This has been a great read.
The thing that stood out was the question about how long before we start paying for our resources.
It truly is a scary thought. It made me think about how useless I am at using these valuable resources, and how I really don't give them enough thought. I would regret it if they start adding charges. Even though it shouldn't be a reason to neglect these resources, but it shows how much I and many others take these resources for granted. There are a few job sites that I am signed up on but hardly ever look through them, I would be kicking myself if they start charging monthly payments.
It's a great realization and it's something for us all to think about.
Thanks for that.
Kim x
This has definitely left me thinking differently prior to this part of the module. I am guilty for taking stuff for granted, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
So, use and abuse while you still can.
Good luck to everyone on their Critical Reflection Essay!!
'Keeeeeep blogging'
No comments:
Post a Comment