#4 - "Field Observation Experience"

Semester two begins, and it's all about Field Observations. The purpose of these are to understand how a school is organized, and to gain a new perspective as we observe students and teachers during the day-to-day functioning of the school. This experience would give us a better understanding and improve our teaching. It will guide and give us a clearer understanding before we go out on our observations. Our Practicum lecturer inquired us to ask year two's about their experience with three questions.

The student was asked, "What was your proudest moment?" She replied saying, "My proudest moment would have to be when I was leaving, it was Easter time and I prepared little baskets for each of the students before I left. They didn't want me to leave and just the feeling of them holding onto me begging me to stay was something I felt happy and proud about!" 

I then asked her, "What was your hardest task?" She said, "The hardest task for me was dealing with the noise level, because of how the classrooms were situated. They were close to each other and were separated by blackboards so all the classes were close by."

Lastly I asked, "What was something you wished you had known before the experience?" She answered saying, "One thing I wished I knew was probably the background of the students so I would've known how to deal with them because they were indiscipline and had low attention spans."

After gaining knowledge of their experiences I'm better prepared for my observations. 

#3 - "My Pedagogical Creed"

I believe that a great education is perhaps the most critical factor in determining future success and successful individuals are the key to a successful society. I believe, by inspiring my students to greatness they will achieve great results. I pledge to give my best to each of my students, to work together with my fellow teachers, to have a good relationship with their families and to be a positive role model to my students and the society. I will embrace my responsibility to support my students and engage them in a positive environment. As John Dewey believed that a teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life, I too believe that as a teacher I should take that responsibility of molding and shaping their social life. I promise to bring positivity to a negative situation and optimism for pessimism. I will teach my students to desire the right things as Plato quoted, "Education is teaching our children to desire the right things." I will always find a way to make a difference; never giving up, with faith, vision and hope.

#2 - "The Importance Of Becoming A Reflective Practitioner"

The purpose of this blog is to analyse, reconsider and question experiences encountered. It requires my own personal views, impressions and observations linking my understanding from theories and course-work. As a reflective practitioner I understand that I am expected to take into consideration how well my students respond to my teaching. To me this process seem vital and beneficial because it allows me to develop critical thinking as well as evaluating how the experiences impacted me personally. My current opinion of my abilities and skills as a teacher is that I have a lot more to learn and develop as learning is a life-long process.

#1 - "Past Experience As A Student"

My name is Raviene Jagoo and I am 17 years old. I attended Vessigny Secondary School previously and experienced a lot of different personalities from the teachers there. I chose the word egotistical due to the following experience I had with a teacher. During class, he would randomly start talking about himself and what's going on in his life and so forth. I felt irritated by this because I believed that he should not have come to class and carry on an unnecessary conversation that was not beneficial to any of us. It affected my ability to learn in class because the work was barely taught, he was practically not teaching in class, and this caused me to result in a grade that was not acceptable for me. I would have preferred that the teacher came to class being fully focused on what needed to be taught and cover what was important in order for us to excel rather than coming to class and having a whole topic based on him. I still feel that if he came to class with his teaching attitude I would have gotten a grade I deserved. If I had been in the instructor's shoes I would have focused my energy towards what I came to do, which is teach my students to the best of my ability, so that they would succeed.The following is a picture of a word cloud created to represent the qualities that I would like to possess as a teacher.