Engineering BTEC level 2: linear motion session

Today I did a session about linear motion. I explained displacement, velocity and acceleration to the students. First I've explained what displacement and velocity mean. Then I've continued the lesson by showing how I get to work, the distance I do, the time I take and the velocity. I did that on google maps. Then I explained what is acceleration and some useful formulas. Then we practiced with a couple of examples.
The google maps activity didn't work work very well. The students were quite engaged but I almost ended up calculating their time myself. I think the activity is good because it relates to their everyday lives but I should give more guidance at the beginning about several things:
- How to calculate velocity.
- Be very clear that we are calculating average velocity.
- The relationships between different units.
- Give a reason to calculate: to see who is the fastes.

The tutor presentation wasn't engaging at all. I should elicit first what they know about the parameters, because they've probably seen them before. For the next lesson, I'm going to play a game. I give the parameter to a learner and he/she has to define it without saying the word. Then I will carry on with the presentation.

My ongoing CPD needs

In the Stage 3 of my Individual Learning Plan I have undertaken a self-diagnosis of my strengths and development needs of my teaching practice and my written assignments. I have identified four development points for my CPD. In this task, I will reflect on those development points.

The first point of my CPD is to check students’ understanding and lesson outcomes during the lesson. When planning the lessons, I plan the activities in order to make sure that I check students’ understanding and learning outcomes throughout the lesson. I believe I use effective techniques to check students’ understanding, such as open or directed questioning, initial assessment activities, presentations or quizzes. Nevertheless, I feel that sometimes I do not check if everybody understood, especially the less active students. In my future practice, I will aim to make those students participate more and I will take and revise students’ work in order to check their learning more effectively.

Another aspect that I would like to develop in my future practice is the use of more effective differentiation strategies. In my lessons, I will aim to challenge all the students in the classroom. I will use different and varied teaching methods and strategies, in order to adapt to the different learning styles, but also challenge the students who do not feel as comfortable with that particular method or strategy. For the stronger students, apart from extending activities, I plan to give them more responsibility, such as helping other students in the tasks or explaining them how they got the right answer in a particular exercise.

In my experience as a reflective practitioner during the PGCE course, I have observed that it is common to share your reflections with colleagues, other trainee teachers, mentor or tutor. It is less common to share your reflections with your students. During the year, I have shared my thoughts with my students in a few occasions and I wrote about that in the ‘critical incidents’ assignment. However, in my future practice I will aim to involve the learners more in my reflections, because I believe their opinion is key to improve teaching and learning.

The last development point I have identified in my ILP is the improvement of my ICT skills. During my teaching practice, I have started using the IWB. I consider it is a very useful tool for the subjects I teach (Maths and Physics). It engages the students and makes the lessons very interactive. I will aim to improve my IWB skills. I also want to introduce more e-learning in my lessons, such as the use of mobile phones, forums and chats.

Summary of learning over the course

Before starting the post-compulsory PGCE course I had been working as a teacher. I started working without any teaching qualification. During that time, I had a concept of teacher professionalism that has changed over the course. In this task, I am going to summarise what I have learnt during the PGCE course and I am going to explain how the concept of professionalism has changed during this time.

First, I am going to reflect on what I understand by profession and professionalism. According to Becker (Robson 2006) a profession is more a set of ideas rather than an occupation with fixed characteristics. He argued that a profession is a way of thinking about occupations. Furlong et al. (Robson 2006) argued that some of the ideas that define professionalism are knowledge, autonomy and responsibility. As these ideas are not static and can change over time, the idea of professionalism can change as well. I am going to analyse the ideas of knowledge and responsibility within my teaching practice.

As Robson (2006) argued, there is an assumption that if you know your subject, you can teach it to others. That was my case when I started teaching. I assumed that I could perfectly teach just with my previous knowledge and experience. I prioritised engineering knowledge to pedagogy.

I considered myself a teacher professional from the beginning, opposing Clow’s (2001) ideas of “ex-officio” and segmented professionalisms. According to these ideas, the professionalism is entirely based on the previous role of the teacher and you only feel professional in the areas where you had training or experience. I did not feel that way at that time. I felt I was a complete professional teacher (even if I was not). Now, I believe that the knowledge I have acquired during the year has made me more professional. Among the knowledge I have acquired, I can cite the following: teaching and learning theories; how to reflect critically; teaching methods and strategies; acquisition of skills, such as the use of PowerPoint and the IWB.

However, I believe that the most important thing I have acquired during the course is responsibility, especially towards the students. According to Robson (2006), tied into responsibility are notions of care for others and altruism. In relation to this idea, Clow (2001) defined what he called holistic professionalism. She argued that teachers with this kind of professionalism act in the best interests of the students. I believe that with the body of knowledge I have acquired during the year, I have started to act more in the students’ best interest. Examples of acting in students’ best interest are the following: encourage and praise their effort; lesson plan to adapt to the different needs and learning styles of the students; checking learning with different types of assessments; always consider students’ interest first, even in the more challenging situations regarding discipline. These are techniques that I have been acquiring during the year. For that reason, I believe I am more responsible and therefore, more professional as a teacher. 

Summary of reviewed ILP and proposals for my CPD

In the Stage 3 of my Individual Learning Plan I have undertaken a self-diagnosis of my strengths and development needs of my teaching practice and my written assignments. For this stage I have drawn on feedback from my teaching and my third and fourth assignments. The feedback was given from my mentor at the College and from my personal tutor at the Institute.

Practical teaching

In relation to my professional practice, I consider that my key strengths are the following: I use resources, such as PowerPoint and the Interactive Whiteboard effectively; during my teaching practice I have tried different teaching techniques and by the end of my placement I have been able to use different and varied techniques effectively; I am able to manage different levels of understanding effectively.

One of my development needs set at the ILP was to check learners’ understanding and learning outcomes throughout the lesson. When planning the lessons, I plan the activities in order to make sure that I check students’ understanding and learning outcomes throughout the lesson. I normally start with an initial activity where I assess my students’ understanding at the beginning of the lesson. I check learning during the lesson with different activities and open or direct questioning. I normally finish the lesson with a summary, a quiz or another type of activity to ensure that students have achieved the learning outcomes. Nevertheless, I feel that sometimes I do not check if everybody understood, especially the less active students. In my future practice, I will make those students participate more and I will take and revise students’ work in order to check their learning in a more effectively.

In my future practice I will try all students to participate as much as possible rather than some of them to dominate. I will involve the less active students when I ask directed questions and I will get them to demonstrate exercises on the whiteboard. I will build up their confidence by starting with the easier questions and exercises.

I will also make sure that everybody is listening when a student is speaking. I will ensure that the other students can hear when someone is speaking. I will ask the student to speak louder, turn round, stand up or whatever is necessary in that particular situation.

Literacy/Written Communication skills

In my last assignments I have shown that I have good knowledge and understanding of curriculum models as well as a number of pedagogical theories. The structure of my assignments is clear and coherent.

In my future assignments I need to check if each element of the assignment brief has been covered. I will aim for full justification of the points analysed in my written assignments.

Development of inclusive practice

In module 2 of the post-compulsory PGCE course we have studied some theories around inclusive practice in teaching and learning. Inclusive practice in the classroom means involving everyone in the teaching and learning process.

As a trainee teacher one of my objectives in my lessons is to develop inclusive teaching and learning.  So I will try to use different methods to implement inclusive teaching practice and provide an evaluation of strategies and techniques to promote inclusivity. The methods I have been using or I will use in the future to promote inclusive learning are the following:

Ø  Directed questioning: I will involve all the students when doing directed questioning. I will ask the more able students the more challenging questions and less able students the less challenging questions.

I will give more time to bilingual students to respond to questions, because they may need to translate it to their first language first. I will respect their silence as well, in case they feel embarrassed or self-conscious.

Ø  Pair/small group activities: I will use teaching strategies such as pair or small group work to encourage communication among students.  These strategies can decrease the anxiety many students feel when they must perform alone for the teacher or in front of the class.

Ø  Reduce teacher talk: I will aim to increase the amount of student communication about a subject matter. I will allow students more time to speak.

Ø  Whiteboard demonstrations: I will give the chance to all students to demonstrate the exercises on the whiteboard. The more able students will demonstrate the more difficult exercises and the less able the easier ones.

Ø  Showing respect: my language should be respectful to everyone. I will show respect in relation gender, religion, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, ability, socio-economic status and background.

Ø  Sharing knowledge: I will encourage students to share their knowledge. For example, I will encourage the older students to share their experience and the younger students to share their computing skills.

Ø  Equality and diversity: I will promote equality and diversity in the classroom. For example, putting as example both male and female scientists and scientists from different nationalities.  The promotion of equality and diversity can be verbal or graphic around the classroom.

Ø  I will establish a supportive language learning environment in the classroom. I will explain to the students that the variety of different languages they speak is positive for teaching and learning.

Ø  I will show the students my availability during the classroom and when I’m in the office too. I will make them clear that they can talk to me if they have problems with the subject or any other issue that is bothering them.

Reflections on module 3 and impact on own practice

In this task I am going to reflect on the module 3 of the Post-Compulsory PGCE and I am going to evaluate the impact it has had on my teaching practice.

In this module we have looked at two important elements of teaching and learning: the first one is the understanding of how technology impacts on teaching and learning opportunities. The second one is related to the knowledge, understanding and skills to design an inclusive, subject specific learning programme.

In this module, we have had an asynchronous chat with our peers about the use of technology within teaching and learning and then we have written a critique reflecting about it. Reading some reports about the topic, sharing them with my peers and reflecting about it has helped me to be aware of the importance of the use of technology in teaching and learning.  The use of technology has its advantages but also drawbacks that we need to take into account.

Before starting this module the only technology I was using in the classroom was PowerPoint and IWB. The impact on my teaching practice is that I am trying to incorporate new technologies to my lessons, such as mobile phones, subject-specific web pages and IWB more extensively. I will try to incorporate other technology to my lessons and reflect on the effect in teaching and learning.

During the module 3 of the Post-Compulsory PGCE we have had some sessions about Curriculum Models and Inclusive Education. We have written an assignment where we had to write a course description and a scheme of work for a short course. We have justified the short course in the rationale informed by inclusive education. The sessions gave us an introduction to the curriculum models and by completing the assignment I can say that I now have a much better understanding about the curriculum models in the UK.

This understanding and awareness has not had a direct impact on my teaching for now. In my placement college, the product (objectives) model is the one that is in use (as the most part of the UK). After studying the different models, I believe that the process model is the more suitable for subjects such as Maths and especially Physics. However, with the constraints that as teachers we have within the system, it is difficult to try and apply this model in the lessons.

The fact that I have now a better understanding about the curriculum models and the best way to teach in this case Maths or Physics, allows me to try and apply it whenever it ispossible.

Reflections on minimum core and impact on own practice

In this task I am going to describe how my knowledge and understanding of the minimum core in my own practice is developing and the impact this has had on my teaching practice.

All teachers are required to have the literacy, language, numeracy and ICT knowledge, understanding and personal skills as defined by the minimum core. This will equip teachers to develop inclusive approaches to addressing the literacy, language, numeracy and ICT needs of their learners. I am going to concentrate on some aspects of literacy, language, numeracy and ICT and I am going to describe how my knowledge, understanding and personal skills are affecting my teaching practice.

Language and literacy

English is not my first language, so I am capable of understanding what a student is feeling when he or she is having problems with language or literacy. For example, when an ESOL student is making a language mistake, I can understand why he or she is making that mistake, because I have often made the same mistake myself. For that reason, I can make the students reflect on their own approach to error and meaning and involve the rest of the students as well. I am interested in students’ original languages and sometimes we share the differences between languages in the classroom.

On the other hand, I need to improve my language and literacy skills in order to address those problems better. Sometimes I can miss some of the students’ language or literacy mistakes or make mistakes myself (especially speaking) that can be confusing to the students.

Numeracy

I did a BA in Mechanical Engineering, where I studied Maths extensively. I also studied Maths in High School, so my knowledge is above the minimum core.

Numeracy is embedded in the subjects I teach (Maths and Physics). However, sometimes I tend to forget that some students have still numeracy needs. The fact that a student is studying A-level Maths doesn’t mean that she or he doesn’t have gaps in numeracy; I have experienced that in my teaching practice. As teachers, we need to be aware that some of the students have numeracy concept gaps, even if they are studying maths at a higher level. We need to work on those concept gaps before moving on to more difficult concepts.

ICT

I use ICT in my teaching practice. I use PowerPoint and IWB when doing presentations. I have tried the use of other technology in the classroom, such as mobile phones.

Doing presentations with using ICT, such as PowerPoint and IWB means that the information should be developed and presented in an appropriate way. This involves using appropriate page layouts, using adequate size of texts and images, using a variety of sources, creating and developing charts, etc. I am acquiring those skills with ICT training sessios and especially by using and trying the programs myself.