Susaar van der Walt 201007764 Professional studies 3A Reflection

In this essay the current educational landscape and future strategic objectives for education will be discussed. Secondly the broad aims of the various national and international initiatives will be highlighted in the following order, continuous professional development, teacher competence standards relating to ICTs and professional development. Furthermore the influence of technical dimensions, pedagogical dimensions and network dimensions on the teachers training will be discussed and in conclusion a new design for professional studies 3A will be introduced.

The strategic plan for the current educational landscape and the strategic plan for future national strategic objectives: The current strategic plan involves giving the learners of today a better chance of success for their futures, technology has become a very intense and important part of our lives, keeping that in mind we can very well understand the importance of technology in education. Technology is a perfect example of how we as teachers can provide our learners with better materials that can be used to insure a more promising future for them. Because the current educational landscape and strategic plan starts with making sure the students in South Africa have the resources to become successful and thereby minimize the extreme poverty in the country.

If students can learn new skills and gain new knowledge they will become citizens able of caring for themselves and making a life for them this will also minimize inequality. The strategic plan says that education should cater for students in ways that go beyond education to make this outcome possible. Teachers must teach students new skills which they are able to use throughout their lives to earn money or to build on with additional education. The school environment has to fulfil different requirements for example it must be a save environment where learners can learn without stress or feeling unsafe. Learners need security in different ways. They need to feel secure about the environment they are in and they need to know that they have a chance to have a great future.

Learners must know that there will be opportunities for the after school that gives them security in their lives and they can study and learn knowing that everything they learn will come in handy one day. To give learners this piece of security, there must be jobs that they can do after school and financial support in case they want to study. While learners are still at school their situation is very critical in South Africa today extreme poverty exists and this wants to say that many of our learners go hungry through a day, meaning they can concentrate and learn as well as they would learn if they had proper nutrition. Therefore it is important to take into consideration that this is a problem in our schools today and we must provide for these students.

Some learners also come from rural parts of the city and they travel far everyday so that they can get an education, learners get up extremely early to travel to school they also pay allot of money to get to school every day. Not only is it pricy its hard on them and we need to take that into consideration as well. These learners must be accommodated; it should not be a mission for a child to get to school. The strategic plan involves making sure learners have the best possible future that they can have and that requires them to be strong, smart enthusiastic learners with ambition. They must be liberated and able to make decisions and take the lead. They need to learn to be leaders.

The long term strategic plan is not very different it also involves removing inequality and racism completely from schools. Furthermore special attention must be paid to skills like reading, writing and problem solving because these factors are the foundation of everything that learners will learn in the future, it is of utmost importance that they learn these skills from a young age.

National and international initiatives National The Teacher Training Initiative continuous professional development for Sub-Saharan Africa contributes to improve the quality of education and equality this initiative ensures continuous professional development. International The UN focuses on the different cultures and their needs. They protect democracy and individuality. Professional development is of great importance to them. They also recognize the youth as the future and support their professional development. They work with UNESCO to ensure professional development. Teacher competency standards(ICTs) The educators responsibilities change as technology starts to become a part of the teaching process they have the responsibility to be up to date with technology and to be competent. The ICT importance of the ICT integration is that teachers should structure the learning environments in new ways to be successful in the classroom. The main reason for teachers using the ICTs is that they will create a social active classroom. They use innovative technology to enhance the learning environment of learners. The UN uses a wide variety of ICTs that is competent. The World Wide Web gives teachers all over the world somewhere to get together. There is a variety of teaching strategies on the wed along with networks for teachers. Every teacher, teaches in his or her own creative and unique way but they all have one thing in common, they all have innovative technology to turn to, to make for exiting lessons.

Professional aptitude

Aptitude is a component op competency it is to do a certain kind of work at a certain level, which can also be considered a talent. Teachers are compassionate.

The influence of technical dimensions, pedagogical dimensions and network dimensions on the teachers training In this course I have learned about different ways to improve my lesson plans and my teaching. I will use myself as an example to describe the influence of technical dimensions, pedagogical dimensions and network dimensions on a teacher in training. There are so many resources available that can offer teachers support in the classroom and make for better teaching. We have been introduced to many programs and websites that assist us in our profession. Slide Share is a great example. Slide share gives us an opportunity to share our lessons on slides with other teachers like us and it gives us an opportunity to use slides posted by other teachers.

I have only known about slide share for a short period of time and have already used it to improve my lesson plan for my micro lesson. I had my own information and media to make my lesson interesting and enjoyable and I added to it with a great presentation from slide share, Im looking forward to using slide share more often. This had such a positive effect on my training it inspired me to go overboard with media and to shower my students with knowledge that have been so nicely presented. It made me exited to start working on my lesson plan because I knew I had interesting information to use as media not far from my reach it was so exiting to start working on my lesson plan and the enthusiasm that I had made my lesson amazing.

Apart from learning about new resources to assist me in the classroom I also learned about social networks for teachers. Linked in is an example of a social network where I can socialize with my colleges and gain information from them about my profession. It is very important to stay on top of the ball when teaching because times change and so do learners and different people learn with deferent methods. It is so important for me to stay up to date with new ideas on how to be a better teacher and linked in is a great way of doing that.

While becoming acquainted with linked in I also did some research of my own and found another great network for teachers called Teachers Domain. On Teachers Domain I can get ideas for my lesson plans, this site offers lesson plans already worked out with games and activities I would that learners can play or do to learn included. It is a great site that I would recommend for anyone interested in becoming a teacher.

A new design for professional studies 3A This module was enjoyable to me. I enjoyed learning great new ways to improve my teaching, as above mentioned I was inspired by all the networks for teachers. Not only did it inspire me to come up with new exiting lesson plans it also gave me a feeling that I am not alone. It was nice to see that teachers all over the world come together and aim to be better educators, it gave me a feeling of unity and a pride, because we are not always appreciated but we do a very important job and seeing that so many different people across the world working together for the same common goal was inspiring and comforting. I would have liked to interact more with the people on the networks. I would have enjoyed having conversations about our profession with professionals.

The class was too big and that makes it harder to talk to the lectures and interact and have learning conversations because there is not enough time for everyone to ask questions and get feedback. The tutors walking around in class is a great way of making sure that nobody gets too lost in a big class but it would have been nice to hear other students opinions and to hear the lectures answers. I still very much enjoyed the classes. I would like to learn about more sites and networks for teachers because I enjoyed the ones we learned so much. If there could be a list of networks and just a little time to play around on them as well it would be great.