My Concept of Learning

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My Concept of Learning

I believe learning comes in many forms which can be seen in Bloom’s taxonomy. Students can learn to
remember, understand, apply, analyse, and evaluate content as well as create new ideas and work. I
encourage any level of learning, however provide opportunities to foster higher levels of learning that
involve drawing connections between ideas, justifying conclusions and producing original ideas and work.
I strive to achieve these levels of high learning within my classroom because I believe they are the most
effective. A successful learning situation for me would involve students illustrating improvements in their
content knowledge and skills and exhibiting positive progress towards set goals.

My Concept of Teaching
I believe that teaching is all about guiding and supporting students through the learning process and
providing your expertise knowledge. Teaching is also about motivating and engaging students so that they
value their education and are proud of their achievements. An effective teacher should identify student’s
strengths and weakness so that sufficient time and support is focused on areas that need improvement. I
have many values that I transfer into the classroom, these include; honesty, fairness, friendship and good
manners. I believe that students need to be honest and partially take responsibility for their own learning
and actions. I integrate these values into my teaching by implementing independent study activities,
providing choices in classroom situations and holding students accountable when addressing classroom
management issues. Furthermore, I believe that everyone deserves a fair chance. Therefore, I utilise
differentiation techniques within my classroom to support varying ability levels and allow students to
apply for special consideration. Furthermore, I aspire to create a supportive and productive environment
where students feel comfortable around their peers and myself. Therefore, I integrate collaborative
activities such as brainstorms, discussions, think-pair-shares, I do-we do- you do, peer reviews, kahoot
quizzes, and jigsaws. These activities foster teamwork, allows friendships to develop and grow, and leads
to greater participation levels. During these collaborative interactions I encourage students to be kind and
considerate to each other. Additionally, I enforced that students display good manners throughout my
lessons. Ways in which I enforce good manners is by conducting activities that involve students sharing
resources and taking turns, greeting students when they enter the classroom, not tolerate calling out, and
enforcing controlled movement without pushing and shoving.

Lastly, I believe that every student wants to succeed. No one likes the feeling of failure and often
behaviour problems arise from this issue. As mentioned before, within my classroom I differentiate to
give each and every student a chance to succeed at their own goals. Additionally, I aspire to break down
the shame associated with failure and build student resilience. I encourage the idea that failure is an
important part of life that we need to learn from it in order to succeed. In a world that can often be tough,
I encourage students to have a positive attitude and be optimistic about their future. Lastly, I aspire to
make my students feel valued, have a sense of self-worth and believe in their own potential.

My Goals for Students


My goal is for students to reach their full potential. I strive to help all of my students achieve the highest
academic results that they are able to. Within my classroom students will gain many skills including but
not limited to; interpersonal, communication, ICT, reflective, critical analysis, practical, investigation and
effective learning skills. Students will also gain thorough knowledge on all areas of Science including
Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Human biology. Students will not only learn content knowledge within
these areas of Science but will also gain insight into how concepts transfer into real life contexts. Lastly,
within my class student will learn productive behaviours that facilitate and support their own learning as
well as the learning of their class mates. These positive behaviours will be learnt through implementing a
positive behaviour management model that involves setting high expectations, responding to appropriate
behaviour, role modelling productive behaviour, and implementing a calm and consistent approach that
utilises low-key behaviour strategies, draws minimal attention, provides opportunities for students to
change their behaviour, and has clear correlations between the behaviours and consequences.

My Teaching Approach
My teaching approach involves providing a supportive and inclusive classroom environment for all
students through strategies including building student-teach rapport, implementing an explicit teaching
approach integrating collaborative, authentic, active and discovery-based learning, and following a
positive behaviour management approach.

Building student-teach rapport is a crucial part of teaching. I aim to build student-teacher rapport by
greeting students as they enter and exit the classroom, interact with students to get to know them,
integrate student’s interests and cultures into learning, acknowledging students outside of class time,
attending extra-curricular activities and learning students names within a week.

I implement a range of both teacher-centred and student-centred teaching approaches that in


conjunction lead to effective learning. I implement teacher-centred approaches in situations where
structured guidelines and clear goals and expectations are needed. In teaching situations that allow
flexibility I implement a student-centred approach where students facilitate and direct their learning. The
main teaching approach that I use is explicit teaching. Explicit teaching involves reducing confusion by
breaking down complex tasks into smaller manageable and logical sections, providing students with clear,
concise and consistent expectations and instructions, implementing various types of scaffolding to
increase competency and confidence, providing effective feedback where students are given the chance
to reflect and respond, and relating content to prior knowledge, real-life experiences and future learning.
I believe that explicit teaching is a motivational and engaging model that effectively supports students
learning at any ability level.

I also integrate a social constructivist approach into my teaching which follows the belief that students
acquire knowledge and ideas through social interactions with others and interactions with their
environment. Therefore, during classes I conduct many collaborative activities. Collaborative learning
provides opportunities for students to share and build off of each other’s ideas, opinions and knowledge.
To engage students and make learning relevant, I implemented authentic teaching by relating content or
exposing students to real life examples and situations. In addition to collaborative and authentic teaching
approaches, I also employ discovery-based teaching and independent study. Independent learning allows
students to master knowledge and skills individually and hands on discovery-based learning encourages
student to analyse and evaluate concepts.

As mentioned previously, I implement a positive behaviour management model that involves setting high
expectations, responding to appropriate behaviour, role modelling productive behaviour, and
implementing a calm and consistent approach that utilises low-key behaviour strategies, draws minimal
attention, provides opportunities for students to change their behaviour, and has clear correlations
between the behaviours and consequences.

My Interactions with Students


Teaching is all about interacting with your students. When teaching I conduct myself in a calm, confident
and professional manner. As mentioned previously, I believe that building student-teacher rapport is
crucial. Hence, when interacting with students I am kind, caring, and compassionate. This makes students
feel comfortable around me. Additionally, when interacting with students I ensure that I am both patient
and understanding. Student’s will all learn at difference paces and it’s important that sufficient time and
support is provided to ensure that students have adequately grasped a concept or skill. When behaviour
issues arise, I maintain a calm and collected appearance and stand firm with my decisions.

I believe that teachers are very important role models for students. I aspire to form rapport with students
so that they feel comfortable asking for advice and value my opinion. I want to be a teacher because I
want to make a positive impression on student’s life. I hope to provide students with the emotional and
academic support that they need to reach their full potential and succeed not only in school but in life.

My Assessment Methods
I assess effectiveness of teaching approaches and students learning through a variety of assessment
techniques. During day to day lessons I use formative assessments such as student questioning, whole
class discussions and brainstorms, and one-on-one dialogue and prompting to assess the effectiveness of
implemented teaching approaches. Based off the sum and complexity of questions and answers
generated from students I was able to gauge whether my approach was effective, or adaptions were
needed. I use these same types of formal and informal assessment, as well as homework/worksheet
collection, and pop quizzes to assess student learning and progress. By analysing student’s performance
in these assessments, I am able to grasp a student’s level of understanding and monitor their progress.
Furthermore, from these results I can gauge which topics need to be revisited. Prior to introducing new
topics, I often completed diagnostic assessments to measure the amount of prior knowledge that each
individual student possesses. My most commonly used activities for diagnostic assessments are think-
pair-share activities, brainstorms, KWLs and Kahoot quizzes. I also assess student learning at the end of a
topics through summative approaches, such as written tests, oral presentations, reports, posters, essays,
and investigations. Within assessments I ensure that I include a diversity of criterion or questions that test
for different types of knowledge and thinking. Questions relating to lower levels of learning such as
remember, understand, apply are weighted lightly whereas questions that involve analysing, evaluating
or creating are weighted more heavily. I generate a percentage grade for each student and analyse both
the class data and the year group data to ensure that I am marking fair. I aim to achieve a two week turn
around for student’s formal assessment results. Another critical part of my assessment method is fast and
effective feedback that involves students reflecting and responding. I believe in forward-thinking feedback
which focuses on delivering feedback as a means of preparing students for future assessment and
improving their understanding.
Professional Growth Goals
My goal is to be an effective teacher. As essential part of being an effective teacher is maintaining
professional growth. Throughout my teaching career I aim to engage in both school facilitated and self-
regulated professional learning and development so that I am utilising new and better practices for
teaching and learning. Professional development days, education seminars, interactive workshops, and
critically analysing new literature are great ways to facilitate professional growth. Through the University
of Western Australia, I have access to an online library called ‘OneSearch’ for a full year after graduating
to engage in professional learning. In addition, you are able to learn a lot from students within your own
classroom. I aim to conduct my own research in my classes to gain feedback from students concerning the
effectiveness of teaching approaches being implemented and aspects of my teaching that are strong,
weak or need improvement. A lot can also be learnt from colleagues. I hope to liaise with other teachers
to receive constructive feedback and advice, and gain new skills, knowledge and resources. I have learnt
that unlike some other careers, in teaching you never stop learning. In today’s society a teacher must
show flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing school environment.

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