Session 12 Reflection

This week I will focus on 2 aspects that I experienced as significant: (i) the idea of PCK and (ii) being a learner in teacher education.

PCK
First up I was quite apprehensive about how the idea of PCK might be received. It is a challenging theoretical notion that might not be seen to have much (at least immediate) relevance to students. However, at the same time, I also want to promote the idea that learning about teaching means learning about something important - that teaching consists of more than resources and teaching ideas - a 'something bigger' that binds this together and makes teachers professional know-ers. In this way, teachers can take more control of their profession (not 'victims' of externally imposed ideas from people who do not know teaching) and also know more purposefully do what they do in the classroom to promote good science learning. (Bit of soap-box there!)

So ,there was a bit of front end loading to begin with - in the form of a lecture. I have come around to the idea of lectures a bit more now, compared with my previous position of not thinking that too much learning of quality can occur in them. I guess how you do the lecture matters and that you do not only lecture. (This is like the discussion we had in the tute about chalk and talk. It's not 'bad' to do chalk and talk. It's an approach that you might choose for a certain purpose at a certain time. It's not good to do it all of the time, and it's not good to do it because you think kids will learn successfully that way. They won't. But, as part of the mix of how you understand teaching then it is useful.). As the slides went through i was starting to think there was too much text to deal with and too many ideas to process at once. the chance to stop and talk is important and the kinds of responses that people gave helped me understand how at least a few people were thinking about the ideas.
For instance (paraphrased - hope i get these right) - PCK gives me something to aim for beyond this year of teacher education; how do you get PCK if we haven't got it yet?; how do you know about how the middle band of kids is understanding something compared with the much more obvious 'ends' of the class?; How come you held out til now to tell us about PCK? Wouldn't it have been more helpful BEFORE the teaching prac?

I planned to introduce the idea through the lecture then give you time to play around with it in the tutes. I am not harboring any illusion that simply because i told you about it, you 'got it'. (As a teacher though, it is always tempting to believe this).I used the level of talk and your comments/questions as indicators of my progress, as well as watching body language that suggested engagement or not. Mostly though, this latter one is an unhelpful indicator because people know how to look as though they are at least semi-engaged.
How was the lecture for you?
What engaged you? What turned you off?

In the tute we talked quite a bit about what does it mean to try something out with a class and have it not go well. As a teacher responsible for others' learning, to what extent can you take in new ways of working and see them 'not working' before you decide that you need to abandon the approach? They are of course great questions with no one answer. The answers depend on many variables - and the difficult part about teaching is that you will not always see the effects of your actions. BUT talking with students, developing good relationships where they feel as though they can be honest with you AND have a go to trust you when you introduce new ways of working; that is very effective as an indicator.
i felt very pleased to see how much students seemed to engage with the framework task in the tute. Again ,the commetns made and the things written were indicators to me of how you were getting it. It is very true that it is hard to fill in 'why do kids need to know this?' beyond - because it's on the test - but if you can answer it, then you will have a much stronger sense of purpose in teaching. We had a great example from teaching about nuclear radiation in out tute.

Being a learner.
Everything you do in this unit (course) is an opportunity for you to learn about learning. How experiences affect you personally will be helpful guides to think about how you work with learners in the future. Do you feel as though you can be heard? That you are dealt with fairly? How do you accept responsiblity as a learner? Do you expect things that don't go your way to be changed? Why? Are you tough on yourself? (Will that mean you are tough on your students too?). This does not mean that all your learners will be like you - in fact, very few of them will be - but if the teacher can see that how learners feel influences their ability to engage, more progress will be made than if everything is around the teacher's way. So how does this relate to EDF4113?
Changing the tutors around this week was supposed to be a prompt to help you think more about this issue of yourself as a learner. For me, changing classes, i was surprised and pleased - I felt as though the class I went to had such a good dynamic of working together to discuss ideas, that i could slip in and be a part of it, rather than taking on a more 'controlling' role.