Development Of A Professional Teacher

Professional Learning:
Outline and critique your professional learning as a second level educator. Indicate your evolving professional identity as a professional teacher.
Throughout my teaching practice, supported by many college modules, my school, research and reflections I have seen my assumptions of the proffession develop and my professional identity grow. In the following I will attempt to give an insight into my learning process as a second level educator. It is important however, to note my realisation that the quest of finding one’s identity as a second level educator is a ‘process of constant becoming’ (Davey 2013. p120) At each stage of one’s development you gain new insights and perspectives that change what you believe. At this
I found this to be very beneficial to my development as a teacher. At first I found it difficult to have a lot of classes and to be solely responsible for the learning of my own classes. However this taught me early on one valuable skill that is paramount to surviving in a school and this was collaboration. Although the school can be a very hectic work environment, I found that in order to be efficient in your job, you need to put yourself out there and speak to other teachers. A study carried out by Baesmann (2009) illustrates how in their context, ‘a collaborative partnership’ formed a ‘Community of Practice’ among teachers. I believe that the same was true within my school, even though our contexts were completely different. As I began to speak to other teachers and spend time discussing methodologies and resources, I began to see my teaching from a different perspective. Teacher collaboration has been seen to effectively reduce teacher isolation, initiates change, and “establishes knowledge-based management systems” (Drago-Severson, 2004). Whether it was coming up with strategies for challenging students, how to differentiate in certain classes, and to bounce ideas off someone
Professional conduct in the teaching profession is outlined in the code of professionalism, created by the teaching council. It covers items from how we act and conduct ourselves in the profession, to how we communicate with others and suppport our students. Our own morals and attention to ethics forms our identity in this right. It is important sometimes to leave aside our own beliefs in teaching and to ensure that we do not deliberately supress or distort the curriculum to the detrement of students learning (Soltis and Strike,