Reflective Journal: Continuing Professional Development

Reflective Journal Assignment 3

i) Reflect on your portfolio of professional development in order to demonstrate how your practice has developed across the year. ii) Reflect on the GTC research ‘How does collaborative Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for teachers of the 5-16 age range affect teaching and learning?”
Reflect on the role of the professional teacher in the light of the GTC professional standards and the National Standards for Qualified Teacher Status. You should link this paper to reading on teacher professionalism and opportunities for professional development.

Professional Tutor:

Word Count: 2000

Part 1

Introduction

The challenge of achieving progression for a
the pupils were able to achieve the task set, towards an attitude whereby I consciously planned the development of pupils’ self-awareness was a crucial step in my professional development. An example of where this belief was put into practice was a lesson developing the concept of density with a Year 7 group. Students were given a list of possible activities they could complete to learn about density. The activities included: using a water table to explore properties of various objects, measuring the volume and mass of objects and calculating their density, reading about density in the textbook and watching a video showing density experiments. The activities were based on visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, and tactile learning styles. Students had to choose and complete a minimum of two activities, from two different learning styles. These ‘choice boards’ were organized so that students chose options focusing on several different skills.

Reflecting upon the lesson it was clear that the ‘buzz’ created in the classroom was not entirely due to the novelty of the lesson format but due to the structured activities encouraging independence and self-realisation of their own skills. Some pupils, whose prior data indicated they would not achieve the higher level learning objectives, were able to achieve higher levels than
My study of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (the gap between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with peers) reinforced the need to plan the teacher-student dialogue in order to focus on emerging skills and abilities and to give students control in shaping their learning experiences. (Vygotsky, 1962). The teacher-student relationship and the pedagogical environment created, shape the quality of learning experiences for the learner, now and in their future. My experience shows that responding to learner’s needs intuitively is a key component of AFL and