Sandy Crump Glendowie College

PRT reflections collection

Sandy Crump Glendowie College

Welcome…

… to your first year of teaching!

I am here to support you in any way that you need it and you can consider me your ‘critical friend’ – you can bounce any of your concerns or ideas off me. I am not involved in your appraisal process and what we discuss will be confidential however if you want to use the written notes of our meetings as evidence in the appraisal process you are welcome to do so.

Your Advice and Guidance Programme:

1. We will meet regularly as a group (all PRT1 and PR2 teachers) on a Tuesday afternoon - see meeting time table. In these meetings you will have the opportunity to share concerns and ideas and to reflect on your teaching practice in various ways.

2. I will meet with you individually in a common free period once in every timetable cycle Your time is Day ___ Period ___

3. I will be available to give any assistance or advice needed as much as possible and I will supply you with a copy of my timetable so that you can see when I am not teaching.

4. I will do regular observations of your classroom teaching. This is an opportunity for you to set a focus and ask me to observe and comment on it. I will give your written feedback after every observation which you should glue into your reflective journal and write your response to it near by.

5. You will be expected to carry out 5 observations of other teachers each term, fill in the observation form and then reflect on any changes or techniques that you could try in your own classroom. I can assist you in arranging these observations and deciding on the focus for each one. The reason we ask you observe others is so that you can be exposed to many different styles while you are still forming your own teaching philosophy.

6. This is your Reflective Journal – the idea is that you keep everything together by gluing it into this book. Remember that this journal could be read by others (it is not a diary) so while you provide evidence of reflection on your practice be aware that it is an official record of your advice and guidance programme.

My classroom door is open to you at all times – you can come in and observe at any time and without prior notice.

Please read your handbook and in particular see p11 which tells you what documentation is required for full registration

All the best and here’s to enjoying the process!

Welcome…

… to your second year of teaching!

Your Advice and Guidance Programme this year:

2. I will meet with you individually on semi-regular basis – and you can initiate meetings if you wish

3. I will be available to give any assistance or advice needed as much as possible and I will supply you with a copy of my timetable so that you can see when I am not teaching.

4. I will do observations of your classroom teaching at least twice a term. This is an opportunity for you to set a focus and ask me to observe and comment on it. I will give your written feedback after every observation which you should glue into your reflective journal and write your response to it near by.

5. You will be expected to carry out 5 observations of other teachers in terms one and two. Fill in the observation form and then reflect on any changes or techniques that you could try in your own classroom. I can assist you in arranging these observations and deciding on the focus for each one. The reason we ask you observe others is so that you can be exposed to many different styles while you are still forming your own teaching philosophy.

My classroom door is open to you at all times – you can come in and observe at any time and without prior notice.

Please read your handbook and in particular see p11 which tells you what documentation is required for full registration

You are half-way to full registration Ü

Setting the Scene

What climate do you want in your classroom?

How will you make it happen?

What methods have you seen that you can use or modify to achieve the climate you want?

Plan for behaviour – be clear about your expectations and what your responses will be before you enter the classroom.

THINKING AHEAD … BEHAVIOUR MANAGEMENT

When things don’t go to plan…… what could go wrong??
(think of worst case scenario) / My response will be…….
10.

CHCEKLIST FOR START OF YEAR

Checklist Item / Yes/No – where I can find the info/resources
Timetable – schemes for courses that I am teaching and copies of texts (extra copies at home can be useful so you don’t have to carry back and forth)
Assessment info for each for each course I am teaching – how will it be assessed? What do I tell students? Internals/externals/unit standards
Student info for each course I will teach and clear expectations/calendar – is there a dept handout?
Rooms that I will teach in – how will I use power points/absence system/OHP/whiteboard – do I have a key to get in?
Knowledge of safety risks in the rooms I will teach in and evacuation route for fire
Where are the light switches/heaters/data projector remote….. in the rooms I will teach in
Senior teacher/buddy for each course
School discipline system understood clearly including dept policies/detentions
Issue of texts/workbooks – how/when/charges/recording of payment
The climate I want in my classroom – what I expect and what I will do to create and maintain it
What I will do when things go wrong – list some of the main things and have a plan
Temporary class rolls – remember they will change so don’t start your real roll until Andrew West indicates that classes are settled (clear files are good with printed class lists)
Planned introduction of self and class to your rules and routines – how I will do it and how will I get to know them?
How I will learn names of students
Where I will store texts/workbooks for students
Know duty times and areas/expectations
Some flexible lessons/activities to deal with interruptions (photos/sport days/student timetables settling down)
Resources Organised – pens/pencils/scissors/scrap paper etc
Plan to record reflections and use of 0.2 PD time
Filing system for marking/student resources/student results/admin documents for dept and whole school (labelled paper box lids are good)
Organised buddy teacher/HOD/HOF to take students if necessary or to come when a note sent
Checklist Item / Yes/No – where I can find the info/resources
Routines – plan for success and clear routines and then be consistent about them – consider the following:
– how will I establish my authority?
– how will I establish relationship with students?
– how will I start lessons?
– how will students get texts/workbooks?
– will I use a ‘do now’?
– will I have written instructions on the board at the start of each lesson?
– how will I encourage self directed learning?
– how will I deal with overly dependent students?
– how will I reinforce desired behaviour?
– how will I manage transitions?
– how will I collect resources?
– how will I check the standard of student work?
– how will I manage homework and marking?
– what consequences will I offer for incomplete homework
– what consequences will I offer for late students?
– how will I maintain student attention?
– how will I minimise the interruption?
– how will I end lessons?
– what expectations do I have for the state of the classroom when the students leave?
– how will I enforce this?
– what is my least to most intervention scale?
– what will I do when there are unavoidable interruptions?
– how will I restore relationship with students after ‘incidents’?

My classes

Use only 3 words to describe each of your classes:

Class / 3 describing words (can be the same)

The class I most enjoy is:

I think that I enjoy this class the most because:

A question I have is:

My classes - review

Review your describing words from the previous reflection – has anything changed?

Class / 3 describing words (can be the same)

My most challenging class is ______

I think it is challenging because…

What I have done already to address this issue is …

The ideal (or the change I want to see) is…

Someone I could talk to or observe is …

Reflection: What is going well?

Which of your classes is your most enjoyable (or least challenging!)?

What is the personality of the class? (who leads among the students)

What influences their behaviour? (time of day/routines/start-finish/activities/teaching style/certain absences)

What do you think makes the difference in this class?

What do you do differently with this class?

Can this be transferred into other classes?

– How might you adapt it?

My most challenging class

Issue…

Goal…

Action Plan:

How I will know that I have succeeded:

What assistance/resources I need to achieve my goal:

What is going well?

– How can I transfer it to a target class?

Teaching technique that works elsewhere and how I might be able to adapt it to this class:

Target class: ______

In the target class which students are challenging? –Why do you think that they behave the way they do? (bored/class clown/aggravation by others/avoidance of failure/lack of confidence)

How could you encourage more cooperative behaviour?

Could you observe the same students in another class? –Which one?

Are there other factors (classroom/time of day/lack of resources) that make it more difficult with this class? -Can you change these factors?

Bill Rogers Cracking the Challenging Class - Response

Record your thinking in response to the DVD here:

The most challenging/inspiring point was:

How will you change your teaching as a result of viewing this DVD?

What are your thoughts about meeting your classes for this year?

Things to do / Things to avoid

Stress level gauge

Circle the number which best represents your stress levels at the moment

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Bored Stimulated extreme stress

Are there any unusual events or pressures making you feel more stressed at the moment?

Are you happy with your level of stress?

Where would you like it to be?

What stress you the most? (timetable, classes, management, planning, home life, lack of time for self…anything else you can think of)

How do you try to maintain a work-life balance? – do you get time for yourself?

What can the school (specific people) do to help you?

Is there anything that you can do to reduce your stress levels for the next half of the term?

Do you plan at least one ‘less energetic’ lesson each day? (Are you kind to yourself?)

Who, if anyone are you going to discuss your responses with?

PRTrefelctionSandyCrump08GlendowieCollege

Stress level gauge – again!

It seems a good time to reflect on stress levels again – and see if there is anything that can help to make this time of term less stressful than it is…

On a scale of 1 – 10 how stressed do you feel right now?

1 (great- no stress) ®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®®10 (arrrhhh!)

Is there anything that you could do to reduce stress levels??

Is there anything that anyone else could do to make life easier for you at the moment? – be specific and realistic

Is there anything unpredicted or unusual that is contributing to your

stress levels?

What can you do now (this week) to make next week survivable?

**Have you planned an easier day on Thursday after report evening??

What is engagement?

How do you know when a student is engaged?

You can increase student engagement by:

· Building in regular reflection times

· develop rubrics for specific tasks

· ask the students how they learn best, then use those methods

Reflection times

-can be as simple as ‘turn to your neighbour and tell them the most interesting thing you have learned so far’, 321REQ right through to ‘write a paragraph’….but you could make it more interesting by asking them to ..

- list three things that they would warn someone else about

-write an acrostic poem on the topic

-use a graphic organiser

- say how could you sell these ideas to a …(cat, Inuit, 3 year old, your friend’s mother…)

-name one funny thing that it reminds you of (Association will enhance memory later)

Rubrics

A rubric is a table of options or measurements – getting students to design them helps to engage them and then they judge themselves by their own standards.

Poor effort / Sensational
Level of enthusiasm
Quality of thinking /

Students decide what is a good product and process

You can use this when doing a project/poster/practical work/exercises out of a book – start by designing the rubric together or they design it in groups. You site the rubric and adjust as necessary and then you then move around monitoring process and product according to their own ideas in their rubric. They are being held accountable to their own standards.