Journal Entries

EDP 155 Learning Journal Week 1- Professionalism-

When I become a teacher my professionalism will ultimately impact on a child's learning development. Being professional will help push my students to attain and achieve more learning objectives (Bransford D. Hammond, 2005). There are many characteristics which contribute to being professional. I would try to illustrate all of them when teaching my students including providing a motivating and rewarding environment (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). As a Professional teacher I must show thorough commitment to my students allowing them to increase motivation and involvement of tasks. Through my care and support students would feel safe in their environment to learn comfortably and efficiently (Kramer, 2003) . I would be an active listener to students concerns or problems and help them work a solution under my guidance (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). I would need to be able to make many complex decisions regularly throughout the day to ensure learning objectives are being met (Jackson, 1986). My decisions would need to be efficient enough to ensure a strong set of strategies are being followed through, and enough positive communication is being adhered too (Berliner, 1994). A priority when teaching would be to reflect on my decisions constantly by checking to see if the students learning development is acceptable, and their pedagogical knowledge has increased (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). I would need to reflect on my own practice and self assess, while critically examining my own educating style, by checking to ensure my students are receiving the best education from my daily teachings (Clarke, 2006). After reflecting on my numerous decisions I would use that analysis to improve my teaching practices towards future lessons (Hogan, 2003). It is important that I attain a sound knowledge foundation and always constantly increase and build on it. If I become more knowledgeable then I will be able to constantly and successfully meet the educational requirements which intern will be extremely rewarding whilst lifting and increasing my motivation to keep teaching ( Eggen & Kauchak, 2010).

Week 2- 'Zone Of Proximal Development'

I remember looking back when I taught a private gymnastics class to one of my students. They were to perform a skill that they had previously practiced over 100 times. When I mixed up the skill and made it more challenging I noticed they lost all concept of the skill and couldn't understand it. I was verbally explaining it, but seemed to not be enough guidance. I invited the same child into a gym class setting with other peers. I got the student to

complete the skill after watching 3 other students complete it. The students that performed the skill in front of her was accomplished and thoroughly understood the skill clearer than what she did. The social, visual interaction seemed to improve her understanding of the skill and you could see some improvement (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). Another activity I tried was talking and guiding the student through the steps together. The guidance removed a little of the students own independent problem solving and allowed her to develop the skill physically while removing the hurdle. Removal helped assist the student to move into their own zone of proximal development whilst opening the doors to start really learning the task (Vygotsky, 1978). I then decided to hold the students hand and we went through the skill together at a slower pace, helping the student to actually perform the skill while progressing through zone of proximal development, being assisted and helped along the way.(Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). I created a scaffold of sequential assisted steps which helped the child understand the progression and complete the task. It seemed to be very important to support the child when her development was impaired as eventually she will gain her own tools to complete the tasks herself. Providing that enough support and guidance is shown (Rogoff, 2003).

Week 3- Effective Punishment in classrooms

Punishment must be used accordingly when presented with undesirable behaviour from students (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). When becoming a teacher it will be imperative to ensure that I conduct certain strategies that promote desirable behaviour outcomes regarding my students. Whilst teaching I would ensure a balance between encouraging students to demonstrate good behaviour prioritises and punishing only when needed (Maag, 2001). Giving students timeout, by removing the child intern would create less opportunity for the disruptive behaviour to continue (Alberto & Troutman, 2006). Applying timeout would help encourage the student to recognise undesirable behaviour has been conducted by them (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). To be a successful teacher I need to ensure effective forms of punishment is carried out. I would avoid various ineffective forms of punishment including physical forms. A child that is the witness or receiver of that physical punisher may mimic, perform that undesirable action to themselves or others (Bandura, 1986). Another ineffective form of punishment I would never conduct would include negatively embarrassing and humiliating students (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010) As it may effect students relationship with teachers building fear towards them and encouraging a negative self esteem condition (Martin, 1987). I would never use the student classroom worksheet as a punisher as it would develop negative feelings about class tasks. I would need a student to view classroom work

as a fun positive experience, and to be motivated to want to learn not forced negatively as a punisher (Baldwin & Baldwin, 2001). As Im teaching if I apply correct and balanced use of punishers when needed a result in low amount of undesirable behaviour will occur, and stop any patterns of my students repeating behaviour problems over long periods of time (Mazurr, 2006).

Week 4- Encoding

Encoding is a process I have used in the past to successfully remember large chunks of information. I remember a specific time where I needed to clearly understand the Japanese language characters and have them successfully stored in my working memory (Anderson, 2007). I Needed to understand them by looking and recognising them on paper and express them verbally. If I related the to character shapes to ideas I currently already understood, as that seemed to help as they were already in my encoded memory (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). If I constantly used tools such as flash cards or repeated a song in my head I seemed to be able to constantly remember which character was which successfully as it became meaningful to learning. I used rote learning technique which included going constantly over something numerous times