The Six Essential Exercises

Steiner, R., Bamford, C. (2004) Start Now! A Book of Soul and Spiritual Exercises. Steiner Books, pp. 109-118.

Qualities...

• Mastery of Thought - thoughts govern us, we shall work to reach a point where no other thought can disturb us as we are so absorbed in our chosen point of focus/attention;
• Control of Actions - resolve to action your own initiative, separate to the impulses from the external world;
• Equanimity - steadfast, even tempered, composed, neither great joy or great sorrow should be allowed to dictate your interactions with the world;
• Understand every being - find the wonderful, the beauty, affirm the good and true, learn tolerance of the negative whilst focussing on the positive;
• Complete Openness - remaining open to the possibility of learning something new, experiencing something different, steering away from judgement and truly listening to what another may bring to meet us;
• Inner Harmony - developed as we work with the first 5 qualities;
• Feeling of Freedom - finding the centre of our own being and working from it, rather than relying on external factors &/or people to determine our course of action in the world.

Inner Sanctum by HBKerr (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Exercises...

• Rhythm restores power - work at restoring / introducing rhythm in your own life;
• commit to undertaking certain activities at certain times of the day each day:
• certain meditation and concentration exercises at a certain time each morning;
• review of the day at a certain time and in a certain pattern each night;
• the more regularities we introduce the better;
• bringing natural rhythm into our chaotic human lives;

1.  Thought Control:

• Allow peace and tranquillity of mind, think a definite chosen idea or focus on a set object. 
• Training, striving for objectivity, cultivating inner strength;
• "students of the spirit must train their thinking so that it can set its own direction and goals. Their thinking must teach itself inner stability and the ability to stick strictly to one subject." (p.114)
• Over a matter of months train ourselves to be able to focus our thoughts on some ordinary everyday object for at least 5 minutes, excluding all unrelated thoughts.
• Meditation of a simple object "What is a pencil made of? How are these materials prepared? How are they put together to make a pencil?" (p.115) etc etc is much easier to stay on point than vast existential questions.

2. Acting out of Individual Initiative:

• Observe/consider how little activity in your life stems from your own personal chioces;
• MUST spend some time each day engaging in an activity that arises from within yourself, however trivial;
• Getting used to obeying our own commands;
• Less and less inclined towards the desire of non-essentials;
• Training of the self in desiring the possible in order to be able to recognise and apply strong will forces towards the 'Impossible' in order to transform them into possibilities!

Blackboard, Board, School from pixabay (CC0)

3.  Detachment / Imperturbability:

• See goodness in everything, looking for the positive everywhere;
• Ability to empathise fully with joy and sorrow, without being lost to the experience or making expression of our emotions involuntarily;
• Not suppressing justified pain but inconsolable weeping, not suppressing our abhorrence of a misdeed but our blind rage, not alertness to danger but fruitless fear.
• Mental tranquility;
• Do not succumb to self-deception, it is possible to be calm and composed in confronting things in day to day life and yet have our suppressed lack of equilibrium assert itself all the more elsewhere;
• What we may seem to have already is much less important than systematically practising that which we need to acquire;
• No matter what life may have taught us, it is that which we teach ourselves that serves the purposes of spiritual training;
• People who cannot laugh have sa little control over their lives as people constantly provoked to uncontrollable laughter.

4.  Positivity:

• "The erroneous, the bad and the ugly must not prevent the soul from finding the true, the good, and the beautiful wherever they are present." (p.117)
• "We cannot consider bad things good and false things true, but we can reach the point where the bad does not prevent us from seeing the good, and errors do not prevent us from seeing the truth." (p.118)

Directory Signposts Hope, from pixabay (CC0)

5.  Faith:

• Do not allow your assessment of the future to be dictated by the past;
• Meet each experience with new faith;
• Allow for the possibility of belief;
• Remain open to new experiences;
• Be intent on using every opportunity to learn something new concerning every thing and every being;
• Faith in the possibility that new experiences and ideas will contradict old ones.

6.  Inner Balance:

• Formed gradually from the other five qualities;
• Grasp life;
• Progress gradually.

Stones Stacked Balanced, from pixabay (CC0)

CSD ~ Classroom Management ~ Module 2

Professor Ramon Lewis' introduction:

• Four levels of proficiency:

1. Labour - teacher does what they can to the best of their ability;
2. Technician - teacher is skilled, training undertaken;
3. Professional - teacher can explain what they do and why they do it and why it works;
4. Artist - teacher can take all the skills and mix and match and adapt to the needs of individual students.

• General principles to take and apply in your own way.
• Recommendations towards researched based practices, implementation of which is limited only by your creativity!
• Two parts to Classroom Management:

1. Avoiding things going wrong: "Pre-emptive Management" (things that a teacher can do: good pedagogy, engaging curriculum - managing order in the classroom, flowing lessons, happy kids);
2. What to do when things do go wrong? "Responsive Management".

"Think back to 30 years ago or to an earlier time when you had experiences in schools? Do you think things have changed? Look at the slideshow below and think about the words that come to mind ... Spend some time sharing the list of words and your thoughts, experiences and ideas with the members of your small group.  What evidence do you have to support your views?"

• Words that came to mind for me while looking at the slideshow photos were: strict; rows; serious; rules; clarity; manners; discipline; sad; books / paper; chalk / chalkboards; drab plain space; simplicity; restrictive clothing (eg/ the jackets on young boys).
• These photos are a lot more than 30 years old!!  30 years ago was 1986, I was in Year 3 in a Public School in NW suburban Sydney. And my schoolrooms definitely did not look like those. Certainly they still looked different to today's classrooms in many ways, but some of the slideshow images are over 100 years old!
• So much is the same yet so much is also very different.  Technology in the classroom is different.  Technology at home is different. Families are different!  There are more and more children affected by parental separations and blended families (remember when the Brady Bunch was a novelty?!) Children have less freedoms in some ways (such as walking to & from school, being home alone, having less unstructured time) and more freedom in others (more entertainment, ideas, resources/facilities and structured activities are readily available).
• There are more diagnoses, more medications, and yet also more support and more strategies in place for children who struggle in the classroom environment. There are more toxins in the foods available and in the environments we live in, yet there is also rising community consciousness towards healthy and ethical lifestyle choices. The messages that children are exposed to in media and society are different, with more emphasis on sexuality and consumerism, but there is also a strong impulse towards individuality and recognition of the self, separate to typical stereotyping.
• As Professor Lewis has also stated, the language around classrooms and students has also changed a lot. The Pedagogy of teaching as an entire profession has evolved greatly as our understanding of learners, learning and teaching has expanded. 'Discipline' is frowned upon, teachers these days need to be much more aware of building strong, positive, professional relationships with their students, rather than creating fear of The Authority to coerce children into engaging with learning tasks. The task of the teacher to evolve their own pedagogy is a bigger one as there is a greater impulse towards teacher growth (through reflective proactive practice) and a bigger (and growing) body of knowledge to draw inspiration from.
• The needs that the world has of our learners/future leaders has also changed. We need more problem solvers, more visionaries, more doers.  We need people who can step forward to help mankind create better solutions and ways of being on the Earth. We need people willing to work with diversity and through adversity.  It is a BIG task that the educators of today undertake in preparing the future guardians of a fragile Earth.

Differences do not necessarily mean increases in the difficulty of teaching, although anecdotally that is what many teachers have experienced. It makes sense that big changes in the way that society as a whole works would have big impacts on the classroom (especially if you consider the classroom as a community in itself). This will significantly impact the way in which teachers need to be able to evolve their work to maintain effective engagement and interaction with their students in learning activities and supporting social development.

Reflection activity - Contemporary schools

Bearing in mind the photos you looked at and discussed previously, look at the pictures below and think about how our contemporary democratic society has changed the way teaching and learning happens in schools.

• What are some of the words that come to mind when you see these images?
• Happy; hands-on; engaged; small groups; helping; bullying; teacher @ student level, engaged; positivity.
• How do you think these contemporary values and ideals may impinge on your role as a teacher?
• Impinge "have an effect, especially a negative one" (Oxford dictionaries)
• "contemporary Australian democratic traditions mean that our schools must also accept and promote the role of personal freedom in their classrooms" (LaTrobe University: Classroom Management - Module 2)
• I think we do need to be aware that we are dealing with individuals, with individual strengths and challenges.  This does increase the difficulty of managing a large group of students, when you may be limited in your capacity and in the support available to you to be able to meet all of their needs.
• "Although students may protest their rights to personal freedoms, the role of the education system is to assist them to develop the personal and social dispositions which allow them to function in a collaborative and positive way, in both school and the wider society." (LaTrobe University: Classroom Management - Module 2) 
• When students perceive that what we request of them may just be for our own reasons, they may be less inclined to be cooperative and respectful than if we hold a clear picture that what we are doing we do with their best interests at heart. Students need to feel valued and respected as individuals, so this increases the significance of the teacher's capacity to build relationships with their students.
• In a chat with our school principle today, her comment to me was that "we have to teach behaviour these days, the children don't come with it" which I found interesting in relation to these discussions.
• Consider the following statement in relation to the pictures below: "Primary teachers teach children, secondary teachers teach subjects". How do you respond to this and how do you anticipate that this response may affect the way your classroom will function?
• Since primary teachers generally cover a broad range of subject matter with their classes, their relationships with their students are probably more significant in the children's overall learning;
• As primary aged children are younger, they are still developing foundational social skills and self-awareness which their teacher possibly needs a higher level of engagement with.
• The type of relationships that are developed between a primary teacher and a secondary teacher are different.  The younger child forms a more dependant attachment to a carer than a secondary student, who begins to develop ways of being with teachers more strongly borne out of an adult style relationship of mutual respect [Martin M.(Ed.) Educating through Arts and Crafts, 2008 p.68]
• Adolescent students do generally have a strong social foundation by the time they reach high school, which may largely allow teachers to focus on subject material rather than behavioural issues within the classroom.
• However, adolescent students are at a vulnerable stage in their personal development, and still need reliable adults in their lives in order to feel safe, secure and valued.  When a series of high school teachers each take just one subject with a group of students and do not make the effort to connect with the students there is a very real possibility that students will "fall through the gaps" so to speak and not seek out support that may be needed.

My First High School Art & Design Classroom Experience!

So I have found a favourite morning reading spot in the grounds of our school. Sheltered from the wind, in the morning sun, and I get to listen in on the High School morning singing! It is also a place that has an intermittent flow-past of staff and students, so I generally get to say "Good Morning" to lots of people, though most of them are going places, so it's not like the staffroom where it is impossible to work due to getting caught up in conversations one after the other!

However! The conversations that I do have with those who stop in with me are also very fruitful. The staff at our school are a very warm and collegial bunch, and I feel so grateful to be a part of this place and community. Anyway, as I sat in this beautiful spot on Friday, I was approached by one of the High School Arts Teachers...

With a teacher unwell and away for at least a few weeks, would I be able to come along and help out with a Friday afternoon Art and Design elective, predominantly with Class 8-10 students, but also working alongside the 11s and 12s. Um yes. Very much yes. Totally out of my comfort zone but I need to put my toes in the water at some stage, since this will apparently be my area of specialty!

I should explain a little. I have a Bachelor's degree in Architectural Studies. While there is a lot of art-based theory and artistic expression and model making and graphic representation in these studies, I do feel quite lacking in what I consider to be "high end" art production. I can craft 'till the cows come home and I can theorise and I can build you a scaled model of almost anything you please, but I still have that hangover sensation from my own schooling years that I am not one of "those kids" who is "naturally good at" painting/drawing/art. So it feels a bit daunting to be heading in to TEACH it!!

Gratefully the teacher who approached me seemed enthusiastic about it and grateful/relieved to have me on board to assist! The program that was proposed and explored for the session turned out to be right up my alley, getting the students to work with some very limited 2D, rectilinear materials to create organic 3D forms. 

So we looked at the work of Andy Goldsworthy, discussed "What is an organic form?", and I had flashes of memory of first year Design Studio, of lecturers impressing upon us the difficulties of trying to create truly organic forms from manufactured materials, of discussions on the limitations of materials, of discussions on pushing the boundaries of materials, of Gehry, of Arline Fisch, of Gaudi, and of traditional basket making forms and skills.

All in all it was a wonderful session.  I enjoyed very much watching the students struggle with the paper, work out strategies, admit defeats, and find value in their efforts. And I really enjoyed being able to give them positive constructive feedback on their work at the end of the day.  Felt like maybe I do have something to offer after all... ha ha!!

CSD ~ Module 1Growth Mindset

NOT failure... "NOT YET"

Praise the process (not intelligence or talent) effort, strategies, focus, perseverance, improvement.

"Not yet" gives students a pathway into the future
Create greater persistence
Change students mindsets
KIDS CAN GET SMARTER.

"... the Meaning of effort and difficulty were transformed.  Before, effort and difficulty made them feel dumb, made them feel like giving up. But now, effort and difficulty, that's when their neurons are making new connections, stronger connections, that's when they're getting smarter."

"... once we know that abilities are capable of such growth, it becomes a basic human right for children, all children, to live in places that create that growth ..."

Developing a Growth Mindset in Teachers and Staff

A fixed mindset ties ability to some innate source, where a person is either good at something or not.
A growth mindset carries an understanding that abilities can be developed with effort, strategies and perseverance.

"Fixed mindset people dread failure, feeling that it reflects badly upon themselves as individuals, while growth mindset people instead embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and improve their abilities."

"We have to really send the right messages, that taking on a challenging task is what I admire. Sticking to something and trying many strategies, that’s what I admire. That struggling means you’re committed to something and are willing to work hard. Parents around the dinner table and teachers in the classroom should ask, ‘Who had a fabulous struggle today? (Morehead 2012)"

"students with a growth mindset are far more likely to take on more challenging work and succeed at it than students with a fixed mindset - even if all other factors remain the same."

"With a fixed mindset, there are feelings of powerlessness and learned helplessness. This can lead to the development of a self-defeating identity, accompanied by toxic personal statements like ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I’m not clever enough.’"

"Mindsets predict motivation and achievement"

APPLICABLE TO ALL PEOPLE!

Modelling Growth Mindset attitudes and behaviours;
Create/allow/provide space for new ideas and trying new things;
Allow/create time and space for reflective processes following up on products and processes;
Engaging with constructive "formative" feedback as a part of the reflective process. 

"making mistakes in front of the students is not only likely, but a fantastic teachable moment" John S.Thomas

CSD ~ Module 1 ~ Mental Health

"Bully: Gary Manip" by RobotButler (CC BY NC ND 3.0)

The mental wellbeing of students is absolutely within the realm of the teacher's work. Hollistic wellbeing cannot exist where a students mental health is in need of support that is unforthcoming. Without an understanding of any mental dis-ease the teacher cannot effectively engage the student in learning activities or build upon their capacities. Indeed a child's teacher may be hold a priveleged position in the child's life of being one of few adults who actively engage the child and can recognise &/or understand their needs.

"another sad girl" by agnes-green (CC BY NC ND 3.0)

Collaboration is going to be so vital in supporting students mental health. The teacher may well need to work in a certain way to support student needs in the classroom, however, there will also need to be supportive, collaborative relationships established between the teacher and the parent(s), the teacher and school based support services, and possibly between the teacher and outside specialist support services if necessary in certain circumstances. The teacher-student relationship should not be isolated when working through complex and/or significant mental health issues!

"Helping Hand on Old Rag" By Shenandoah National Park (CC BY 2.0)

"Never underestimate your potential to 'save' a student from failure, withdrawal, self-harm, misery, underachievement,accelerating conflict or denial. Observing and responding tactfully and swiftly to signs of distress or regression can prevent the worsening of mental health problems and more optimistically, can arrest many problems before they become serious issues." 

[Fogelgarn, R., (2016) Classroom Management: Educating for hollistic wellbeing. LaTrobe University, Section 4 "Introduction to mental health in teaching".]

Hollistic Wellbeing: An introduction to some Steiner/Waldorf theory.

I currently work as an assistant in a primary years Waldorf classroom.  We have regular assistant meetings where we have been working (last year) through several different theories around comfort, wellness and developmental pictures of the "becoming" child.  Since this question immediately triggered thoughts of one of our sessions, I will go through my recollection of it for you as input into ongoing discussion!

One specific exercise we undertook was the classic "leading the blind" exercise, where we each took turns at leading and being led, and returned to the group for discussion of our experiences. The idea being that by removing sight we are automatically made "uncomfortable" (as potentially for a student being presented with a challenge in the classroom) and thus become increasingly aware of how other experiences may either increase or decrease our level of comfort and confidence in the scenario.  

It may come as no surprise that the closeness of the leader, physical contact and auditory cues increased comfort, while isolation and unpredictable terrain decreased our levels of comfort and associated perceived wellbeing.

The discussion that followed focussed on the child/human being as belonging in, and needing comfort in, 4 "homes" in order to experience a true sense of comfort and wellbeing.  These being: the physical human body/vehicle; the surrounding physical environment; the social environment; and a spiritual sense of connection to a bigger force / greater good working in the world.

We then discussed factors that influence comfort and wellbeing in each of these "homes".

• Physical Body - The fundamental health and wellbeing of the human organism:
  • Development and expression of genetics into an effective physical vessel;
  • The physical senses of touch and balance.
  • Invasion of disease into the vessel;
  • Movement;
  • Nutrition;
  • Chemical exposure.
• Surrounding physical environment:
  • The qualities of the external physical environment - hot/cold, rough/smooth, hard/soft, loud/quiet, level/sloped/stepped, bright/dim, colourful/bleak, sweet/sour;
  • The physical senses that form the interface between the human body and the surrounding physical environment - temperature, hearing, sight (light and colour), smell, taste, touch, balance.
• Social environment:
  • Connectedness/belonging within classroom and social community;
  • Acceptance of differences;
  • Supportiveness / active positive engagement of classmates and teaching/support staff;
  • Family/home life dynamics;
  • Socio-economic factors;
  • Cultural factors.

• Spiritual:
  • Sense of belonging within both the immediate social community and the wider world;
  • Will forces, sense of 'I';
  • Expression of the self through (and a sensitivity to) language, speech, music, form and beauty;
  • A healthy sense of wonder and awe.

** I have referred to meeting notes and discussed with colleagues in producing this for discussion. I have also referred to: Schoorel, E. (2004) The First Seven Years: Physiology of childhood.Fair Oaks, California: Rudolf Steiner College Press. Chapter 4.

Reading notes - "Teaching: making a difference" Ch.1

Churchill, R., Ferguson, P., Godinho, S., Johnson, N.F., Keddie, A., Letts, W., Mackay, J., McGill, M., Moss, J., Nagel, M.C., Nicholson, P., Vick, M. (2011) Teaching: Making a difference (1st ed.) milton, Queensland: John Wiley & Sons. Chapter 1, pp.5-29.

p.5

• Teacher quality and teaching quality go hand in hand.
• Teacher quality - what teachers do: 
• Teacher identity; 
• Teacher knowledge; 
• Teacher skills (pedagogy, content, theory, allow for the learning of all students.
• Teaching quality - what students learn:
• Personalisation of learning within a supportive class and community; 
• Relevant curriculum; 
• Continuous monitoring & evaluation of learning.

p.7     

• Professional ethics;
• Professional standards;
• Lifelong learning.

p.9

• Emphasis on learning outcomes.
• Integrated learning areas to increase relevance and meaning.
• Ongoing assessment / planning responding to competencies, interests and needs.
• Learning as a social process.
• Learning experiences build on children's strengths, competencies and interests.
• Moving away from simply assessing observable behaviours and products of learning, towards inclusion of higher order thinking skills such as problem solving and creative thinking.

p.10

• "putting the student at the centre of the learning and teaching relationship is a critical component of successful teaching"

p.11

• "Constructivist theory of learning": everything a person learns is mediated by prior experiences and understandings; impacted by classroom diversity in socio-economic conditions, cultural backgrounds, home environments etc.

p.12

• Teaching and learning strategies can include: 
• Real life activities;
• Access to expert performance and modelling of processes;
• Multiple roles and perspectives;
• Reflection;
• Collaborative construction of knowledge;
• Articulation of personal values and beliefs;
• Coaching and scaffolding.

• "Effective learners draw information , ideas and wisdom from their teachers and use learning resources effectively."

p.13

Storying Teaching

• Individual's own experiences and understanding of teaching, as well as the stories of others that have been shared with them, will contribute greatly towards the individual's own teacher identity.
• "Colleagues will share short, personal narratives with you, describing critical instances encountered within their own lives and professional careers ... Your reflection on the experiences and stories of others will form part of your identity.  At the same time, your stories will contribute to the changing stories and discourses of teaching."

p.14

Theorising Teaching and Identity

• Do you as a pre-service teacher have a metaphor for teaching?
• Metaphors help construct our overarching expectations and understandings of education.
• Many metaphors represent traditions of child-centred practices and the "Progressive Education Movement" led by rousseau (1712-1778)
• Socrates - teacher as midwife; Freine - banking metaphor, teachers making "deposits"; teacher as artist.
• a high level of sensitivity to language and perception around your metaphor and its influence on your work

p.15

• Consider what may be obscured by the metaphors that you hear and work with.
• "If the teacher is the grand chess master, they as masters have 50,000 patterns in their repertoire, but the difference is that, in chess, only one player moves at a time and the pieces only move when the player moves them.  Teachers are not so lucky; their chess pieces think and move on their own." (Bennett & Rolheiser 2001, p.6)

Enacting Beliefs and Values

• What to teach
• How to teach it
• How to work with students
• How to respond to classroom issues
• How to manage the classroom
• Respectful interactions with parents and colleagues;
• Mindfulness of practice;
• 'discipline of noticing' (Mason 2002)

Transforming Personal Identity

P.16

• "The shape of identity and belief formation, professional thinking and decision making (ie/ deciding what actions to take) will be unique to each of us.  Further, our identity will change over time in response to reflecting upon our professional knowledge and practice, the learning outcomes our students achieve, and the ideas we are exposed to from colleagues, researchers and other stakeholders in education.  In this way teachers come to transform their own beliefs, knowledge and practice."

Pedagogy

• Art / science / method / theory / practice / philosophy;
• Complex, unique to the individual, constantly evolving;
• Assumptions about learning, development, appropriateness of content and teaching styles;
• More than a skill set;

p.17

• Effectiveness measured by "student acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes and dispositions (Vaughn, Bos & Schumm 2006)
• Effective pedagogy and high quality teaching are closely intertwined.
• Lee Schulman (1986, 1987) categorises professional knowledge into:
• "content knowledge;
• general pedagogical knowledge, with special reference to those broad principles and strategies of classroom management and organisation that appear to transcend subject matter;
• curriculum knowledge, with particular grasp of the materials and programs that serve as 'tools of the trade' for teachers;
• pedagogical content knowledge, that special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of understanding;
• knowledge of learners and their characteristics;
• knowledge of educational contexts, ranging from the workings of the group or classroom, the governance and financing of school districts, to the character and communities and cultures;
• knowledge of the educational ends, purposes and values, and their philosophical and historical backgrounds.

p.18

• Learning outcomes are improved when teachers are actively engaged in ongoing pedagogical learning themselves.
• Understanding current and emerging learning theories.
• Learning enhanced when students pre-existing knowledge engaged.
• "Students develop deep understanding of important concepts when their learning is built on previous conce3pts and experiences, and ideas are connected to one another."
• Developmental understanding of the child (cognitive, social, physical, emotional) by the teacher is of great benefit in shaping productive experiences for students.
• teacher flexibility => effective teaching practices.

p.19

Queensland's "New Basics"

• Teachers urged to mentor one another, to open their classrooms to their colleagues, swap strategies and discuss pedagogy (Luke 1999).
• 5 principles:
• Understanding of the learner;
• Active constriction of meaning;
• Supportive AND challenging environment;
• Learning partnerships;
• Social and cultural contexts.
• entrusts teachers to implement repertoire of pedagogical strategies;
• RICH TASKS with an obvious connection to "real world", "authentic pedagogy".

p.20

• Rich tasks => Intellectual, fostering connectedness, Supportive social environment, regicnition of difference.

New South Wales' "Quality Teaching"

• It is the 'quality of the pedagogy that most directly and most powerfully affects the quality of learning' (Department of Education and Training [NSW] 2003, p.4)
• 3 dimensions of pedagogy and classroom practice:
• Promoting high levels of intellectual quality;
• promoting a quality learning environment;
• developing in students a sense of the significance of their work.
• Premise that all teachers can teach well and all students can learn.
• Teaching "self-styled", defining own goals and monitoring own progress.
• Reflective thinking paramount.
• Pose 4 questions for the self:
• WHAT do you want your students to learn?
• WHY does that learning matter?
• What do you want your students to PRODUCE?
• HOW WELL do you expect them to do it?

p.21

Victorian "Essential Learning Standards & Principles of Learning and Teaching"

• 6 principles:
• Learning environment supportive and productive;
• Learning environment promotes independence, interdependence and self-motivation;
• Students needs, backgrounds, perspectives and interests are reflected in the learning program;
• Students are challenged and supported to develop deep levels of thinking and application;
• Assessment practices integral in Teaching and Learing;
• Learning connects strongly with the communities and practice beyond the classroom.
• Schools & teachers to 'review own practice' rather than advocating a 'right' or 'best' way to teach.
• Collaborative reflection on pedagogy.
• Classrooms as learning communities.

p.22 

Reflective Practice

• Pre-service teacher education as a socialisation and induction to the profession.
• Vital PART of ongoing learning.
• Graduate teacher should be able to describe and demonstrate:
• Key principles of pedagogical knowledge;
• High-order communication skills - an analytical, critical disposition is critical for reflective thinking;
• Ability to incorporate innovative approaches into professional knowledge base;
• Ethical practice;
• Curriculum and pedagogical designs that meet the needs of alls tudents.
• Reflective practice => constantly reviewing one's beliefs and practices AND the theories and ideas underpinning them.

p.23

• Documenting / journalling thoughts AND CONVERSATIONS as a significant part of the process of reflection / analysis.
• A GREAT DEAL OF SIGNIFICANT, LARGELY UNSUPPORTED, LEARNING HAPPENS IN THE FIRST YEAR OF WORK OF A GRADUATE TEACHER.

Portfolio

• Teacher standards:
• Professional knowledge;
• Professional practice;
• Ongoing teacher development.
• Portfolio as 'a demonstration of your growth and improvement' (Rieman 2000, p.3).
• 'A comprehensive self-reflective record of a teacher's strengths and weaknesses' (Wolf 1996).
• 'A quality record of a teacher's practice selected for a particular purpose' (The Standards Council of Victoria 1997, p.3)

p.24

• Wolf (2000) 3 categories: learning; assessment; employment.
• Wolf (2000) ' a depository of artefacts or assorted documents ... that require a written reflection by the developer on the significance of ... these" (p.36).
• " a portfolio is not merely a collection of everything you do or have done - teaching portfolios are important in capturing the essential elements of your practice and providing the place where you can readily develop a reflective teaching practice."
• Portfolio is for:
• Preparation for internship and job interviews;
• Documentation of your philosophy of teaching, supported by curriculum and assessment practices;
• Teacher registration;
• Attaining "Accomplished Teacher" status through detailed reflective documentation.
• Possible headings to guide portfolio development:
• Title Page;
• Autobiography;
• Statement (as an evolving, informed position on your personal professional theory);

p.25

• Planning (establishing a balanced instructional focus, how do the plans support student learning?);
• Pedagogy and Student Diversity (how do plans make the curiculum accessible to all students?);
• Curriculum and Assessment (designing assignments, monitoring and analysis);
• Reflection (use of research, theory and reflections in T&L to guide practice);
• The Teaching Proffessional (investigating practice);
• Appendicies (not just printed documents but may be multimedia, CD, DVD, contain hyperlinks, audio &/or video recordings of lessons, photos, etc.).
• "each individual may legitimately theorise about their own practice, and aim to build theories"
• "Reflection upon formal, professional knowledge, developed through research and theory, is the best way to initially develop and refine a professional belief system.  A teacher who shapes their theory in such a way will have a professionally defensible approach to their teaching."

Exercises from Chapter

Visual essay on teaching and learning.

Short essay that traces, defines and justifies your metaphor for teaching.

(See notes from p.14)

Write a short autobiographical piece for portfolio.

Write a statement on your personal professional theory.

Design content / headings for professional portfolio.