Role of a Teacher

After observing my work colleagues at LVS Hassocks and my peers during their micro teach on the PGCE course there are three key areas that have been highlighted as areas that I need to improve on to develop as a teacher. I particularly recognised these strengths in the more experienced teachers at LVS Hassocks who I work with, they demonstrated good progression of activities, effectively practiced the role of a facilitator of learning and used a variety of assessment methods. After observing peers and through the observation process on the PGCE I have recognised the importance of self-evaluation through “a system of triangulation of feedback from students, peers, external examiners, inspectors and through the process of assessment” (Reece, I & Walker, S) for my overall development as a teacher, it is through reflective practice that I will be able to have greater impact on the lives of the learners I work with and am going to work with in the future.

During an English lesson, a teacher in my school used progressive tasks to help students develop step by step with their use of connecting words to form well-structured sentences. She did this through altering the number of interconnecting words to choose from depending on the ability of the students, the more able students had a wider range of inter connecting words to choose from whereas students who find the task more challenging would have less options this an example of “reducing the degrees of freedom by simplifying the task” (Wood, 1976) as documented by Wood and colleagues after an interventionist study of scaffolding. Scaffolding “is a process in which students are given support until they can apply new skills and strategies independently” (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992). I have come to understand and apply scaffolding to my teaching practice more after these observations and wider reading on the subject. The support I have offered in the classroom has varied dependant on the needs of my students similar to...