Module 5 - Professional Practice - Reflection

For Module 5 (which should have been submitted at the end of the first semester, but had to be delayed to accommodate the late arrangements of placements and mentors and therefore teaching practice), we were asked to: "Critically reflect on your learning from the first semester of the DTLLS course and identify areas for development including gaps within your subject specialist knowledge to be addressed in Semester Two. Ensure you reflect on the importance of collaboration with your mentor and peers that support your professional practice. Draw on evidence from your reflective journal and feedback received through the observation process."  Although I've just handed it in, I may as well post it in my Reflective Journal...


I entered the FT DTLLS course after a significantly longer period outside a formal learning environment and with proportionally greater life experience than any other student. This had positive and negative aspects: I could draw on a range of professional experience, including writing for various media and management training and consultancy, which supported my subject specialism and some aspects of teaching; on the other hand I had predominantly worked as a freelance or independent practitioner, was largely self-taught, and thus unused to a culture in which professional practice is rigorously monitored and assessed against prescribed and somewhat inflexible criteria.
Perhaps it was an error on my part to suggest at initial interview that, as someone with a degree in English and writing credentials, I could teach any related subject from Adult Literacy to English A Level for my placement. Having been told that Creative Arts placements were already taken, I did not pursue Creative Writing as my preferred subject specialism; I wanted to get onto the course. Perhaps it also reflects a certain lack of knowledge within the DTLLS team that I was offered a placement teaching Literacy – certainly my mentor, when I was first assigned to her, expressed doubts as to my (or anyone else’s) capacity to deliver the Adult Literacy curriculum without training. She suggested at once that I should take an additional course to familiarise me with the content and assessment criteria. I was at first panicked by the thought of any additional workload, but when I attended the two-day, ACER Introduction to Literacy course in February, I found it immensely useful and it has supported my teaching in this, and indeed the other areas of Numeracy and Creative Writing.
My first experience of formal teaching was the Module 1 Microteach assignment, when, after a pre-teach survey, I chose to teach “Uses of the Semi-colon” to the DTLLS peer group. I was able to apply some of the theoretical teaching we had received to that point on Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS). This module focused on the basic requirements for teaching and the role and responsibilities of a teacher, including legislation, functional skills, feedback, assessment and record keeping. As I had spent a number of years researching work-life balance issues, my first instinct was to take a survey of the DTLLS class to ascertain what area of literacy they would find most useful, the results of which I was able to use to demonstrate numeracy functional skills.
The build up to delivering the microteach was immensely stressful: the volume of new information from full-time classes, structuring the half-hour lesson bearing in mind the theory and practice of that teaching and simultaneously writing the series of short essays for the rest of the Module 1 assignment also coincided with the first meeting with my mentor. As I have noted above, she was not convinced of my ability to teach Adult Literacy and, moreover, had only three Literacy classes per week which she wasn’t entirely happy to give over to me. However, we instituted a regular weekly meeting leading up to my placement (which resolved into two Literacy classes and one Numeracy class), after which she gave me regular and ongoing feedback and support about my teaching in terms of specialist subject matter and professional practice during and after lessons as well in weekly planning meetings.
I also found very valuable the tutorials I had at this point with the course tutor, without whose input I would have attempted to introduce far too much information into an over-complex microteach; the video of my lesson through which I was able to assess my own performance; and the formal and informal feedback from my peers. I reflected on all of this at some length in my Reflective Journal.
As we moved into Module 2 (Initial Assessment and Functional Skills) at the same time as Module 5 (Professional Practice), I found myself enjoying the academic work, but less so the small amounts of teaching. Conscious incompetence is not a mode I find comfortable to work in, and once again, the in-class microteach on aspects of numeracy was stressful. The collaborative side – we worked in groups of three – was positive, though and for one day, two microteach groups worked together and rehearsed with each other. Again, tutorials with the course tutor and another tutor were highly supportive when I was finding the time pressures of DTLLS work and running a home with two small children hard to reconcile – though my mentor seemed unimpressed by my issues and suggested I might consider doing the DTLLS course in two years rather than one. I had no desire to do this, but in terms of the initial assessment component of our taught course, I was not the only FT DTLLS student to think we had not been given sufficient information about either the intensity and front-loaded structure of the course, or the uncertainty of the mentors and placements assignation.
For Module 3 our assignment was to prepare a case study of an assessment strategy, while in class we analysed and evaluated learning and teaching theories relating to different forms of assessment and influences on assessment. Although I was engaged by the issues of formative and summative assessment, the fact that I had not yet started my teaching placement meant that I wasn’t able to develop a real case study – though my mentor provided some material for the assignment. There was some confrontation, though, when I showed her a scheme of learning of hers which I had reworked (as I was not yet in a position to create one of my own) to submit as an appendix to an assignment. She felt that this could be viewed as plagiarism and took this up with one or more of the DTLLS course tutors.
Module 4, Communication and Supporting Students in the Learning Environment, included a fairly demanding, two part assignment. The first required us to create an innovative resource that demonstrated inclusivity and diversity – and, contentiously, emerging technology – and present it to the DTLLS peer group and tutor(s). I was pleased with my resource, which was a Free Writing activity based on the work of James W Pennebaker, though its only relation to emerging technology was that it could be used either in a hard copy or Word-based format. The feedback from peers and tutors was insightful and supportive, though again I was pressed for time to complete this part of the assignment by the deadline and as a result did not present with as much confidence or expertise as I could have.
The second part of the assignment was a so-called “professional discussion” – although it merely involved presenting to a sole tutor - about communication, behaviour management and barriers to learning. It took place at the end of term, following a significant incident in the teaching programme which adversely affected all the FT DTLLS students. The main course tutor was dismissed and, whatever the reasons and justification, we as students felt that we were not properly informed nor was there a robust plan or personnel to replace him or support us. There was a hiatus in teaching and pastoral support during an important transition time from full-time learning to teaching placement.
I enjoyed preparing and delivering the professional discussion. I was able to draw on my brief experience of teaching placement in an Adult Literacy course based at a Sure Start centre, a Get On Adult Literacy class of very mixed ability and an Adult Numeracy class in which many students had learning and physical differences. I was also able to draw on my professional background in child development, parenting and self-help related psychology. I was pleased to achieve a Distinction in this assignment.
By the end of the first semester I had delivered two microteaches and one solo lesson for a Literacy class. Feedback from tutors and my mentor was positive about my subject specialist knowledge, authoritative delivery, good relationship with students, use of humour, planning and resources. Points for development included directed and inclusive questioning and setting clearer timeframes for each activity. Activities which offer more differentiation and extension tasks were also aspects I needed to work on. To consolidate my knowledge of the Adult Literacy Core Curriculum, I had booked myself onto a two day course to take place in February on Teaching the Adult Literacy Curriculum.