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.

A Joint

8th March: Joint Observation by Laura (mentor) and Pearl (DTLLS tutor) of my Surestart Adult Literacy (Entry Level 1 - Level 1) class.

I felt well prepared and not particularly nervous about this observation. I'd been teaching the class more or less on my own since January and this lesson was focused around Instructive Text - identifying the features and structure; looking at planning; and ending up with planning and starting to write a piece of their own instructive writing. My main issue in this class is to include Mark, the dyslexic, Entry Level 1 student, in the plenary sessions with the rest who are spiky profile Entry 3 up to strong Level 1 - but I thought I'd more or less got it covered in this one, with individual work scaffolded and pitched appropriately.
So, started with a recap of last week's Descriptive Writing lesson: great, they remembered all the features and content from the extract of The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson that we'd been looking at (older children's books offer some great pieces of text to work on with adult lit students). We went on to examine a range of beautifully laminated (!) examples of Instructive Text - simple/complex, with/without pix, discriminating between instructive/informative - and then I asked them to find real life examples of instructive writing in the classroom (including kitchen and toilet). I'd actually brought some fake ones with me to put up pre-class, but there was no need, there were plenty of examples, which they found: safety regs in the loo, fire instructions, kitchen dos and don'ts, community ads on the notice board... etc. And, helpfully, lots of examples of either plain informative writing or mixed instructions and info, from which I was able to clarify the differences again. An excellent Active Learning exercise - which had been suggested to me by Laura.
Next I had a pairs exercise - I'd laminated and cut up a set of slightly confusing instructions for escaping from a burning building which they had to put in order... great, they loved it and were fully engaged, but then I blotted my copybook by confusing the correct order when I worked through it with them and had to sort that one out - but it was ok. I think. Then I got them planning, followed by composing, their own piece of instructive writing based on the Wifeswap programme, which I rightly judged they would all have watched (where one wife swaps places with another, leaving an instruction dossier about her family for the other). This was a really good and relevant link to real life (TV watching and their own families), but unfortunately Pearl had never seen Wifeswap and had to have it explained to her by Laura.
Cut to the chase: Merit, with a Distinction on Relationship between students and teacher from Pearl and from Laura on Functional Skills.
Key Strengths: Planning and Preparation including Lesson Plan and SOL , Rapport with and engagement of students, Clear explanations, responses and use of flipchart.
Key Areas for Development: Insufficient differentiation/extension tasks, need better questioning to include and support less confident learners, to develop opportunities for active learning to encourage students to take ownership of own learning, and better visualisation of answers/resources to share with whole group.
My response to this, and the feedback sessions I had with both Laura and Pearl is that they were both encouraging, positive and seem to think I show lots of potential to be a really good teacher. I got the impression that as a non-subject specialist, Pearl would have given me a higher grade for more aspects of the actual teaching, but was talked down in several areas by Laura pointing out what I'd failed to teach or bring out in terms of Literacy content. Having observed two other Literacy teachers, I now think that Laura has extremely high standards for herself and me (which of course is excellent), but also a specific teaching style ("traditional", I've heard it called), which she expects me to emulate and marks me down (formally or informally) when I don't. Other teachers have a warmer, more relaxed communication style which may be less content-driven but works just as well to promote learning; I think I tend more towards that than Laura's style and she doesn't rate it. Because of this, perhaps, when I'm teaching she will often jump in with a comment or piece of information - pre-empting what I was going to say either seconds or minutes later, possibly in a different way. This leaves me feeling undermined and looking stupid sometimes, though I can never bring myself to tell her this even when she occasionally apologises for it.
In sum, though, I felt that both her and Pearl's responses were fair and positive and I can work on questioning, visualisation and active learning easily enough. What I do find hard is differentiating in plenary sessions, which I think are essential to inclusivity and maintaining a positive group dynamic. Sometimes I think it's worth letting less able learners take part in a slightly more difficult activity for the sake of this and to encourage them, without a massive differentiation plan, just support them as required. But obviously I'll work on this too.

Teaching Placement - Week One

Monday, 9.30am was the first day and class of my teaching practice. An adult literacy class offsite at a local Surestart centre. I arrived before Laura and was let into the "learning room" - a basic room with tables and chairs, a sofa one end and a flipchart. Nothing to assist with the ICT functional skills or emerging technology we're supposed to pack into every session to hit  all the criteria of a top teacher.
Laura arrived after a couple of the students;we pulled the tables into a central block and six students settled themselves around it. The five women and one man were all thirties and upwards, a couple of women working towards Level 2, the man just Level 1 and the rest in between. A nice and hard-working group, who Laura had just got started on a recap/warm-up about prepositions when a seventh class member turned up. This woman had a poor attendance rate - in fact should have received a letter telling her she was no longer on the course, but Laura welcomed her and included her in the work.
Laura  used the flipchart and handouts, directed questioning and discussion to good effect - in fact in the literacy classes I've observed so far, the more basic teaching aids seem more appropriate than using hi tec ICT - although in college they all work on individual PCs for a large proportion of the class. At Surestart, the same work is simply done on paper. 
At break time Laura took the latecomer aside and chatted to her on the sofa. After the break was over, she left me in charge of the rest of the group and took the woman out, returning alone after 10 minutes. It transpired later that Laura had noticed the student had refused a cup of tea (which costs 20p) and putting this together with various other signs, realised something was wrong. This woman is a mother of two small children and had £10 to last her for the rest of the week and no credit on her phone, so Laura had given her some advice about accessing emergency funds and taken her to the main Surestart office to make some phone calls. It was difficult call, she said, but with small children involved and me there to cover briefly, it seemed the best option in an emergency situation.
When Laura returned she set the other women individual tasks, set up tests for a couple of them to do at college next week and I worked with Mark, the student who had joined most recently. It was an enjoyable lesson with an interesting anc committed group and I look forward to working with them further.
I went over to  the college after this to meet Jay. As the two DTLLS class reps, we went up to the departmental office to see if we could talk to Anna - Mike's line manager and the FT DTLLS manager, to see if she would talk to us about the situation with him. As it turned out she was off sick, probably for the whole week, and though she looked distinctly uncomfortable, Pearl couldn't suggest any other course of action than seeing her when she returned. Not satisfactory.

Tuesday was Numeracy - 9am to 12pm onsite at college. Yasmin, who did the FT DTLLS course with a Literacy placement last year, is helping Laura with this class as a voluntary teaching assistant to help her get paid work. There are six students, one of whom is deaf and has a signer, one has brittle bone disease and is in a wheelchair, and another speaks unclearly and has learning difficuties.  Laura did a recap exercise on the whiteboard on number bonds, which raised a number of other issues. The class collectively has poor memory for concepts.
Yasmin had prepared a section on Healthy Eating, involving weighing and estimating the weight of portions of five-a-day fruit and vegetables. Although she got an aspect of fractions wrong which Laura had to correct, the class loved the Noughts and Crosses team game around which she framed some intital questions about weight values, and enjoyed weighing the portions of real fruit and veg she had brought with her. I worked with a pair of students during this exercise, which I was happy with.
After the break the whole class moved rooms to a computer lab where they all did individual tests and online work sheets. I worked with one student on a test, which went well enough. Then while they were working alone, Laura, Yasmin and I discussed next week's class and activities. I volunteered to create some worksheets around estimating prices, actual prices and adding more of the five-a-day portions. It was agreed that I'd need to include pictures to help the wheelchair student who has poor literacy skills.
In the break, Yasmin told me that last year's FT DTLLS course had been run by four tutors for two classes, but they had many problems, especially around mentors and placements - which have certainly not been solved this year. It seems that all four tutors took voluntary severance after being off long-term sick (stress) at various points during year. Mike was dismissed but appealed and was reinstated - to end up running the full time course more or less single-handed. I went up to the departmental office after class and had the conversation with Scott, as reported below.

Wednesday 12 - 3pm: the Literacy class I've observed a couple of times already. The normal room was having the ITC equipment upgraded so we all, me pushing the wheelchair student, decamped to a less than pleasant classroom in another block without the suite of PCs these students are used to. After a group ice-breaker/recap, Laura set the class differentiated tasks on handouts; I worked with the more advanced group on Active and Passive voices, rewriting sentences from one to the other. I enjoyed working with them, though even amongst three there was a mix of abilities and I wasn't sure I kept the least able learner focused and completely understanding the concept. When I checked his learning with directed questions, though, he seemed to have taken the concept on board.
Normally the second half of the class would have been individual working at PCs, but as this was not possible, Laura asked the class to visit the Information Store (library) and borrow a book or DVD to bring and talk about in class next week. She asked me to find some handouts for next week on commas and clauses, simple and complex sentences.

During this first week of teaching practice, although I didn't take any class on my own for any time, I was reassured that I would in time, with Laura's support, be able to do so, starting with small time periods and working upwards. I felt I related well to the students I did work with, and started to get a feel for their learning styles and abilities. 
My biggest area for development remains directed questioning, and asking questions that properly check learning and promote attention and confidence. I also don't think I would have had the experience to note the signs and deal with the problems of the learner in the Monday Surestart class.