Activity 8
I have embraced teaching
as my career in nineties. It has been an amazing journey since then. I was
raised by doting parents and a stable schooling and had magnificent teachers
during my own primary, secondary and tertiary education. My parents set the
pathway of lifelong learning, which was instilled in me with great ease. I
guess this paved way for me to embrace teaching as a profession, which has
satisfied my inner urge and tryst for knowledge.
Just after completion of B.Sc, B.Ed I have started with Year
one as a beginning teacher, I leapt and learnt
went an extra mile with my enthusiasm and catered to all 45 learners within my
class. My relationships with them were professional strong and fair
disciplinarian. Later I moved to Year 4 and later moved to high school.
I was a very satisfied teacher with regard to relationships and achievements of
my learners at every stage. The society has set norms and expectations hence
there were no behavioural issues and disruptions in class. All students were
catered to and given extra support if needed. Parents could call in and send
notes of concerns and issues regarding their children. Communication was open.
Teacher were given undue respect and authority, which has to be consciously
exercised with fairness, and transparent measures. Assessments were more of
grading and invited competition. Moral study was compulsory to in still values
into youngsters and were well integrated into all core curricular areas
especially languages.
Gradually I upskilled myself to M.A in Literature and
M.Ed which also enabled me to pursue
high school children as I felt it was
more rewarding teaching teenagers and catering to a higher standards of curriculum.
The down side of it I had to tailor my teaching to one subject and one language
following the British norms established in India, which was somewhat similar in
New Zealand.
On migration to New Zealand, I undertook volunteer work in
the schools that my children attended and also retrained myself to equip with
the skills and knowledge of teaching to cater to the western world. The world
also simultaneously went through a significant change in educational philosophies
and practices with the invention of Internet and various digital platforms. I
had to embark on the journey to equip myself to be able to cater to the modern
generation of learners where learning is more personalised and individual
educational plans and goals need to be co constructed and achieved. In the modern
era of education Values are chosen and worked but there seems to be no cohesion
of practice around it amongst teachers and the society on the whole has been
experienced diminished values and respect for each other, name calling, stereotypes,
being judgemental etc.
The modern digital era brings in scope for project-based
learning (Sarah Maughan, 2012) , where the
disciplines can cross credit and coordinate the learning to propel in the favour
and accentuating learning by the learner.
In short the
panoramic view of teaching has undergone a tumultuous changes within these three
decades. I started my career with no internet and currently teaching in a
digital classroom where all work is done, compiled and shared on digital tools.
Videos, interviews, chat and text forums have become the norm where learners
aren’t shy anymore, it gives them participation, ownership and enjoyment of
owning their learning. The personalised learning I reckon in currently in a transition
stage, once it starts to blossom then we will be able reap the benefits of this
personalised learning. Learners will be more selective and accountable of their
choices. Change is the norm of human life and being adaptable and accommodative
of change in order to prepare for the future. Catering to students diversity through
differentiation (UNESCO, 2004) has gained more relevance
and is more accommodative of curriculum to suit the needs of the pupils
at large.
The transition from no internet to total internet based
digital learning with a wide audience and global citizenship has created a wide
spectrum of change in my own practice.
References:
References
Sarah Maughan, D.
T. (2012, July). What leads to positive change. Retrieved from The
NFER Research Programme:
https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/RCTL01/RCTL01.pdf
UNESCO. (2004). Changing
Teaching Practices-using curriculum differentiation to respond to students'
diversity. Retrieved from
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001365/136583e.pdf:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001365/136583e.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment