-Julia's+notes



**//Individual Summative Reflection//**

The Mathematics in-school placement component of this unit has been fundamental for my learning and understanding of Mathematically concepts such as Volume and Capacity, and ways in which they can be taught. I have always been a little apprehensive about teaching Math as I find Mathematical concepts are quite difficult to explain, and for children quite difficult to understand and conceptualise. Thus this experience enabled me to push past my reluctance and allowed me to further develop my skills in planning, assessing and reporting; communicating effectively with students; and creating and maintaining a safe and challenging learning environment.

In relation to planning, assessing and reporting, the in-school placement has allowed me to develop my questioning skills to assist me in the planning of sequential and meaningful learning tasks. Effective and open-ended questions were a main focus in our lesson planning. As evident in the lesson plans submitted, its significance can be conveyed from the dedication of its own column. Our group agreed that it was necessary to develop effective and informative questions throughout the lessons in order for us to gain a deeper understanding of students’ knowledge and abilities. Thus we used a majority of open-ended questions such as, ‘Can you explain…’, ‘why did … happen?’ and ‘how would you…’ etc. These open-ended questions allowed us to understand the problem solving process that students employed and what students understood about the topics involved, this helped us plan the next step in their learning. Thus our effective questioning assisted us in achieving Element 3 of the NSW Professional Teaching Standards in that “Teachers Plan, Assess and Report for effective learning”.

Element 4 of the NSW Professional Teaching Standards state that teachers should communicate effectively with their students, I believe our group has achieved this element successfully through our rapport building and consideration of students’ feedback after every lesson. Clear communication was established at the end of every lesson, where students are asked to complete a lesson feedback form, in which students describe what they have learnt from the lesson and verbally reflect on what we can improve on the week after. By using this strategy, students are able to take part in their learning, while also allowing us to understand students’ achievement of the learning outcomes. Thus by effectively communicating our goals and listening to student critiques, we were able to tailor our lessons more closely to our students.

I believe we have also effectively achieved Element 5 of the NSW Professional Teaching Standards in that teachers create and maintain safe and challenging learning environments through the use of classroom management skills. As demonstrated by the above strategy of effective communication, we were able to setup a safe and engaging learning environment where students feel confident enough to risk full participation. Again, we were able to build rapport with students while designing fun and engaging learning tasks where students are motivated to learn.

Through the use of effective questioning, communication and rapport building, I believe I have successfully achieved Elements 3, 4 and 5 of the NSW Professional Teaching Standards and achieved the purpose of the in-school placement in which I was able to motivate and engage students in Mathematical learning tasks. Therefore, I will definitely incorporate my newly developed skills in my future teaching.