Learning Journey, Understanding of Planning, and Revision

 Learning as a whole can be a vastly different experience for every and anyone. For me? Learning has been an upward battle. Some concepts seem to be woefully incomprehensible to me, and others click in a matter of moments. This was in no part due to any efforts from my teachers during schooling, but rather how my brain seemed to operate. I developed tools to help me process difficult-to-understand information and applied a "focus on my strengths" mindset to help me dedicate my energy to aspects of learning that appealed to me.

Throughout my schooling, often I worked best with clear, laid-out instructions and learning objectives. If I knew exactly what was being asked from me (content), and in what format it was expected (presentation), then I had little to no trouble completing the task ahead. However, modern education has taken a shift away from "following instructions," and more towards objective criteria that can have a multitude of ways to achieve the said objective(s).

Whilst this progressive shift wasn't particularly helpful for me as an independent learner who appreciated and worked best within the confines of structure and order, I cannot deny the positive impact that it has in overall education for Aotearoa New Zealand, especially in regards to allowing teacher's the freedom to plan out lessons in a way that accommodates the wide variety of learning needs from students. 

"Who do we plan for?" A question that seemingly has an obvious answer, "my students," and yet I find myself adding "for myself" as well. Whilst obviously the recipients of my teaching are the ones directly affected by my planning (or lack thereof), giving myself the time and space to create lesson plans grants me the ability to concentrate my thoughts and intents for a lesson, maybe notice areas of interests that would be initially glossed over / point out problems before they arise, and allow me to remind myself of the achievement outcome(s) covered in my lesson.

‘Who are my ākonga?’

One answer could simply be "my students," but then who are "my students" exactly? Are they those under my direct supervision in my assigned classes? Are they any and all students interested in the field of education that I am teaching? Are they any and all students enrolled at the school where I am working? Or are they any and all students regardless of school, region, country, etc? In all honesty, I find myself believing that each of these potential answers is the correct answer in some capacity, it just entirely depends on the context and situation.

It is important then, going forward, for me to recognize the planning that my Associate Teachers do, what prior knowledge might I be able to learn from them, and how can I apply what I learn to my own planning? 

The "Three Worlds" idea is fascinating to me, because it's something I've been aware and conscious of for a long time, and yet never have I really been able to piece together the obvious connection between those "three worlds," and a learners' education. Observing and acting within each of these aspects, the Public, Semiprivate, and Private worlds of learners is a responsibility that I am personally excited to experience, as the potential for setting limitations for myself as an individual and teacher is something I'd love to learn within the confines of personal boundaries. 

When setting about planning a lesson for students, activities aren't implemented for no good reason. Often is it, there is an intent beyond simply "engaging with students," such as growing interpersonal relationships, working with students' prior knowledge, or teaching students how they may apply the content in the classroom to a broader / outside context. 

When identifying how much content a student has been able to process and digest from a class, "assessment" and "evaluation" come into effect in order to observe the extent of the learning. "Assessment" is then further broken down into "formative assessment" and "summative assessment," concepts that I hope to explore further in due time, but for now are rather foreign ideas to me. (08/03/2023) Then there is "evaluation," which is directed more inward than towards students, wherein teachers, in this case, myself, reflect on how well the lesson was in terms of appropriateness of the content in relation to the student's level(s), if I was able to effectively convey the information in the lesson, and what I could / can do differently / better going forward.

My daily observations I decided to do in a slightly more streamlined manner. Instead of "daily" updates, I decided to provide updates after every two days. For example, because I teach on Mondays and Tuesdays, I would spend my non-contact day on Wednesday to update and reflect on what had happened, and for my Thursdays and Fridays, I would spend Saturday updating my experience(s).

Practicum 1A:

Week One, Monday & Tuesday:

I decided to spend the first week of my practicum associating myself with the culture of Albany Senior High School, observing how students engage with course content, how teachers hold and maintain student's attention, and the overall workload that teachers would work with and manage (both in the form of lesson planning, but also the utilization of past resources that can be reused to a certain extent.

Albany Senior High School (ASHS) is a relatively "open school," in the sense that a vast majority of classes don't have walls and rooms separating each other. Whilst unique in the sense that this form isn't prevalent in a lot of traditionally structured schools, it also serves as a front-centered reflection of the schooling culture that ASHS encourages. 

Within my first two days, I was introduced to all my ATs and classes, in order these are:

L1 English with H. Chalmers, where students are learning about the concept of an "amplification effect," how and why it is used in literature, and teaching students the skill to be able to explain in their own words what the technique actually is. 

L3 English with N. Garton, where classes are dedicated to introducing students to a literature concept that will help them in writing up their assessment for "critical reflection" on a particular film via a lens and the analysis of four particular film aspects. 

L2 English with R. Donnell, similar to L3 ENG, has thus far been spent on teaching students the skills needed to identify recurring themes and significant literary themes in order to link them to four films in total. 

Tutorial with C. Casey, dedicated to grounding students within ASHS, allowing them an opportunity to reorganize which assessments are upcoming, familiarise themselves with course content, as well as being taught a "Tutorial" curriculum wherein students are prepared for life after schooling. 

L3 Gender History, one of the more unique options available for students to take at ASHS, focuses on the recorded and recounted history of Women and Homosexuality throughout the ages, from the Classical Era, all the way to the Modern Era. Students are given two particular approaches for their upcoming assessment, a Senior Historian approach, or a Social Studies approach. 

Week One, Thursday & Friday:

After having an initial grasp of how ASHS' classes work around one another with students and teachers alike, I began going around the class and engaging in conversation with students about their work, where they were up to, what they understood or didn't understand, and discussing what they could produce by the end of each lesson. 

Most surprisingly, I encountered great responses from students regarding conversations about personalized goals for each particular lesson. This has given me the idea of having both an "objective goal" that the class should generally be aiming for, which will be given in a presentation at the start of each class, and a more direct and grounded goal that can be discussed and organized with each individual student throughout the class as I go around and talk directly with students. Going into Week Two, I plan to incorporate this thought a bit more thoroughly with the idea that students might be more streamlined and confident in what is expected of them at the end of each lesson as opposed to an arbitrary checklist that is expected of them. 

Week Two, Monday & Tuesday:

With my five classes in total, I chose L1 ENG and L3 ENG as the classes where I would take a more proactively role in the class, leading classes and conversations, and going around providing feedback and assistance to students. With L2 ENG and L3 GHI I continued to maintain a more passive observational stance, opting to witness how the teacher approaches and works with students, whilst assisting with providing feedback wherever and whenever I could, obviously being cautious not to overlap with any ideas and expectations that the AT may have for their students in their class. 

With my idea from Week One of developing individual goals for students, I took my opportunities in L1 & L3 ENG to not only start classes with an initial presentation but also took my time going around, checking in on each student, spending an average of 3-5 minutes each, giving my more than enough time to grasp where a student is at and work together with them on establishing what can be realistically expected from them by the end of the lesson. This expectation varied from a simple paragraph if a student may be struggling with external factors that are impeding their learning, to finishing up an entire section of an assignment and giving them constructive feedback; all entirely dependant on the student and the classroom rapport that I have been building up with them. 

Week Two, Thursday & Friday:

In arguably one of my more intensive days, Friday presented me with a unique encounter where I was able to relieve a class due to a shortage of teachers present in the morning. Whilst the actual relief work went fine, the class produced good quality results given the specifications and outlines that their Teacher had asked of them, it turns out I wasn't actually allowed to relieve the class. Whilst I thought I maybe had done something personally wrong and was going to get in trouble, in reality, the fault wasn't on my part, but on miscommunication and misunderstanding from the Senior Leadership team. This did, however, prompt a conversation with a representative of the PPTA where we discussed my potential for joining the Union due to the benefits that I would receive, and the heightened danger that I might find myself in as a young adult male teacher. 

The remainder of my classes continued as per my plan, I strove to improve my capability to provide feedback readily and accessibly for students, making conscious efforts to not "tell them what to do," but instead "guide them" towards the right direction. Whilst this may sound like an obvious action that I should have already been doing, I make note of it due to my inherent desire to teach objective "rights" and "wrongs," but have quickly come to learn during my time in Massey's PostGrad program and my time as a Student Teacher that this isn't the way to go. Progress is there in overcoming this mentality, I just need to continue steadily confronting these prior conceptions and beliefs that I hold. 

Week Three, Monday and Tuesday:

With this being the final week of Term One, things seemed to slow down ever so slightly. This wasn't a fault of the teachers, but rather the students and their depleted desire to entertain the thought of doing schoolwork. As such, teachers employed a couple of alternatives to allow as much learning as possible despite these circumstances. This included playing educational "games" that jogged the minds of students, such as "Scategories," where students are given a randomly generated letter, and a variety of questions, where students must then answer each of the questions where the word had to start with the provided letter. This particular example was done at the start of the lesson, and whilst it took up slightly more time than the usual settling-in presentation, it did allow students to warm up their brains, burn through some energy, and give them the ability to produce some classwork. 

Week Three, Thursday and Friday:

With the Friday just past being Good Friday, the conclusion to Term One felt like an abrupt but much-needed ending. Thursday was largely spent trying my hardest to reign in students to try and produce even a smidgen of work, although I did sympathize with them considering how tired and full-on Term One seemed to be for them. Ahead of them still lay many assessments from a variety of classes that they needed to submit, and for most, it was a matter of figuring out which assessment to focus on and complete first. 

With this conclusion of Week Three, and by extension, Practicum 1A, I find myself reflecting a lot. There is a long journey ahead for me, one where I need to seriously get on top of my game, not in regards to my ability to be a "teacher" in a class, but in regards to organizing myself, my plans, my work, and my life around the responsibilities that are expected of me as an aspiring teacher. With my fellow Kaiako Pitomata, and ever-patient mentor, I'm sure I can get there eventually. I hope so.