Bachelor of Health and Physical Education
Over the years, I have developed and grown as a teacher but I always searched for that defining moment for me, where I knew what kind of educator I wanted to be. That occurred in my final rounds of practicum in fourth year where I really strived and pushed myself to discover who I wanted to be and eventually, I have summarized my professional identity with just five photographs. Image one represents student centered learning. While developing lessons around the curriculum is still paramount, I have made an effort to plan my lessons in ways, which I know the students will enjoy and benefit from most. This means moving away from the outdated teacher centered approach to teaching, which involved lecturing and teaching from a book, to more powerful and meaningful approaches such as PSI’, peer teaching tasks and inquiry based learning. This allows the students to come to the answers to the problems in which I leave them with by themselves, resulting in a more meaningful and unforgettable answer. Image two, represents the utmost importance of technology and embracing ICT in the classroom, as the net generation of teachers, it is vital that we use ICT in the classroom to further benefit the students learning. As a teacher, I hope to be able to incorporate ICT such as IPads in Physical Education lessons to use Apps, which will allow the students to complete more complex tasks such as critiquing a skill, or creating mind maps with images and videos for revision.
Image three is a quote, which I have shaped my teaching around. “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself”. I believe that education is about preparing students for life outside of school, but for me as a teacher, it is about being a life long learner, and this quote summarizes that perfectly. Image four is probably the most important to me, during placement this year I had a lot of students with learning difficulties, this was a challenge for me but also a blessing. It taught me that I need to plan and develop lesson plans to ensure that all students can learn. “If a child cannot learn the way we teach, then we must teach the way they learn”- is such a powerful quote, we need to move away from teaching how we feel comfortable and educate the students in ways in which they learn best, sometimes that may mean writing four different lesson plans to connect with all different types of learners. Finally, Image five represents me as an inclusive teacher, I am very approachable as an educator but I also need to ensure that I am inclusive; this links with image four and planning so that everyone can learn. Being inclusive means that everyone can join in and play or learn. I aspire to have all students participating in every class, not only because they enjoy it but also because they are capable of doing so.