Log Fourteen: Task 2B – Reflective Writing / ‘Journal Writing Experience’

                    Thursday 10th November 2011

I have picked this day to critically reflect and expand my journal writing experience because I learned new things about myself despite it being an emotional day for me at my local junior school where I have been doing some work as a teaching assistant with Thursday being my last day there. I spent my last day working with Year 3 in Literacy and Numeracy.

During Literacy, the learning objective for the class was “To make my writing come alive”. I found it interesting that the teacher channelled the the learning objective through use of the children’s creative input of role play from the story of Captain Nemo of the Nautilus. Immediately I could see the whole class was engaged in this task and thoroughly enjoyed showing each other their perception of Captain Nemo of how he would greet a passenger. Throughout the lesson I was tasked with helping a child with behavioural disability to help promote positive behaviour and support them with their literacy skills. At the end of the lesson I evaluated with the teacher about how we could engage the child more with the rest of the class. Having had more time to reflect on my own performance during the lesson, I feel I could have contributed to that aspect even more despite the child thoroughly enjoying it. I discovered that while the child was at times disruptive that it was because they enjoyed having an “audience” with their full attention on him. With their upcoming Christmas Panto, I suggested to the teacher that the child had a role that would enable the child to show their love to perform albeit in a positive way.

During numeracy, the learning objective was “To be able to collect and organise data”. The teacher had previously taught the class about how to collect and organise data through use of a tally chart. While supporting them, the teacher and I did not show them what tally charts looked like as it was a remembering exercise as well as a creative exercise. Nearly everyone came up with different methods of collecting and organising data. I went around the class asking key questions about how their own method worked. I again found it extremely useful of having my mini notebook with me as I was able to quickly sketch some of the methods they used with their creativity which helped me to critically reflect that day as well as the week, compare previous days and evaluate my work experience in the school. Thanks for reading.