Community engagement
For the Professional Practice Community Placement 102605 at Western Sydney University, we undertake 60 hours community service placement as pre-service teachers. This is part of a PPCE Partnership Program offered by WSU The setting I selected is a Western Sydney secondary public school. I was able to engage in professional learning in a Design & Technology staff room, and diverse Stage 4 classrooms across all subjects. This program has supported in growing my professional knowledge by identifying how students learn and interact with content. It has also provided professional practice and engagement insights through observation of effective and ineffective teaching methods, environmental factor which influence learning and active participation with providing students’ feedback.
Our placement completion was assessed alongside an intial rationale and final reflection. My rationale is below with the placement setting de-identified.
The following certifications are required to part-take in the PPCE. The certificates can be viewed at the certification page:
- Working with Children Check
- Child Protechtin Awareness Training
- NSW Department of Education Child Protection Training
- ASCIA Anaphylaxis e-training
Rationale
Within my professional learning setting, I expect to gain preliminary insight into the professional practice domain of teaching, outlined in the Australian professional teaching standards (NESA 2018). This may include practical experience or observation in the classroom, focussing on planning and implementing effective teaching and learning, as well as understanding and optimising student learning environments. Additionally, I would expect to gain some professional knowledge about how students learn; as well as partake in engagement with teachers and the school community. To optimise this learning opportunity, I have researched the subjects offered by the school in relation to my key learning areas (KLAs), Design and Technology, and Textiles and Design, noting the relevant ones to discuss with my supervisor prior to beginning my placement.
Throughout my PPCE experience I hope to learn how to create a positive learning environment for students, and ways to best support them. This may be within group activities or one-on-one, with regards to numeracy and literacy support, or thematic teaching areas which I will be allocated. Through this I hope to gain better understanding of students’ learning abilities at the stage 4 level, and the ways in which they learn.
I would also like to learn about the day-to-day operations of the school as a workplace, including administrative work, and the workload involved. I hope to gather better understanding about the collaborative efforts between the teaching staff, including dynamics and hierarchy in colleague relationship; as well as better understanding of the learning material and how it is sourced.
My learning goals regarding the above, include collating observations about diverse methods of teaching to utilize in developing my own methodologies in the future. I also hope to engage in network building within the school. Furthermore, given the opportunity I would like to facilitate a self-driven project reflective of my learnings; to evaluate my learnings, collect valuable feedback and hopefully provide a mutually beneficial learning experience for myself and the student participants.
I anticipate that participants in my service-learning project will be able to acquire some preliminary design thinking processes and industry insight into my KLA to fuel their curiosity. I hope to be able to assist students who excel in creative areas to implore, record, and realise their ideas and processes.
By observing and actively learning about the diverse methods of teaching and classroom management, then combining this with critical thinking and exploration of personal ideas, I hope to begin building the foundations to my own teaching philosophy, and gain better understanding of the challenges I will face as a teacher. In doing so I hope to develop the relevant skills in problem-solving and expectation management. I would also like to be challenged in my thinking about diversity in the classroom and the workplace, to adjust my own expectations and critique my own prejudices.
I intend to document my service-learning process in a digital journal outlining my expectations, changes and findings occur, along with my learning and how it relates to the subject learning outcomes and teaching standards.
NSW Education Standards Authority, (2018). Australian professional standards for teachers – Teacher accreditation. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/9ba4a706-221f-413c-843b-d5f390c2109f/australian-professional-standards-teachers.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=
Reflection summary
Prior reasearch had given me some context regarding the low SES, co-ed nature of the public school setting, along with student backgrounds. he setting afforded me opportunies for active participation and learning including within my Textiles and Design KLA. Observations of diverse teaching methods and levels of resourcing has provided me plenty of insight into my future teaching career. This includes participation in professional development training for staff within the setting by external service providers. One of which incorporates learning methods of incorporating yarning circles and other Indigenous learning methods to improve engagement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The partnership program also gave me hands-on opportunity to assist struggling students with numeracy and literacy support and provide direct feedback to students.
See below for documentation including specific tasks taken as well as the full reflection.
