What Does It Mean to Become a Teacher - Assignment Example

Assessment Task 2: A Teaching and Learning Portfolio Student Name: Tutor: Title: Assessment Task 2: A Teaching and Learning Portfolio Course: Institution: Date: Section 1 – Planning Documents The Learner Group My group members are engaged in fulltime jobs and do not get enough time to be able to exercise due to their very busy lives. Therefore, the physical exercise sessions are important after hours of studying which burns metal energy and therefore the body and mind require physical exercise to work effectively. The exercise will enhance attention span of the students, their memory as well as learning and also lowers stress levels and delays reduction of cognitive decline. As a result, it is necessary for the students to stay in shape since exercises result into improved cognitive function, and during the lessons students will learn how exercises benefit the brain and physical body as well. Learning objectives 1. Establish the correct range of traditional and abdominal Kettlebell exercises. 2. Demonstrate correct posture while performing Kettlebell exercises. 3. Show Kettlebell classes to their students. Learning environment, the resources that are available and any relevant constraints The learning environment encompasses a gym floor, high energy music playing in the back ground and Kettlebells. The gym floor provides the area where learners can practice their activities with various types of equipments that they use during exercising. The energy playing music is normally important during aerobic ad exercising since it helps the learners keep in pace with the tempo of the exercises. The music basically corresponds with the exercises and this increases the concentration of the learners to the exercise. Kettlebells are important for the learners in exercising particularly for physical fitness whereby they help in improving lean body mass and assisting in teaching proper hips’ speed, which is essential for both speed and power sports. However, the exercising equipments are not entirely adequate to cater for the big number of the students. A statement of the aim as a teacher In this teaching experience, I will aim to design the framework whereby learning can take place and consequently stimulate and nurture student’s development, assisting them in regard to knowledge, techniques as well as encouragement. My teaching will be based on the belief that the only way of learning the subject is by doing it practically and thus whereas lecture notes and textbook reading is important, the real learning comes from student’s own efforts and thus this will be accomplished through class assignments, discussions and exercising. I not only want to promote learning of the subject but I will try to assist the students to learn to think logically and accordingly my role in this process will be a facilitator. Additionally, I will assist the students to see the course material holistically through requiring them to synthesize a range of concepts of the course and applying them together. Lesson plan Timing Focus/ leading question Teacher activity Learner activity Aids/ resources 11.00 am-1.00 pm Sets: 3 Reps: 12-15 While students are directed in the development of body fitness, they are also working on development of improved cognitive ability, improved concentration and coordination development. Sit with students at end of this activity and inquire: whether they enjoyed the activity and what they liked best. Comment on student’s capacity to focus during the lesson as well as exercising skill. What other exercises would the students like to do next time? Swing: The students will be required to stand with their feet shoulder-width apart. The student will then hold the kettlebell using the two hands and bend his/her hips backward between his/her legs. The next step is pausing followed by explosive swinging of the kettlebell to the eye level. Kettlebell, Gym, music, books 2.00 pm-4.00 pm Sets: 3 Reps: 12-15 Body fitness development, improved coordination, and improved attention span. Sit with students at end of this activity and inquire: whether they enjoyed the activity and what they liked best. Comment on student’s capacity to focus during the lesson as well as exercising skill. What other exercises would the students like to do next time? Stand: The students will stand with their feet outside shoulder width with a kettlebell on the floor of their right side. They will then lift the kettlebell pivot and twist to the rest and stop when the bell is at the height of the chest. The last step will be returning the weight to the floor. Kettlebell, Gym, music, books 11.00 am-1.00 pm Sets: 3 Reps: 12-15 Body fitness development, improved coordination, and improved attention span Sit with students at end of this activity and inquire: whether they enjoyed the activity and what they liked best. Comment on student’s capacity to focus during the lesson as well as exercising skill. What other exercises would the students like to do next time? Situp: the students will lie on their back with their knees bent. The will then hold the kettlebell at the bottom just below chest level and contract their abs to sit up and press the weight in front of them. Finally, the students will lower back down. Kettlebell, Gym, music, books 2.00 pm-4.00 pm Sets: 3 Reps: 12-15 Body fitness development, improved coordination, and improved attention span Sit with students at end of this activity and inquire: whether they enjoyed the activity and what they liked best. Comment on student’s capacity to focus during the lesson as well as exercising skill. Russian Twist: The students will be required to hold the ball just like in the sit-up but here they will raise their torso to 45 degrees level to the floor. They will then extend their arms in front and twist to ones side and to the opposite side too. Kettlebell, Gym, music, books Justification of the plan The suitability of the lesson is that it will assist the students in improving their cognitive ability and coordination as well as increase attention a span which is equally important for my colleagues because the lesion will improve the same students they are handling. The exercises will as enable the students to work cooperatively and also work individually which will foster cooperation of the students with their teachers who are my colleagues. The objectives were determined after reading a wide range of books regarding physical education and its importance in learning. The time scheduled for the learning activities was deemed appropriate since at this time students have spent several hours in the classroom and hence they must be exhausted and the exercising would be appropriate for the relaxation of their minds and increasing concentration during the other learning hours. Kettleball was chosen as the appropriate exercising activity because kettleballs are readily available within the school. The choice of training method is appropriate because it shifts responsibility to students by learning exercising activities devised to hold students accountable. The activities engage decision-making processes, social motivation and cognitive understanding on these physical activities. The methods reflect adult education principles in that they involve shifting accountability and responsibility to the students. What it means to be a teacher Being a teacher is complex and teaching is a deeply emotive and inexplicable experience. Being a teacher entails acknowledging that one’s own learning and this includes of students, material and of how to assist students to connect with the teaching material which means that being a teacher is an ever ending process (Peters 1970). It implies that as a teacher, one has to continually operate on numerous levels concurrently, making observations regarding the students and the class and hence teaching also involves what the teacher can do and the activities that should be processed and tackled at some point. Still, a teacher should be aware of individual needs of each and every student and thus one should identify any changes in patterns. For instance, a usually solid student unexpectedly does not come prepared it implies that probably the student has experienced something that has disrupted his/her normal pattern (Sue 2009). Basically, a teacher experiences the process of growing in their career which means that at some point, a teacher starts trusting his/her insights and judgments and they start reducing their dependence on decontextualized guidelines and techniques of good practice. Sadly, as teacher at times one is cowed by the assumed wisdom of authorities in the teaching field and this lead teachers into thinking that their own insights do not have an implication unless they receive legitimization for the authority or an expert. Being a teacher also means being able to take risks, specifically the risk of abandoning the formerly written “guidelines” of educational encounter and depend on the “teachable” moments of trade-offs. During one lesson, a teacher will be required to select among many alternatives, all which have their advantages and disadvantages a well (Elble 1988). Basically, this means that for teachers, no option or choice during their teaching course is entirely advantageous. As a result, a teacher should not think that students will always welcome his/her choices without questioning them or that as a teacher on will feel completely satisfied with the choices. Regardless of how diplomatically one approaches the choices, there will be some individuals who will not be satisfied with these choices and thus a teacher should always have this in mind (Sue 2009). A teacher also always lives on horns of irresolvable predicament. A teacher has to weigh conflicting claims, attempt to project the outcomes of his/her decisions and be aware that no decision, however advantageous will be entirely devoid of detrimental effects. At one point, teacher always are in dilemma of either being loyal to their employers or doing what they think is correct and more beneficial to the students. Consequently, a teacher should always remind him/herself that attending to one’s survival is not being self-obsessed. It is the vital emotional foundation that enables a teacher to experience the everyday teaching turmoil in a manner that celebrates instead of bemoaning the diversity and uncertainty of teaching. Therefore, being attentive to ones survival as a teacher is necessary to the teacher and the students as well. The advantages of a teacher being attentive to his/her survival are numerous. For example, a teacher increases his/her chances if experiencing the regular lows of classroom life in a manner that does not harm or reduce one’s morale: the teacher has a higher probability of withstanding the negative expressions of the students, and one is at a better position of recognizing failure as an essential aspect of the experimentation required in all good teaching (Sue 2009). An evaluation in a teacher’s life is something a teacher experiences emotionally, and which to varying levels makes a teacher to be apprehensive. For example, getting a poor evaluation of ones efforts from the students is intensely devastating and discouraging. A teacher can dismiss poor assessments from the superiors or peers as being inspired by competition and envy but poor assessments from the learners are more disheartening. However, a teacher is supposed to focus on the efforts of those who praise them and ignore the negative comments but at them same time focus on improving the designated poor areas. One mistake teacher make is concentrating on the individuals disparaging their efforts and neglecting the individuals who praise them. A curios mix of thoroughness and masochism within a large number of teachers causes them to grant an unbalanced credibility to the judgment of those who criticize their efforts and on the other hand discrediting the judgment of those who do not. As a teacher, even though one is convinced that learning a complex and difficult thing is for the benefit of the learner’s long-term interest, one should anticipate that the force of one’s conviction will be equivalent to the force of the learner’s resentment. The values of teacher’s action are in most cases not recognized and appreciated by students until the educational activity ends. At the end of a learning course, learners might deems what they have learnt as irrelevant but in later years they find themselves in conditions that require the skills they learn and thus discover the value of learning the course (Killen 2003). A teacher is required to take a stand for what he/she believes is correct. The teachers are obligated to challenge those who would enforce on their schools, teachers, as well as student requirements that would be counterproductive to the authentic learning to which all the students are entitled to. Therefore, this implies that a teacher has to look for ways of enabling the students pass exams imposed form the external sources which as a teacher I do not find their value and also destruct the real learning. At this time, as a teacher I am supposed to maintain what I deem should take place within my classroom, with the specific students, at a given time and location. Accordingly, this means that while teacher, a teacher is supposed to consider the lives of the students outside the classroom and also look for ways of including their lives as a coequal component of the learning the teacher wishes the students to experience in his/her classroom (Jarvis 2006). Bibliography Jarvis, P., 2006, The theory and practice of teaching, Routledge, New York. Killen, R., 2003, Effective Teaching Strategies: Lessons from Research and Practice, Social Science Press, N.S.W. Sue, C., 2009, Adult Teaching and Learning: Developing Your Practice, McGraw Hill Higher Education, Maidenhead, England. Elble, K., 1988, The Crall of Teaching, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Peters, R., 1970, The Logic ofEducation, Routledge, London. Read More