End of Placement

End of Placement

13th December, 2015

Alex talks about his placement experiences at a rural school

After four wonderful weeks my placement has now come to an end – and what an experience it has been! I thought this would be a good chance to talk about some of the different challenges I faced, and the strategies I found worked well.

I had never worked with a composite class before, but now after having year 3/4/5 and 6 I’ve got a pretty good feel for how they run. Differentiating work is the main challenge, I found the best way to do this was to give each student the same task, but have different levels of difficulty within that task. This provides accessibility to the developing students and layers of complexity for the higher achieving students. While this may not work for all subjects, I think it’s a strategy I’ll use with my own class; within any year level there is likely to be a three-year span of capability, so it makes sense to provide a lesson where students can challenge themselves independently. It also linked in with the self-regulation learning behaviour my associate teacher was maintaining. Another good way to facilitate independent learning is through (and I never thought I would say this) rubrics. They work best in a senior classroom, but are great at essentially providing written success criteria and extensions for students. They put students in charge of their learning and achievement, which is great.

After spending four weeks in a truly positive classroom environment, I can’t stress enough the importance of strong learning behaviours. My associate teacher really strives to imbue each student with these and it shows in the way students behave; they act independently, challenge themselves, regulate their behaviour, and take ownership of their learning. Some examples of positive learning behaviours are:

•  Attention to detail
•  Focus and concentration
•  Resilience and independence
•  Allowing others to learn
•  Thinking ahead
•  Organisation
•   Being accountable for my learning

It’s great to focus students in on these behaviours before each lesson just by talking about them, or give individual students certain learning behaviours to work on. Explicitly teaching positive learning behaviours and explaining, or modelling, how they are displayed will help establish an amazing classroom environment and give students a great mindset to learn with.

The most challenging aspect of the four weeks was trying to be organised and flexible at the same time! There is a lot going on at any one moment in the school year, especially at the end of term 4, so it’s vital that you always have a backup plan and are ready to quickly modify a lesson. I had a number of students absent with sickness over the first two weeks of teaching, which meant lots of groups progressing at different rates. I found that thinking a few lessons ahead of what you’re doing actually helps when students are ready to move on – you know the next step and can quickly whip up an activity for them to do. Ultimately there are some times where you won’t get everything completed, simply due to unexpected events popping up, and that’s ok – keep the big picture in mind!

I had such an amazing time on my placement; I truly fell in love with the school, kids and community! I’m missing them already and can’t believe I have to wait another six months before I can get back into it. I would definitely recommend completing a rural placement, there is really nothing quite like it. I know my school would love to have more PSTs and I wish there was more support for getting teachers out there! I hope everyone had a fantastic placement and learned a lot, a merry Christmas and happy new year to you all!

-Alex