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CRITICAL REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

JESSICA BURTON

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JOURNAL ENTRY 1
Teacher Quality and Values
Top 5 teacher qualities:
1. Highly organised without organisation the work load can overcome any
teacher and it also sets an example for the students as they are more
likely to learn by following.
2. Extensive knowledge I believe that it is important to know the subject
that I am teaching otherwise I wont be able to teach it in a fun exiting
way that stimulates learning.
3. Passionate If youre not passionate and enthusiastic about teaching your
subject or even just teaching in general why should the students be.
4. Flexible Being flexible is key to teaching, by accommodating different
learning styles and try new things is key in teaching students.
5. Resilient I think this is one of the most important values a teacher should
have because without resilience teachers would burn themselves out
quicker, lose passion for their job, become disorganised and most likely
will leave the teaching profession.

Top 5 values for students:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Honesty and trustworthiness

Teamwork
Flexibility
Respect
Understanding tolerance and inclusion

I feel that these are the five most important values that I as a teacher would
want my students to display and to learn. I believe that not only will these values
get the students ahead in the future they would also help them achieve their
goals easier.

Reflective Teaching and Resilience

Using a scale of 0 to 10, with 5 satisfactory and 10 outstanding,
rate yourself for the following:
1. Reflection as a pre service teacher? Why?
I would rate myself a 6 as while I understand the theory of being reflective
and have experience dealing with many age groups through scouts but feel that I
will be more reflective when I have experience in a school setting.

2. Your resilience in personal crisis situation?

I would rate myself a 7 in a personal crisis. For example I am having
trouble finding a job to support myself through University so I am plagued by

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money problems and when you have bills this is very hard. However I am able to
seek government help and have extremely supportive parents who are able to
help me through these tough times.

3. Your resilience in a school crisis situation?

I would rate myself an 8 because I do have experience of being in a crisis
situation in a learning institute and therefore believe that I would be do much
better in this situation.

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JOURNAL ENTRY 2
Professional Experience Dilemma
1. Devise a professional experience (teaching practicum) dilemma
that you could find yourself in.
A professional experience dilemma I could face is to have a student who is
disrupting the class. This student is generally a good student who hands up
assignments on time, gets good grades and is a quiet achiever, however they
have recently began to disrupt the classroom. For a couple of days this student
continues to disrupt the classroom even after having been told to be quiet and
eventually being asked to cool down outside of the classroom environment. This
behaviour happened again the following day.

2. State how you would resolve this dilemma:

To resolve this issue I would talk to the student and figure out why they have
suddenly begun to disrupt the classroom as the problem could stem from their
personal lives in regards to family, friends or individual issues. As it turns out one
of the students parents have been fired from their job which has left money
scarce and tensions high. I would use standard 1.3 - Students with diverse
linguistic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, to help me evaluate and
revise a strategy to help this student. I would also use standard 7.3 - engage with
parents/carers, to communicate with the parents about their childs learning and
wellbeing and the effect that a parent being unemployed has had on the student.
From there we can identify and initiate strategies in order to get the student back
on track.

Wellbeing Strategies
Five wellbeing strategies:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Read a book in a cocoon of music.

Take my two German Shepherds dogs, Diesel and BearBear, for a walk.
Holiday and retail therapy.
Go camping and hiking in nature
Socialise with friends and family

Key learning Points

Three key learning points:

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1. How important reflection is, especially in conjunction with bettering
myself as a teacher.
2. Different methods that showed me how to problem solve a diverse
range of incidences.
3. How to write a critical incident report.

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JOURNAL ENTRY 3
Parental Engagement
1. Negative things that could happen when engaging parents and
community partners in your work as a teacher:

1. Parents challenging a teacher over grades, teaching methods, values etc.

2. Harassment/bullying from parents
3. Blaming

2. Benefits of engaging parents and community partners in your

work as a teacher:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Support the learning environment

Mentors
Help schools to identify strategies that strengthen learning outcomes.
Individualises engagement strategies in schools that are more suited to

the community, student and parents particular needs.

5. Better communication
6. Learning partnerships
7. Community collaboration

Curriculum Priorities
Primary and secondary resources you would use for a unit of work in
your subject area, with the inclusion of one cross curriculum priority.
Year level: 10
Subject: English
Topic: Literary analysis
Content: Analysing novels and interpreting meanings through different literary
devices.
Schedule: Weeks 1-4
Week 1 Introducing topic

Brainstorming topics
Talk about the assignment

Week 2 Start resourcing

Week 3 Start writing
Week 4 Working drafts, delivering their assignments.
Length of Topic: 4 Weeks
Primary Resources: Local Library and get the librarian to show them how to
search for books, novels.
Secondary Resources: Texts about the books, journals, template for the
assignment.
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Assessment: Book review. Short story using the techniques theyve learned.
Rationale: This unit of work was designed specifically to encourage students to
read, as well as give them more knowledge of global writers.

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JOURNAL ENTRY 4
Complexity of Teaching
Five most difficult challenges I will face in the first five years of
teaching:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Behaviour management of students.

Communication with parents.
Managing my own behaviour in relation to what I can say and do.
Time management.
Making the curriculum fun and challenging at the same time.

Career Aspirations
1. How many years do you expect to be employed as a
classroom teacher?
Fifteen to twenty years as it is something I am passionate about and is also
what I see myself doing for the rest of my working life.

2. Do you aspire to educational leadership?

Yes I aspire to hopefully become a year level coordinator and possibly in
the future a principal. As I believe I have qualities that will enable me to be an
excellent leader in furthering student education and attendance. As well as the
ability to learn from my mistakes and reflect on what I can do better.

Professional Learning Communities.

1. My definition of a professional work learning environment.
A professional learning environment is a setting that encourages
enhancing ones skills, knowledge, behaviours and attributes. By this I mean a
collaborative environment that focuses on inquiry into better teaching and
learning practices, action orientation, commitment for reflection and therefore
improvement into how we teach and learn in a diverse environment.

2. Which one are you most likely to engage in?

I would engage in all of them as there is continuous change and
improvements that can be learned especially in todays society, which is
constantly bringing forth new and better ideas in regards to education and
technology.

3. Would you consider a leadership role in any of these

professional learning communities/associations?

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Yes I would consider curriculum specialist, learning facilitator, mentoring
and possibly further in the future a researcher.

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JOURNAL ENTRY 5
Standard 1: Know Your Students and how they learn
Key staff that help to understand more about the academic,
cultural and social backgrounds of students in your classes.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Student Counsellor
Special Education co-ordinator
BSSO Bilingual School Student Officer
EAL Co-ordinator (English Additional Language)
ACEO Aboriginal Community Educational Officer
ASETO Aboriginal Secondary Educational Transition Officer
Year level co-ordinator

Gardners Multiple Intelligences

Examine yourself as a learner and identify your strongest
intelligences.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Visual- Spatial
Naturalist
Bodily-Kinaesthetic
Half Interpersonal/half Intrapersonal
Musical

Standard 1.5: Differentiated Teaching

Which students wouldve enjoyed your four weeks subject plan
and why?
1.
2.
3.
4.

Intrapersonal
Interpersonal
Verbal/Linguistic
Naturalist

The intrapersonal and interpersonal students would enjoy this program

because I have given them the option of working by themselves or in groups. The
verbal/linguistic learners would benefit from this program because it gives them
the ability to express themselves in regards to the interpretation of the material.
This unit of work will enable Naturalist learners to recognise, categorise and draw
upon community resources.

How could you incorporate the number of learners engaging in

this four week program?

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To encourage Visual Spatial learners I could get them to create a book
using visual imagery and writing. To encourage logical learners I could encourage
them I can let them use computers to write up their work.

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JOURNAL ENTRY 6
Standard 4.5: Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically
Devise a list of ICT rules suitable for all your students to adhere
to.

Save files/documents in multiple places such as USBs, home computer

and school. While also frequently updating these files and locations.
Use own login to avoid problems from occurring.
Use internet sites for learning purposes only.
If you wouldnt write it to your grandmother, dont write it.
Be responsible/ethical users of social media such as Facebook.
Dont bull/harass others over social media. Think about how this would
affect your life if someone was doing this to you.

Standard 6.1: Identify and plan professional learning needs

1. How would you rate your ICT skills? Why?
Score of 8 out of 10 due to a good knowledge of ICT due to growing up with it.
If I dont know how to use it I am adaptable enough to learn quickly and
efficiently.

2. Strengths in relation to the use of ICT skills in teaching?

My strengths in technology are:

PowerPoint
Word
Adobe Photoshop
Excel
Internet in particular Chrome
Adobe Reader
Calculator
Windows 7 and Windows 8 operating systems
Printing, scanning and photocopying

3. Identify improvements to maximise student learning in the

classroom:
I can maximise student learning by:

Furthering my knowledge and keeping up to date with programs I

already know and use

Making sure to use technology in the classroom as it has the

potential to reach more student learning styles.

Prepares students for the future as technology will only get better.

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Standard 6.2: Engage in professional learning and improve

practice
Identify the professional learning you would undertake to
improve your ICT skills:
1. Faxing and photocopying
2. Program usage, for example, taking courses to better understand the
intricacies of programs that are going to be used a lot such as Word and
PowerPoint.
3. Learn how to use a Smartboard.

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JOURNAL ENTRY 7
The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young
Australians
Explain how you will enact these two goals in your classrooms.
Goal 1: Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence.
I will enact this by encouraging the following:

Honesty
Successful global citizens
Inclusive
Equal access to a world class curriculum
High expectations
Being and doing their best

Goal 2: All young Australians become: successful learners, confident and

creative individuals, active and informed citizens.
For this to occur I will:

Incorporate Gardners Multiple Intelligence Model

Use differentiated teaching
By thinking outside the box
a. Encouraging, brainstorming and innovative thinking
Taking measured risks
Keeping topics relevant
Encourage volunteer work
Empathy building activities
Encouraging extra-curricular activities

The Globalisation of Education

1. What will classrooms look like in ten years time?

I believe classrooms in ten years will be slightly similar to today but more

technologically based with emphasis on online learning, multiculturalism and

a higher demand for second languages.

2. The impact of globalisation upon my teaching career in ten

years time:
If the demand for the globalisation of education continues, I believe this will
impact my career both negatively and positively. The negative side of
globalisation will: make my career shorter, create a more competitive career
market that will make it difficult to get a job, more foreign teachers, will make it
harder to accommodate different learning styles, less real and social interaction,
a decrease in spelling, grammar and handwriting, and a decline in spoken skill
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which will therefore increase slang and short hand talking. The positive side to
globalisation will: create a broader understanding of other cultures, a higher
demand for focus in certain subject areas, improvement in technology skills and
abilities, easier access to intercultural opportunities such as pen pals through
email and social media, and more teacher and student exchanges that
encourage cultural awareness, as well as encourage overseas travel, university
and careers.

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JOURNAL ENTRY 8
Reflective Teaching
What are your greatest learning points in relation to your
reflective teaching practice?

Crisis management
Gardners Multiple intelligence Model
Self-evaluation
Record Keeping/Journal
Externalises thought processors
Different approaches
Becoming more organised

Areas For future development

Three key areas I must strengthen for future development as a
teacher:
1. Non-judgemental approach by leaving biases at the door
2. Organisation skills
3. Making sure I am encompassing all learning styles

Your strengths as a teacher

Identify my strengths as a teacher:

Communication skills
high expectations of students
Technology skills
Innovative Curriculum ideology
High knowledge in subject areas
Behaviour management abilities
Persistence and commitment to an engaging teaching style

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