Practicum Reflective Report

I was placed to a quite rural school which is in Bau for my practicum. The school was Sekolah Kebangsaan Podam. Overall, the time that was spent with the students was more than inspiring but truly wonderful. There were a lot of things that I have learned and gained from this practicum. It had also provided me with many valuable experiences that I never get before. Based on the knowledge and experiences gained throughout the practicum, I believe that teaching in reality is much more demanding compared to what I learned in the class. However, in this essay, I am going to elaborate more on two major aspects. The first aspect is on what have I learned in term of myself as a practitioner, an analyst as well as a problem solver. The second aspect is on how have I grown professionally throughout the practicum and how would I handle similar issues in the future.

First of all, in terms of my role as a practitioner, I learned that a teacher becomes a practitioner when he involves in the lesson delivery and assessment for the students. In another word, it includes presenting and explaining, questioning, listening, monitoring, giving feedback, and demonstrating (Fuller, 2011). In order to do all these things, I need to have good pedagogical knowledge and also develop some skills especially to monitor the students behaviour, to exhibit caring and respect as well as to create positive learning environment.

A good classroom practitioner must have appropriate disposition to uphold learning for all students (Fuller, 2011). For instance, I must be warmth and caring towards the students. This is important in order for me to develop good relationship with the students. Furthermore, I also need to show good role model to the students. Being a good model to the students will help in developing their ethics and spiritual. The Malaysian National Philosophy of Education emphasizes on the holistic development of all children in term of intellectuality, spiritually, emotionally, and physically (Choong, 2008). From the philosophy, we learn that the Malaysian government is also taking 1

serious consideration in developing individuals who are willing to take the risks and challenges, some ones who can resolve the problems peacefully, and also the generations that can gainfully contribute to the betterment of the country and nation (Ministry of Education, 2012). Nevertheless, I must ensure that they are not being too nice as it can cause the students to lose the respect towards the teacher. I have to be firm with the students if they are misbehaving in the classroom and acknowledge the students who are acting well during the lesson. This action could help the students to differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the classroom which in the long term will help them to become the students with good moral, ethics and spiritual practices.

However, in term of an analyst, I learned that although teachers do not involve during the process of developing curriculum, they are actually the ones who have the best knowledge on how the curriculum should look like. This is due to the fact that they are spending time the most with the students during the school hours and they know the best what should be in the curriculum that actually can cater the needs of the students in their learning. Rugg and Shumaker (1928) have also proposed that a teacher needs to get involve in curriculum development as well as to collaborate with the curriculum specialist to organise content and materials. This situation has driven me to play more active roles in implementing the curriculum into the classroom practice. Meaning to say that I must be the curriculum analyst where I need to explore the curriculum and think of what can I do to make sure whatever the curriculum suggested can be suited with the students needs and learning styles.

Besides that, according to Caswell and Campbell (1935), the teacher should contribute in curriculum committees because they believed such participation would help the teachers to relate the content with the student s needs. As I possess the overall knowledge on the curriculum, it would be easier for me to implement the curriculum into my classroom and at the same time, I can prepare the students with sufficient and meaningful knowledge, as I know the best what are my students needs and learning styles. As the result, I could conduct meaningful lesson, as I would be able to think of 2

the sequence of the lesson, suitable materials, and analyze the appropriate teaching and learning approaches and activities based on my students background and proficiency level.

Additionally, as a problem solver, I have learned that a teacher needs to be flexible. I need to be flexible in term of my teaching style as well as my social style. A teacher is a leader in his or her classroom (Patsalides, 2012). So, as a leader, it is my responsible to solve all the problems that occur in my classroom. I have to make good decisions in term of my teaching styles, materials and also activities so that I could promote positive and engaging learning environment to all my students. For example, most of my students are visual and kinesthetic learners. Therefore, the use of materials such as pictures, realia, and flash cards are very useful to make the learning process more interesting and engaging for my students.

Besides that, in order to make sure my students could develop their social and emotional skills, I encouraged them to work in groups as well as in pairs. By doing this, I could promote independence and self-discovery learning, as they are responsible for their own learning. When working in the groups, I will choose one student from each group to become the leader and all the leaders are responsible in making sure that all the group members are taking part in the learning. In order to make it more effective, I ask the students to rotate the role so that everyone will have the chance to become the leader. Despite developing students leadership skills, this kind of learning also could increase the students awareness on the importance of being responsible of their own learning (Taber, 2006).

Furthermore, in term of flexibility in social aspect, I learned that although I was the leader, I could not make the decision solely by myself. I have to be more tolerant and be more professional by accepting others ideas as well esp ecially my committee members. According to Simic (1998), the leader-follower cooperation helps in the possibility to get new and creative ideas for problem solving. In another words, I could 3

make much better decisions by if I worked collaboratively with my colleagues as well as my cooperating teacher. That is why I always looking for my cooperating teacher to ask for her opinions especially in planning the lesson as well as in handling students behaviour in classroom. Therefore, in my future classroom, I need to cooperate with my students, parents and also my colleagues in order to produce excellent learning atmosphere to my students.

Apart from learning about myself as an analyst, a practitioner, and a problem solver, I believe I have grown professionally through my experiences during the practicum in SK Podam, Bau. For example, in term of the management skill, I have become more systematic with my work. This is to make sure that everything that I have planned would run successfully. Besides that, as the requirement states that I need to keep two portfolios, which need to be handed in after the practicum, I have learned to be more organized in profiling my work and progress.

Furthermore, another aspect is regarding my classroom management skills. I think I have improved a lot in handling my students. According to Charles (2011) one of the responsibilities of professional teachers is to promote and establish a conducive and compassionate learning climate for the pupils. By knowing the knowledge of classroom management, I am able to formulate a selection of management strategies that can effectively control the classroom climate which will eventually contributes to a better quality of learning process (Oliver, 2007). Throughout practicum, I have been using several of classroom management strategies. Among all the strategies, the most effective one is the referent power base. Larrivee (2009, p 151) explain that referent power base as a power that comes from connecting students in authentic and humane ways based on students admiration and respect. I admire this strategy because it teaches me that the foundation of a positive classroom environment is the teacherstudents relationship and respect in the classroom. In order for me to earn the respect from the pupils, I have to respect them and vice-versa. I have found that it was easier to control and manage a class with lesser students as compared to a big class where the

number of students normally ranges from 30 to 40 students. I was quite lucky to have a much smaller class for my practicum.

In addition, within those twelve weeks of practicum, I also believe that I have improved my creativity and my confidence level. I strongly believed that these two elements have significant influence in determining how effective my teaching instruction will be. By being creative, I can plan my lessons and create teaching materials that are interesting to the pupils. Arndt & Pesch (1984) stated that interesting lessons could increase pupils motivation towards the learning. When I am able to keep the pupils motivated in the classroom, their learning process will become more effective and they will enjoy the process. Hence, it is easier for them to comprehend the new knowledge that is taught to them. Meanwhile, being confidence will help me to deliver the lesson smoothly. The more confident I become in my teaching skills, the better prepared I am to teach and to try out new teaching practices, thus developing my teaching ability (Vallaza, 2011).

We often hear people say that teaching is a very easy task to do. In fact, I entered the teaching course based on that belief. However, in contrast to that popular belief, within thirteen weeks of teaching, I had realized that teaching is a challenging task. In fact, educational field is a very dynamic field where the knowledge keeps expanding every day and hence it requires me to be adaptable to the changes. For instance, if we look at the history of our education policies from our Independence Day until present day, our education policies had changed several times to suit with the current trend. Now, our government has implemented the KSSR, which currently was being applied progressively and rapidly into the education syllabus. Personally, I believe that this practicum has provided a foundation for me to continuously build my teaching career. As a future teacher, I have come to realize that it is one of my responsibilities to shape our nation in accordance to the National Philosophy of Education. It is indeed a big responsibility that lays ahead of me but when I succeed later, that will be the most rewarding experience that one will ever have.

In conclusion, in order to help the students to become globally competitive in the future, teachers should be responsible and play their roles as the curriculum analysts, problem solver and last but not least, classroom practitioners. However, the teachers alone cannot assure the success of achieving the aspirations. Other stakeholders should play their roles to support the teachers. Educating the next generation of leaders should be everyones main priority to ensure that we will be able to prepare them to lead our country at par with the top developing countries in the world.

References: Arndt, H. &Pesch, H. W. (1984). Nonverbal Communication and Visual Teaching Aids: A Perceptual Approach. The Modern Language Journal, 28-36. Caswell, H., L. & Campbell, D., S. (1935). Curriculum development. New York: American Books. Charles, C. M. (2011). Building Classroom Discipline (10th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education. Choong, L.K. (2008). Philosophy and Education in Malaysia. Selangor, Shah Alam: U.G Press Sdn. Bhd. Fuller, A. (2011). The teacher as a decision maker. Retrieved from

http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/sam plecha pter/0132698161.pdf.Harmer, J. (2009). Planning lessons. The practice of English language teaching. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Larrivee, B. (2009). Authentic Classroom Management (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education. Ministry of Education. (2012). Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, (preliminary report). Malaysia: Ministry of Education. Oliver, M. R. (2007). Effective classroom management: Teacher preparation and professional development. National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.Retrieved from http://www.tqsource.org/topics/effectiveClassroomManagement.pdf. Patsalides, L. (2012). Maximise teacher time by using the teacher aids time and talent. Retrieved April 4, 2013 from http://www.brighthubeducation.com/classroommanagement/3465-working-with-the-teacher-aide/ Rugg, H. & Shumaker, A. (1928). The child centered school. New York. World Book. Simic, I. (1998). Transformational leadership: The key to successful management of transformational organisational changes. The Scientific Journal, 1(6), 49-55. Taber, K., S. (2006). Beyond constructivism: The progressive research programme onto learning Science. Studies in Science Education, 42, 125-184.

Valazza, G. (2011). Professional Development: Teacher Development and Confidence. Retrieved on April 20, 2013 from One Stop English: http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/methodology/professionaldevelopment/professional-development-teacher-development-andconfidence/146473.article