School ofPractice

Professional Education
3

102095 Secondary PP3 Self Reflection Form

Pre-service Teacher Details

Pre-service Teacher Name: Clara Dziedziczak Pre-service Teacher ID: 18319297

Pre-service Teacher Phone Number: 0422 483 506 Pre-service Teacher Email Address:
18319297@student.westernsydney.edu.au

Placement Details: If you haven’t complete 60 hours face to face you must provide a detailed statement of
how your experience meets the outcomes for Professional Practice 3. Attach evidence.

Placement Name: Lachlan Macquarie Teaching Placement Phone Number: 04048 816 822
College

Placement Address: Fairvale High School. Thorney Placement Email Address:

Road. Fairfield West NSW 2165 Cherine.Spirou@det.nsw.edu.au

Contact Person: Cherine Spirou

Describe in 500-800 WORDS any features and benefits of the setting you attended. Consider number of
students, location details, age of students, types of educational programs offered and any other salient
aspects of the experience. Consider how this experience will contribute to your development as a beginning
teacher.

AITSL Standards

The criteria for pre-service teacher reflection focus, the first, second, third and sixth standards.
 1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of
abilities
 2.2 Content selection and organisation
 3.1 Establish challenging learning goals
 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice

Subsidiary questions:
What surprised you about your learning in your community setting?
What research about communities did you engage with before you commenced?
Why were you surprised about your learning?
What goals did you set for yourself in your service learning activities?
In what ways were you communicating with your community participants?
What do you believe the participants in your service learning project learned?
What did you learn? How will the experience shape you as a teacher in a classroom?
How would you help someone else learn what you discovered?

This form is to be completed and submitted to the notes/docs section of your profile within InPlace.
My placement with the Lachlan Macquarie College for Professional Placement 3 was a exciting and
varied experience. I had the opportunity to assist students at Chemistry days at the Parramatta
Campus of Western Sydney Uni assisting Year 12 students from a variety of different schools in the
Western Sydney Area. During these days I was able to assist the running of a number of the
experiments and explaining what was occurring to the students. During the science discovery day
with hundreds of high school students later in the term I assisted in slime making, preparing the
materials so that students could each have some slime they were able to play with and take home.
The remainder of the placement I completed team teaching at Fairvale High School. Fairvale High
School is a large school with roughly 1500 students from diverse backgrounds. During theses days I
was able to observe and help out a number of different teachers and year levels in different aspects
of the lessons. I assisted in both year 11 Biology and Chemistry classes completing practical lessons,
moving around to different groups assisting with any questions that students have as well as
explaining concepts. In some of the classes there were a number of students with diverse learning
needs which allowed me to utilise different teaching strategies to differentiate my approach for
different students. I also had the opportunity to participate in some of the STEM lessons, helping
students participate in the inquiry based learning activities for the cross curricular lesson.

Throughout this experience I was also able to engage with other colleagues I worked alongside to
identify areas of improvement for not only myself but also for those I was working with. A number of
the other teachers also asked me to reflect on their lessons and identify areas or aspects of their
lessons that could be improved. This allowed me to think about best practice in the classroom and
how alternative behaviour management strategies could be implemented. I was also able to
participate in some professional development one afternoon which was super helpful in terms of
discussing depth studies and how they will be implemented next year in Stage 6 as well as how some
of the programming and assessing will be working for next year with the new syllabuses.

My learning goals for this placement included to become more confident and gain more experience
working alongside experienced teachers in different contexts. I also wanted to be able to gain some
practical experience planning exciting and valuable science lessons that really engage and motivate
students so that student learning can be enhanced. Throughout the experience I feel as though I have
been able to observe some excellent pedagogy from different teachers as well as some effective
behaviour management strategies. This experience has contribute to my development as a teacher
by enabling me to gain confidence and develop strategies that I can use in my teaching arsenal.
From this experience I was able to refine my skills in teaching strategies and confidence and work on
improving my practice in relation to a number of the ATISL Standards, particularly 1.3, 1.5, 2.2, 3.1
and 6.3. I feel as though i was able to share some of my passion and enthusiasm for science with the
students that I was teaching. To share my learning with my peers I will aim to debrief with other
students who have completed Professional Placement 3 this semester so that we can share our
learning and what we have experienced as well as sharing any resources we have accumulated over
the placement. Overall I have had a really valuable experience on PP3 and felt as though I have learnt
a great deal and was able to personally contribute some of my knowledge and skills as well.