School of Education Professional Practice 3

SELF REFLECTION FORM

Student Teacher Details
Student Teacher Name: Pamela Khairallah Student Teacher ID: 18724211

Student Teacher Phone Number: 0451198194 Student Teacher Email Address:

18724211@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 Experience 3. Attach evidence.

Placement Name: Refugee Action Support Placement Phone Number: 02 9632 9401

Placement Address: Bristol Street, Merrylands, Placement Email Address:

NSW, 2160, AUSTRALIA Usha.Rama@det.nsw.edu.au

Contact Person: Usha Rama

Describe in 500 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.

Standards
The criteria for pre-service teacher reflection focus.
 Demonstrating knowledge of teaching strategies (1.3.1)
 Organising content (2.2.1)
 Setting learning goals (3.1.1)
 Seeking and applying constructive feedback (6.3.1)

Subsidiary questions:
What surprised you about your learning in your community setting?
What research about communities did you engage with before you commenced?
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?

My professional experience 3 took place at Merrylands High School where the majority of the students
are from a non-English speaking background. I was required to complete sixty hours by tutoring students
from refugee background. We were told that we will be responsible of tutoring small groups of students
however, at this school, my professional experience 3 was based more on one-on-one tutoring.
Sometimes I would have three students to tutor.
Before starting this professional experience, I did not do any research about refugee students since I
already dealt with many during my life however, I had to go through all the mathematics syllabus (7-
12). I attended a training of 12 hours, which was based on refugees’ journeys, and which motivated me
more to work with refugee students. My goal was to let students succeed in mathematics. Another goal
that I set was to help these students learn about this country’ culture as much as I can since I am an
international student. I knew that I had to learn a lot of things in order to be able to teach refugee students
things other than mathematics.
Most of the students that I tutored have been in Australia for at least two years. The majority had good
communication skills but was very poor with academic writing. I found myself teaching them literacy
more than mathematics. I was lucky because many of the students spoke my language and therefore, I
was able to help them a lot. I was able to explain things in our language then help them translate it to
English. When helping them with mathematics, our language was very beneficial especially when
explaining financial mathematics. Since this topic includes specific terminology, I was able to translate
everything to Arabic so that students understand. Seeing their faces each time they got correct answers
or just understood a topic was the most rewarding thing. I would feel that I actually achieved something,
that I was able to make a difference. Sometimes I would watch them work quietly and I would think
how much these students are eager to learn and this encouraged me to focus on my studies. Many of
them were deprived of schooling and therefore, you would see them working very hard to achieve to
their potential. I loved when we used to have small chats about their lives, interests and goals. This
would remind every time about how life is unfair. On the other hand, this is what keeps me motivated to
work with refugee students.
Overall, I was very happy because I was able to teach one-on-one students which, unfortunately, is not
possible in mainstream classes and thus, this opportunity enabled me to think about future pedagogies
to challenge social injustices.

Due Dates are notified in the Learning Guide for each semester. The Self Reflection is to be
uploaded on InPlace along with Timesheet and signed Report.
Submissions after the due date will receive an N grade. At the following HECS census date, if the work is
still incomplete, this will become an AF grade. This is University policy. The AF grade can be changed
when you complete the work. You must also keep a hard or electronic copy of your assignment.

Submit this form online. Your PP3 Report written by the Contract Person, is mailed by them and
uploaded by you on InPlace.