School of Education Professional Practice

3
SELF REFLECTION FORM
Student Teacher Details
Student Teacher Name: Student Teacher ID: 19025777
Jacinta McDowall
Student Teacher Phone Number: 0432382522 Student Teacher Email Address:
19025777@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: Only About Children (OAC) Placement Phone Number: 96653990

Placement Address: 135b Brook Street, Coogee, Placement Email Address:

NSW 2034
Contact Person: Samantha Todd or Tegan Davidson

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?
After completing my Professional Practice 3 at the early childhood learning centre, Only

About Children (OAC), I believe I have learnt a broad range of skills that will assist me in

my development as an educator.

Before I undertook this placement I had researched numerous theories and the AITSL

requirements for catering to diverse students as I new this centre catered for children with

various learning needs, including EAL/D, special education, Aboriginal children and

gifted/advanced children, and I made it my goal to provide innovative and interactive

educational strategies for all students as I believe that the method of Design and

Technology and Visual Art requires an advanced level of innovative thinking. However I

was completely thrown when I had to incorporate these elements into practice,

especially for children aged under 5 who were still learning to speak and interact with one

another.

I found it very challenging at times to differentiate my approach to cater to all the

children's individual learning and emotional needs, especially at the beginning of my

placement when I was unfamiliar with the children and the centres practices. I also found

it very challenging to communicate affectively with children with little to no language

skills. However through observation and practical experience I was able to grow more

confident throughout my placement by focusing on individual student strengths and

needs. I organised my content based on the centres requirements and what I believed

would encourage more participation, for example during a music lesson I handed out

bright colourful scarfs for the children to play with, which encouraged them to move their

hands to the beat and learn about rythm using numerous senses including hearing, sight

and touch, creating a lesson with more depth for children who were normally uninterested

in music, aswell as children with hearing difficulties addressing AISTL standard 2.2, 3.1 and

1.3.

I found it very beneficial to learn about the various ways inwhich children's progress can

be recorded through observation and testing. This includes positive interaction at

playtime, responding and interpreting new words, articulation of new words, physical
engagement with activities and others etc which is so different to traditional essay writing

that secondary students are so often tested on. By assisting staff in logging student

progress in their daily diaries, II have gained more understanding of how student progress

can be displayed in various forms, and a student focused approach to learning is

beneficial to student development and advocates a positive learning environment. It has

also helped me to understand that children and students learn at different speeds and

levels no matter what age and it is important to cater for the individual when testing and

creating learning content, addressing AITSL standard 6.3.

Important feedback and concerns of the children were communicated regularly to

parents/guardians via the website, in person and over the phone to ensure a trusting and

positive community spirit was maintained, which I intend to carry on in my own teaching

career.

I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the children with a varied use of hands on activities which

involve arts, crafts, technology, informal learning, story telling, and many more, which

encouraged students to investigate, play and learn. I believe I helped to teach the

students a broad range of skills and also assisted the staff to manage their duties and

document their daily reports on student development and progress. I also believe I have

learnt a lot about how children learn and how to communicate effectively with them

through a range of verbal and non-verbal communication skills which will assist me in

becoming the creative and innovative teacher that I want to become.

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.