Understanding your teaching role

SECTION 1 UNDERSTANDING YOUR TEACHING ROLE: ASSIGNMENT 1 Title: LEGISLATION & CODES OF PRACTICE: THE TEACHING / TRAINING CYCLE: RECORD KEEPING This assignment covers legislation and codes of practice in teaching and learning, the 5 stages of teaching/training cycle and finally the importance of record keeping in teaching and learning. We need to consider legislation and codes of practice in teaching and learning because it maintains a professional structure and brings standardization to all employment and other organisations. The legislation and codes of practice relevant to teaching and learning do impact on the training cycle as a whole in many ways. LEGISLATION It is essential for teachers/lecturers/trainers to adhere and comply with the legislation that governs their profession as these safeguards their rights and those of the learner. The two examples of legislation that I will focus on are: the Health and Safety at work Act and the Privacy and Data protection Act. I will briefly mention the Teaching and Higher Education Act to highlight its importance in governing the teachers’ code of practice. The Health and Safety Act: The importance of this act is that, it ensures that everyone is safe in working places. This act emphasizes the requirement that everyone in the work place has a responsibility to protect the safety of themselves and others. Employees have an obligation to take the necessary action or report any incidents that may cause harm to themselves and others. By reporting these, the employer who is responsible for the implementation of this act, can maintain and manage health and safety measures. In many work places, the employer usually delegates this responsibility to certain employees such as the Head of Department in secondary schools. In my sector (education) health and safety is a mandatory training requirement at the induction of new employees (teachers and support staff). In the science department, it is essential that staff are adequately trained on how to deal with chemicals and other hazardous science experiments. Members of staff need to be trained so that they are aware of how to store and dispose of hazardous materials. Staff should be aware of how to deal with chemical spillages and generally how to prevent potential hazards. Privacy and Data Protection Act: This legislation outlines that personal information collected should be treated as confidential and only used for its intended purpose. Individuals have a right to know why their personal information is being collected. Data must be kept up to date and accurate. The company collecting the data has no right to pass that data onto a third party without the consent of the owner. The act also stipulates that data should be kept for a certain time frame after which it should be discarded. In teaching and learning, information on learners is collected as part of enrolment. This includes personal data (students and parents), education history and performance data. This information is used only for the purposes of education and can be accessed by the relevant staff authorized to do so. The learner has the right to know who has access to the information. In my current role (Science Technician/Lecturer) we keep data on students, parents, staff and some commercial companies. This data is kept under lock and key if it is in hard copy, and in protected databases if it is on computers. Data is updated regularly. Responsible staff members are trained on how to maintain and keep accurate records, as well as the legal implications that surround the confidentiality of such records. Codes of Practice: Examples of code of practice for a secondary school teacher or support staff are: 1. Child protection: every member of staff should be trained on how to protect children and be able to take appropriate action in the event that a child needs protection. 2. Risk assessments of fire and practical classroom activities Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 is one other legislation important to teaching and learning. This legislation has to do with what the General Teaching Council of England sets out as the code of conduct of registered teachers in matters such as: (a) Standards of teaching; (b) Standards of conduct for teachers; The Training Cycle The five stages in the training cycle are: 1. Identifying needs: This is the stage where the learners’ needs are identified. The teacher/lecturer and the learner establish this together in order to achieve a common goal. It is the responsibility of the teacher to determine from the learner’s information, at which academic level the course should be set. Information about the learner can be obtained from application and registration forms, pre-assessment tests/examinations and from the classroom feedback. The teacher/lecturer can determine a suitable learning style from a student’s previous education, work experience (historical data) and from feedback in the classroom. In life long sector, the learners bring in a wide range of educational and work experience. In this case, it may be difficult to meet all their needs in the same course and if this becomes a boundary, the lecturer should be able to refer learners to other appropriate options. 2. The Planning Stage: Once I have identified the needs of the learners the next step is to plan how the teaching will take place. This is a crucial stage because the plan establishes the outcome of the learning process, and the content of the lesson. It is the responsibility of the teacher to set out the topic to be covered, the learning objectives (learning outcomes), starter, main body of the lesson and assessment. Each objective or goal should be measurable and achievable. As the teacher I need to plan the venue of the teaching sessions, the resources, lesson times and breaks. In planning, the main boundary that I may encounter is finance. Any elaborate plan should be backed by good access to funds to be able to carry it out successfully. A good plan to a large extent determines how well a lesson is delivered. 3. Delivery Stage: This is the stage at which the teacher delivers the lesson on the basis of the plan. During delivery of a lesson, it is crucial to make the lessons engaging to learners. To do this, I need to be aware of the learning styles of the students such as kinesthetic, auditory and visual. An engaging lesson entails drawing examples from the students’ life situations which gives a better illustration of a subject matter and makes it more interesting. Group activities are an ideal way of getting participation from all learners. Small groups encourage communication and sharing of information. Whilst activities are an ideal style of teaching it’s important as a trainer to take charge of the session because it is easy to lose track of time. At the end of each activity it is important to revisit the objectives and pose questions to the learner to make sure that the objectives have been met. 4. Assessing Stage: This is the stage in which the teacher uses different techniques to check if learning has taken place (assessment of learning). I am aware of two forms of assessment, that is, formative and summative. The formative assessment occurs during the lesson delivery in the form of classroom questions (verbal or written) and feedback. Summative assessment occurs at the end of a learning cycle, the learners are given a test on the content they have learnt over a long period and this test is assessed. The most useful method of assessment in the early days with a class is formative because this allows for adjustments to the lesson in order to effectively teach the learners. Already from the previous stage of the cycle, we can see that it’s important that learners are observed and checked for understanding by asking questions. It’s also important to get good feedback from the learners. This is mainly to improve the teaching experience. A continuous assessment can be derived from portfolios, regular assignments, exams, and course work including classroom tasks. Assessments are also checked by internal and external examiners to make sure the trainer is providing training as required. The outcome of this assessment is mainly for improvements. 5. Evaluation Stage: The final stage is an evaluation of the teaching. The learners get an opportunity to say whether the training met their expectations or not, whether the objectives were met or not. They evaluate whether the teaching style was helpful to their learning. To get a true evaluation it is helpful to give learners anonymous questionnaires to fill out. Evaluate whether you were able to deliver all the material within the prescribed time frame. From this evaluation as a trainer I am able to make changes to improve in the future. I can also reflect on my practice in order to improve my teaching. RECORD KEEPING Record keeping is very important in teaching and learning. It is a legal requirement and also a form of communication in the work place. Records should be kept accurate, up to date and secure (e. g. in a locked cabinet). Prior authorization should be obtained before records are accessed. In the school where I work, we keep information on students, parents, staff members and commercial companies. Personal information such as medical, bank, educational and social data, is confidential and as such is subject to privacy and data protection act. Management may access the records at any time or as specified in the school policy. Records related to students’ performance are kept in databases that are protected. However teachers have access to these databases as they need to update the records regularly as well as inform their teaching practice. Advantages and disadvantages of records in Hard and Soft Copy | | Advantages | Disadvantages | | Computer based | Easy to update | Relies on availability of electricity | | | easy to duplicate | Easy to manipulate | | | Easy to protect | Some people are computer illiterate | | | Maintain quality | | | | Easy to update | | | | Easy to carry | | | | Uses less storage space | | | | Can be salvaged in a fire | | | Paper based | 1. Maintain originality | Needs more storage space | | | 2. Accessible anytime | May not be easy to access over a long period | | | 3. More authentic in a court of law | Lost in fire | | | 4. Not easy to manipulate | Loss of quality | Conclusion: In this assignment, based on understanding the role of a teacher, I have looked at examples of legislation and codes of practice that govern the teaching profession. I have related these to my current employment as a Science Technician as well as a Lecturer. I have also looked at the five stages in the teaching and training cycle and have concluded by looking at record keeping. Word count: 1774