Assignment_1

Ptlls Assignment 1 Review what you role, responsibilities and boundaries as a teacher would be in terms of the teaching/training cycle. This review is to examine teachers' role and responsibilities in relation to a teaching and learning cycle model. The model consists of a number of stages: identify learners' needs, plan/design of delivery, implement, assess learners and evaluate. For boundaries to examine expected behaviour and classroom ground rules. As professionals, teachers should have the means and competencies to identify learners' needs and how to support them. Teachers may need to carry out initial assessment to identify learning style, learning difficulties and any required additional support. Also teachers need to know the extents/limits/boundaries of this process. For example, in normal class time it wouldn’t be feasible for teachers to provide special need; therefore it may be necessary to cater for a specialist assistant with expertise to support those learners. At planning stage teachers develop schemes of work, lesson plans and teaching material and other resources, therefore it is teachers’ professional responsibility to facilitate access, by other teachers, to those resources when required (e.g. when they are absent). Also at the planning and designing stage of the cycle, it is the responsibility of teachers to develop class profile to assists other teachers to learn about learners’ style and any other useful background information that facilitates learning. But we need to keep in mind the limits to how much detail a teacher can provide to assist other teacher for an effective delivery in the case of a class cover. During the facilitation/implementation stage of the cycle and in order to facilitate effective learning teachers’ role/responsibility is to, for example, employ range of delivery methods meeting different learners’ learning style. There is wide range of teaching methods and it is the teachers’ responsibility to choose the appropriate ones to cater for learning styles, the nature of the taught topic and available resources. Obviously we need to keep in mind that effective learning can be measured through appropriate assessment methods. Assessment stage of the learning cycle involves devising appropriate assessments that meet external examination bodies’ quality expectations and to meet the institution's quality assurance policies and to effectively give good indication of learning. Currently there is a lot of emphasis on writing assessments with well-defined objective assessment criteria rather than writing them as an extension of teachers' subjective measure of understanding. But teachers must leave space for creative assessments methods in order to develop learners' abilities. Assessments can take two main forms the formative and summative assessments. The formative is a reflection of the process of making learners aware of how further progress can be made which can imply the provision of feedback and some personal learning plan rather than formal records. Also it involves identifying strategies to improve learner’s learning. Whereas summative assessments are normally designed to measure what has been learned in formal assessment, and requires reliable record keeping. Without evaluation it is difficult to measure or assess the success of any given activity. Alongside the internal processes/procedures to monitor the quality of teaching, assessment and support there are external bodies that demand more formal evaluation such as self evaluation exercise and writing related reports which should be accessible for inspectors for example. Boundaries in the context of self evaluation as part of the evaluation stage of teaching and learning cycle can be seen as the ability to balance being critical of oneself to obtain additional resources that cannot be paid for. In other words, this is about efficient use of available resources to improve services rather demanding more resources. Also it is the teachers’ responsibility to set ground rules and acceptable behaviour and this should be established as early as possible. Ground rules and acceptable behaviour are seen as the minimum necessary conditions required for learning to take place in a classroom (Merton 2005). Some tend to confuse support to facilitate learning and creating an atmosphere of dependency on teacher. Boundaries are vital in this case to facilitate independent learners. Bibliography 1. Gravells, A (2008) Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector. Exeter: Learning Matters Ltd. 2. http://www.highlandschools-virtualib.org.uk/ltt/inclusive_enjoyable/formative.htm (Accessed 30 Aug 2011) 3. www.geoffpetty.com (Accessed 12 Aug 2011) 4. http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html (Accessed 29 July 2011)