And so the end....for now. I did it my way!

The past 32 weeks have been both challenging and interesting. I have really enjoyed doing academic study again and stretching my mind to new thinking. I feel invigorated and set to expand my thinking further.

I must say that it would have been a VERY hard "row to hoe" without the support of my two colleagues that I worked collaboratively with. Working full time in an extremely busy job in addition to postgraduate study is a big ask for anyone. I certainly wouldn't recommend doing the course by yourself and have noticed those that have, have really struggled with extension upon extension. Working together we managed to "drag" each other along to keep up to date.

I have always been a very reflective practitioner, constantly trying to refine and improve what I do. Sometimes I think this has been to my detriment as I can spend too much time researching ideas and maybe get a little lost in too many ideas in a quest for perfection. I feel more focused as a result of this professional development and able to focus on evidence based practices rather than a million and one ideas. 

Criteria 4: Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice.

The biggest shift for me is including evidence based research into my practice. I now reflect on a number on inquires done over the past few years and believe that these could have been done more effectively using a range of good research rather than the odd random research article. Sources of research were never queried and on reflection I now wonder if these were very robust. 

I really enjoyed the literature review (mad I know) mostly, I think, because it taught me what a literature review was and how to critique research and use this evidence for classroom based decisions. I feel much more aware of how research will influence my practice. I feel like I am a "bigger picture" person now and able to reflect on many different aspects within teaching and am more confident talking about these. 

Criteria 5: Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning. Professional knowledge in practice.

Gaining a better understanding of the differing types of leadership styles and theories was another informative area of learning for me. Having lead a major professional development programme over the past two years it was interesting analysing my leadership strengths. I could be known to be a "pacesetter" having conscientiousness, drive to achieve and initiative - unfortunately this is a style which does not necessarily have great outcomes. It has made me reflect on what other strengths I have and how these might apply these to leadership roles I hold. I am now more focused on the strengths I have within visionary and democratic styles of leadership. 

Next dream........to gain my ACET (Advanced Classroom Expert Teacher) recognition and to study in a collaborative way toward gaining a Diploma in Education. Topics I am interested in are distributed leadership, culturally inclusive practices in a mainstream school and motivating diverse learners. 

Interdisciplinary Approaches, The New Curriculum of "their" Future?

I found this week’s topic rather interesting. As a Primary School Teacher who is required to teach across the curriculum it can be challenging to teach in areas that may not be your area of expertise or interest. Our school is becoming more collaborative with teacher planning and I see the positive benefits of this in easing teacher workload but also in designing learning which has more of an interdisciplinary approach where teachers can bring their own areas of expertise.

In Mathison and Freeman’s (1997) literature review they identify many positive aspects from three different (but in many ways very similar) approaches. An interdisciplinary, integrated and integrative studies approach. Many positive outcomes have been identified in a multitude of studies. These include better outcomes for students, such as, developing an increased understanding retention, application of general concepts, better overall comprehension, better decision making, increased motivation, being more creative and so it goes on. 

This seems nothing new to Primary Trained teachers, however, I think sometimes we still get caught into teaching subjects in isolation due the assessment requirements and the complexity of assessment record keeping.

These three models also purport benefits for teachers, which include, better overall integration of new and rapidly changing information with increased time efficiency and better collegiality and support between teachers and wider comprehension of the connections between disciplines.

Potential problems are identified by Jacobs (1989) who calls “the 'potpourri problem' where courses become a sampling of a little bit of this and a little bit of that without an overall, coherent structure or scope. The general consensus is that the choice of a theme or activity should promote "progress towards significant educational goals, not merely because it cuts across subject-matter lines" (Brophy & Alleman 1991, p. 66). There is, however, little agreement on which activities are fruitful for the pursuit of which educational goals.”

This is what I fear, a bit of this, a bit of that…..and maybe not enough of “that”…….but I also wonder if curriculum coverage is that important. Knowledge is at our finger tips, is it really that important that a child has knowledge that could not is couldn’t? As we have Literacy Learning Progressions thrust upon us with everything broken down to the nth degree this seems to depart somewhat from what an interdisciplinary approach and the goal of reaching significant educational goals.

Ross' Spiral Curriculum on further investigation is particularly interesting and something I will pursue further. How many times have your read we are education children for their future not ours? I believe mapping of a curriculum in this way is very innovative and I can see a huge potential benefit for both students and teachers. 

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf