Contemporary Review of Work Experience

Ð''Learning through experience is the normal, common place approach to learning, and we take it for granted.' Miller and Boud (1996)

After my work experience at Franklin College and St Mary's school, I whole heartedly agree with this statement. During my life I have taken my experiences for granted for example throughout my academic career and vocational encounters I haven't really reflected on them.

Swedish research that was later developed by Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle (1997) suggested that there were two types of learning Ð'- deep or surface learning. Whenever I have looked back at my experiences, I have looked at it at surface value rather than from a deep view; Piaget (1971) defines the deep view as Ð''people who are willing to change their existing knowledge-the cognitive structure-in order to accommodate the new idea.' In the past I haven't been willing to change my knowledge, just add to it which leads to surface learning.

In order for me to deepen my learning I produced a learning contract which included learning outcomes in it for me to achieve; a learning log from which I could Ð''reflect' upon and as Moon (1999) says Ð''A learning journal is essentially a vehicle for reflection.' So this was an important component of my experience.

The first stage was to plan for my experience and for it to be successful I had to plan well because Ð''effective planning is at the heart of effective teaching and learning.' Gower (1997) I had to produce an initial proposal where I put forward potential career area that I could work in. I then had to submit a work placement details form, and this involved me ringing Toll Bar school and agreeing the placement which initially seemed easy; I managed to speak to someone who worked in the department and they said it would be fine but would ring me back to confirm this; I received no phone call so rang them on numerous occasions only to be told every time that the P.E department weren't available and that they would get back to me. I had another institution in mind just in case this had arisen and had learnt from my previous experience and manage to get a firm answer this time. I realised sometimes things aren't as easy as they seem and that I have to persist and follow things up want if I want anything done; even if I am frustrated I still have to act in the appropriate manner. I then had to develop my learning contract and think about previous experiences to help me write it.

During my experience I had to refer to my learning contract and found it to be very generic; all my learning outcomes were vocationally based and not particularly specific, so did not aid my experiential learning as much as I would have liked, to help my progress I should have revised my learning outcomes. My strategies that I created were very vague, because shadowing and observing were the only ones. I should have produced more strategies, for example one of my strategies could have been to make a list of questions that I wanted answering; another strategy I could have used was to plan the physical and mental skills that are required and expected of me; I could also try to monitor my progress throughout the experience, with tests or reviews with the host. no effective planning During the preparation of my learning contract I should have increased the contact I had with my host and consulted my personal tutor as they would have given me some useful information and guidance; I should have also thought about my previous experiences so I could have applied them to the contract. I became conscious through this that I don't ask enough questions to clarify things, and in the future will try to be more inquisitive.

I am now going to review each learning outcome that I produced. My first outcome was to learn how to maintain discipline in the classroom/in a lesson which is a vocational outcome. I feel that I did achieve this, one in particular event was when there were scuffles breaking out every so often in the year 8 basketball lesson. The pupils started verbally abusing each other first and then pushing; the teacher then stopped during the lesson, stepped in and questioned them in a firm voice and they had no response. He just separated them and told them to get on with it. This behaviour from the teacher matches the conduct suggested by Strangwick and Myers (1997) towards unruly pupils. Something else I learnt about maintaining discipline was rather than avoiding problems the educator should try to keep the pupils on task. The week after I was in the Ð''firing line' as I took part of the lesson then supervised the pupils who weren't taking part (about half weren't taking part.) I found supervising the non-participants the hardest work as they weren't given anything to, and getting up to mischief. Some of the things they were doing provoked a smile from me, so as I found out they kept pushing my limits and I thought I had things under control, but it got to the point where I shouted like I never had before. Looking back, just that little smile lost me control of the pupils because I lost their respect as a teacher so they felt they could get away with anything. I learnt that I can't let my guard down as a professional with children as they will take advantage straight away.

My second outcome was to understand how to set goals for students and make sure that they are followed through and achieve them; this outcome was once again vocational. I had informal chats with my host about it but I never really achieved it due to the timescale of the experience.

My third outcome was to familiarise myself with lesson planning and again this was vocational. This was identified thorough out my experiences at the school where I had to prepare for each lesson with each different year group. The key component of this was the evaluation of the lesson because then progression can be introduced and the pupils can be asked what they remember and learnt from the previous lesson. I achieved this outcome and was pleased to get to grips with lesson planning.

The forth outcome I created was to find out what the most common