Department Advocate Mentor
6.1 Use the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and advice from colleagues to identify and plan professional learning needs.
6.3 Contribute to collegial discussions and apply constructive feedback from colleagues to improve professional knowledge and practice.
Throughout 2014 as a new graduate, I was supported by a Department of Education Advocate Mentor, who observed and gave feedback on over 20 hrs of my teaching time. This highly experienced gentleman was a significant positive support to me during this year and helped me to develop my practice from these initial stages.
Through discussion with this mentor, I was able to identify what key priorities required urgent attention, and what significant things were strengths and were working well. In early notes recorded during our sessions, key priorities included marking and feedback to students as with this I was falling behind, and to enable this we agreed I needed to improve my time management generally. It was also observed that I felt I needed to engage more with my colleagues to plan and improve my practice, and that I would pursue this through the school, and through other professional development opportunities, such as through my four Graduate Modules.
As I progressed I gained much needed support in management of classroom behaviour, within a diverse range of lessons that even included sport. My mentor assisted me in creating an inspiring list of lesson ideas centered on the soccer world cup, which was on at the time. I also received assistance with the requirements of job applications, improving my professional resume, and with the material that I studied through the Graduate Module and SWITCH programs. In our final lesson together, our students were contentedly building newspaper bridges in science, and thanks in part to my mentor, I am sure my classroom had come a long way.
6.3 Contribute to collegial discussions and apply constructive feedback from colleagues to improve professional knowledge and practice.
Throughout 2014 as a new graduate, I was supported by a Department of Education Advocate Mentor, who observed and gave feedback on over 20 hrs of my teaching time. This highly experienced gentleman was a significant positive support to me during this year and helped me to develop my practice from these initial stages.
Through discussion with this mentor, I was able to identify what key priorities required urgent attention, and what significant things were strengths and were working well. In early notes recorded during our sessions, key priorities included marking and feedback to students as with this I was falling behind, and to enable this we agreed I needed to improve my time management generally. It was also observed that I felt I needed to engage more with my colleagues to plan and improve my practice, and that I would pursue this through the school, and through other professional development opportunities, such as through my four Graduate Modules.
As I progressed I gained much needed support in management of classroom behaviour, within a diverse range of lessons that even included sport. My mentor assisted me in creating an inspiring list of lesson ideas centered on the soccer world cup, which was on at the time. I also received assistance with the requirements of job applications, improving my professional resume, and with the material that I studied through the Graduate Module and SWITCH programs. In our final lesson together, our students were contentedly building newspaper bridges in science, and thanks in part to my mentor, I am sure my classroom had come a long way.