Psychology and Teaching Assistant Essay Example for Free

Psychology and Teaching Assistant Essay 1.1 Describe the duties and responsibilities of own work role. The teaching assistant role includes working under the guidance of the teacher, supporting teaching and learning in the school nursery through group activities. I am able to devise learning activity plans also and also spontaneous learning activities which occur through play and other immediate learning activities. The learning assistant role also includes administration, wall displays, food preparation, leading activities with smaller and larger groups, and also individual work. Listening and talking with the children and offering support in social and emotional development as well as curriculum activity development. It is necessary to promote positive behaviours and deal with any negative behaviour in a professional manner. It is also necessary to promote equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion. It is necessary to build professional relationships with the children and also with other work colleagues. Assessment on a formative or summative basis is also part of the role. The teaching assistant role also includes effective safeguarding, and health and safety of the children and also the learning environment all contributes to a happy place, that is a safe and healthy place to learn within. 1.2 Explain expectations about own work role as expressed in relevant standards. There is a list of standards for school support staff depending on the role. The National Occupational Standards for Teaching Assistants offers guidance of competent performance. Some schools ask teaching assistants to complete the National Association of Professional Teaching Assistants. There are also local and national guidelines for codes of practice. 2.1 Explain the importance of reflective practice in continuously improving the quality of service provided. Reflective practice is actually reflective learning and then putting this learning into future practice. It is essential to reflect over activities and other things that have happened and work out if they worked out well, or did not work out well. Why? And what can be improved. It is a continual thinking process to strive for improvements. It is important to self-assess and assess situations by reflecting on them and then putting ideas/plans forward to progress from that event. It is good to  be able to discuss thoughts and ideas with colleagues to then identify areas of strengths and those that need further development. Reflective practice includes reflecting on own role when supporting children learning. It also includes managing children’s behaviour and planning and assessing and also feedback. Reflective practice also includes working with colleagues and other adults and professional development. 2.3 Describe how own values, belief systems and experiences may affect working practice. If the teaching assistant is a religious person, then there may be personal conflict with been expected to take part or support learners in other religions activities. If the teaching assistant has no religion, then it is likely to be easi er to support learning activities and personally be rather passive about the belief part of the religion, and just concentrate on the knowledge part of the religion. Own beliefs, and values and experiences shape the way a person is and so facing and taking part in activities about other beliefs, values and experiences can enhance learning and understanding depending on how flexible in thought and attitude the individual actually is. A person who is less flexible in thought and attitude may find that the taking part in activities of other beliefs, values and experiences can be a very challenging experience. 3.1 Evaluate own knowledge, performance and understanding against relevant standards. It is essential to reflect on learning activities that you have taken part in with the children and then compare with the national occupation of standards to see if you meet what is required. By working through and addressing areas of performance a person can begin to improve their practice. There are 69 units of the National Occupational Standards. These describe the skills and knowledge that teaching assistants need to do their job effectively. Teaching assistants and other support staff roles do not need to cover all 69, they just need to cover the ones which relate to their work environment. (see table attached regarding the relevant standards and my evaluation of own performance and understanding) 3.2 Explain how you would demonstrate use of feedback to evaluate own performance and inform development. Consider the feedback fully and then reflect on own performance to see if you can accommodate the feedback to make effective improvements to own performance to then be able to put this into further practice. Constructive feedback is best to work from and can aid professional development as well as additional training  opportunities. The assessment forms from tutor observed sessions in the workplace can highlight strengths and also areas that need some improvement. 4.1 Identify sources of support for planning and reviewing own development. Sources of support can come from other work colleagues, teaching assistants and teaching staff and also tutors if on further college courses. The planning and reviewing cycle is not unlike that of the planning and assessment cycle which a teaching assistant is part of in the working environment. There are also online materials and also books which can be used to aid learning in order to develop planning and reviewing abilities. The school system for employees would be to use formal and informal support and appraisal meetings with senior management. College staff for those on college courses can also be part of this support system. Inset/training days for staff are a way of gaining support for planning as information is pooled and new ideas and methods are put into operation. Da ta may be logged in a milestones format for reflection and further development. 4.2 Explain how you would demonstrate how to work with others to review and prioritise own learning needs, professional interests and development opportunities. The school appraisal system for employees is a way of assisting staff to consider their own professional performance on a frequent basis. This process needs to be a positive and non-threatening one to be at its most effective. A line manager may do this process for a general teaching assistant, whereas the schools SENCO is likely to do this for a teaching assistant with one to one supportive roles for a child or children with SEN. 4.3 Explain how you would demonstrate how to work with others to agree own personal development plan. A personal development plan is a plan to improve professional practice. The appraisal system and other formal and also informal feedback on a person’s professional development all contribute along with own reflective assessments of actual working experience. There will be opportunity for training in the working environment and also external training events which can be added into the personal development plan. The initial in employment training is the induction course for teaching assistants and also opportunities for other training to take place. These will cover areas such as behaviour management, SEN, and also supporting numeracy and literacy, and learning intervention schemes such as extra literacy and extra numeracy support training to be able to implement  these programmes effectively with children who need extra support. 5.1 Evaluate how learning activities have affected practice. Practice has been affected by learning activities with extended experience. Using the learning from these experiences it has helped to shape and develop abilities and new experiences have provided opportunity to try out and reflect upon. Observing and working with other colleagues have affected practice in offering ideas previously not thought of, to use and develop into own professional practice. All learning activities have provided opportunity for reflection and then personal development with copying and continuing good practice throughout. Just as the children learn from direct experience and from each other and build/scaffold on these experiences, teaching assistants also follow the same process. 5.2 Explain how reflective practice has led to improved ways of working. Reflective practice is the key to effective learning. Reflective learning is a powerful tool and can be gained from self-reflection and including feedback from others to reflect upon. It is personal assessment and this can be used to find out what went well and what needs working on. Work colleagues and training can also aid learning as we learn from each other. Observation of other more experienced staff such as other teaching assistants and the teachers can offer food for thought, and then the person can try out these newly observed methods observed to improve ways of working with learners across the school years. Reflection on good practice has led to personal development in this role by developing new ideas based on the good practice already experienced. 5.3 Show how to record progress in relation to personal development (see enclosed CV) It is a good idea to have an achievements file where all the qualifications and other awards and certificates are all placed into the file, in groups and date order. A detailed CV can also include the most essential qualifications as well as other personal information and employment and voluntary experienced logged in chronological order. I update my CV frequently and also adapt it per type of job role that I am applying for and update my achievements file and keep in in good order.