S/NVQ Uit……
LEARNER STATMENT ASSIGNMENT …………………………………………………………
Evidence Ref. No… Candidate Name: Edina Rigamonte
Unit Evidence
Use this form to record details of activities (tick as appropriate) Observed by your assessor Work Product Seen by a witness APL
Self reflective accounts Discussing with learner
Links to: | Performance evidence on: | Links to | Unit | El | P.C.No | Date of activity: 13/04/13 | KS | | | | This position statement is a reflective account of my knowledge, skills and qualities acquired both from previous qualifications and learning that have contributed to my personal and professional development. I would like my learning derived from my experiences to be counted for academic credit towards my degree. I grew up in a country where I was fortunate to have been educated in good institutions which fostered a healthy, competitive and challenging learning environment and offered a good balance of academic and extra-curricular opportunities. Involvement in such activities helped mould me as motivated and resourceful individual who flourishes in situations where imagination and initiative are called for. I started my career when I was 14 years old making the first course that lasts 3 years called Teaching for Primary School. In the same time I made some courses in the beauty area. Soon after this I obtained a degree in Full Teaching Qualification, BA in Economics and Post Grade in Foreign Trade. I did more than one thousand hours in courses, workshops and seminars in the Education area. In the same year I was approved in a public competition and was offered a full-time teaching position in a School. This marked the beginning of my teaching career. I was thus given the opportunity to gain 13 years teaching experience with primary and high school teaching in the following subjects: Portuguese Language, Portuguese Literature, Arts and English for Kids. Also, I had the opportunity to teach for adults during 5 years, what was a different and wonderful experience for me, because they were people who abandoned their studies to work and were now returning to school to regain lost time. But I learnt so much with them and their lives experience. Some of them had 70 years old and were still studying. These years of teaching in some good public colleges and schools enabled me to keep abreast of new developments in the field, taught me to be certain and accurate of my factual knowledge and challenged me to be more analytical and creative in my approach to learning and teaching In particular, I learnt how to encourage deep learning as opposed to surface learning amongst my students. At the beginning of the semester, I immediately noticed that the study patterns of many of my students were characterised by attempts to cover content, find the ‘right’ answers and learn verbatim, in other words, surface approach to learning. As a result, my initial aim for the students quickly became to make them, if not passionate, then at least interested in the subject; I did not want the weekly three hour session to be a waste of their time and this seriously made me reflect on ways to make my sessions interesting and effective . Over the course of teaching the subject, I changed some formative assessment methods, reviewed and changed questions for short quizzes, adopted exciting hands-on activities that illustrated visually and in tactile form the topics in discussion, gave pair and group work assignments, and revised the whole final examination paper, focusing on essay questions that sought to bring out students’ understanding of the topic. I strived to encourage the deep approach to learning where emphasis is on the subject’s relevance and application, rather than acquired facts, dates and names of movements they