The field experience hours

In a variety of ways, the field experience hours increased my knowledge of the teaching profession. Although the faculty meeting was not the same as the teacher professional development event, there were many similarities in the lessons taught. To begin, planning and preparation were carried out in a similar manner. Once the day and time for the meetings were determined, internal memos were sent out with the agenda and topics of discussion. This allowed me to become acquainted with all of the topics at hand as well as identify issues that needed to be addressed but were not on the meeting's agenda.  I realized that planning is essential in every aspect of this profession and decided always to plan my lessons ahead.
Both meetings resulted in improved staff collaborations and relationships. The faculty meeting reviewed the norms, principles and core values of the institution as well as the ethics which should be followed. Jennings (2007) states that shared values and principles create a more accomplished team. This is evident since by discussing the values, we realized that we have similar values which brought us closer together. The professional development team, on the other hand, made resolutions that were favorable to everyone such as working from a staff-developed agenda, agreeing that important decisions will be made in a consensus to accommodate everybody’s reasons as well as actively consulting each other. The importance of teamwork which has a significant positive impact in any organization was emphasized (Manzoor, 2011).

Finally, it was evident that teachers and other team players in the kindergarten institution face similar problems. Why discussing hindrances to career development in the professional for instance, I realised that other teachers are affected by parent’s intervention in their children’s performance. We also brainstormed on methods to handle children from different backgrounds, a problem that affected my class. The two extremes of very bright children and less abled children also affected other teachers. The field experience hours were therefore a success and I would recommend that the institution facilitates for more than two meetings a month.





References

Jennings, M. (2007). Leading Effective Meetings, Teams, and Work Groups in Districts and Schools. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Manzoor, S. R., Ullah, H., Hussain, M., & Ahmad, Z. M. (2011). Effect of Teamwork on Employee Performance. International Journal of Learning and Development, 1(1). doi:10.5296/ijld.v1i1.1110