Involvement and Participation in Education

Involvement and Participation in Education

While I am studying to become a teacher through the PGCE course, is there along the journey a few thoughts and perspectives which I develop in my mind of how a teacher should present class. Each day there are a few things in the PGCE course in which I can familiarize myself if I think back to my school days.

Things like how it feels for a teacher to present class during the time when I was a learner in class. Another thought is how I was as a learner in class and how my thought pattern was back then compared to now. In my school days I was more of a listener than a talker, but  I did participate in activities which was presented in class by my teacher. Mostly activities that interested me.

As I think about it now I came to a question which made me thought. Why was I more of a listener than someone who answers? Was I too shy to answer? Did I struggle to formulate a answer in my head back then? Or did the teacher actually create a environment in which I felt suitable for me to answer a question in class?

If I compare myself from now to the person I was back in school, I will answer more questions in class now as back then. This makes me think. Did my teachers in school actually create a opportunity for me to feel comfortable in to answer more question? I'm not sure, but I think they could have done a bit more to encourage me or my fellow learners in class to answers more questions or at least think more critically.
And this is something that kind of makes me think even more. Would I be different today if they did encourage me more in class to become involved more or participate? And that is something which I am very curious about.

These are a few assumptions that goes through my thought process. One thing I can say now from studying for 3 years in university is that involvement and participation in class is key to learn more and to understand better. The reason why I am saying this is, because it allows us to use the knowledge we have in our minds and challenges us to better ourselves. To be continuously curious about things. Asking or answering questions in class stimulate our thought process and lets us develop more perspectives or thoughts which we never encountered before.

Something that stood out for me while I was reading a article of Wills (2015)
Applying Mindfulness to Mundane Classroom Tasks  (I bet it is something that stood out for a lot of my fellow classmates) was how she created a opportunity for her learners to interact in class through creativity by simply using a bowl of water which is placed on the learners desk. This is a good example of something I wished my teachers would have implemented more in our classroom environments. Not that I am saying that they were bad teachers. I believe they were still excellent teachers and they helped met to get where I am today. The thing which I think they lacked a bit of was to encourage or motivate learners to participate.

If teachers motivate learners to participate or to get involved more they will become more comfortable in the environment of the classroom. This would allow learners to become more confident to interact more in class. It will become a habit and once they develop this habit they will stat improving themselves. They will improve themselves through learning new things through interactions in class. To gain new knowledge, information, opinions and perspectives of others. This is the type of environment which I started to longed for as I continued my study's in university.

So for me as becoming a future teacher, I will definitely create more opportunities for my learners to interact more and to try and develop their level of confidence in order for them to feel more comfortable and learn better in school.