School ofPractice

Professional Education
3

102605 Professional Practice Community Engagement - Reflection

Pre-service Teacher Details

Pre-service Teacher Name: Anthony Nakhoul Pre-service Teacher ID: 17719490

Pre-service Teacher Phone Number: 0452530574 Pre-service Teacher Email Address:

17719490@student.westernsydney.edu.au

Placement Details: If you haven’t complete 60 hours face to face you must provide a detailed statement of
how your experience meets the outcomes for Professional Practice 3. Attach evidence.

Placement Name: Beloved Education Centre Placement Phone Number: 0423307373

Placement Address: 1/4a Station road, Auburn Placement Email Address:

2144 NSW belovededucationcentre@gmail.com
Contact Person: Sue Bolad

Describe in 500-800 WORDS any features and benefits of the setting you attended. Consider number of
students, location details, age of students, types of educational programs offered and any other salient
aspects of the experience. Consider how this experience will contribute to your development as a beginning
teacher. (Remember theses can also be used in your Weebly so think carefully about your learning)

AITSL Standards

The criteria for pre-service teacher reflection focus, the first, second, third and sixth standards.
 1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of
abilities
 2.2 Content selection and organisation
 3.1 Establish challenging learning goals
 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice

Subsidiary questions:
What surprised you about your learning in your community setting?
What research about communities did you engage with before you commenced?
Why were you surprised about your learning?
What goals did you set for yourself in your service learning activities?
In what ways were you communicating with your community participants?
What do you believe the participants in your service learning project learned?
What did you learn? How will the experience shape you as a teacher in a classroom?
How would you help someone else learn what you discovered?

This form is to be completed and submitted to the notes/docs section of your profile within InPlace.
Students who do not submit on time (TBA on vUWS announcements) will receive an FNS.
The surprising feature I discovered about myself was my resilience. I found that through these challenges I
was able to adapt to certain obstacles faced which allowed me to overcome them. Through the
community setting, I was surprised with how welcoming all staff members were towards me and how
encouraging they were towards me. This allowed me to feel comfortable in the setting and really do my
best to help tutor and help these students improve their education. What had also surprised me was the
incredible assistance that was provided by the staff members of the community regardless of the amount
of work they had of their own. They not only provided me with resources to aid students’ learning but also
demonstrated different methods and approaches of teaching for students of different abilities. The
research about the communities that I engaged with before commencing began with online research
which then lead to verbal and physical communication and meetings with members of the tutoring centre,
both educators and parents. Speaking to members of the community that were a part of this tutoring
centre, whether they worked there, had children attending there or merely know of parents/students that
were involved with this centre, were able to give me an insight into how to approach this practice and
what to expect. I was surprised with my learning as I was able to develop characteristics about myself that
helped me improve throughout this experience and I will definitely use these characteristics in the future.
I was also surprised with how much respect the students had towards their tutors but specifically towards
me as I was a new face to them and did not know much about myself. As a pre-service teacher, this
experience has been of great importance to me as I was able to interact with the parents of the students.
Being a pre-service teacher I have never been able to attend parent-teacher interviews so being allowed to
interact with parents within this vicinity has allowed me to gain a deeper understanding on each student.
By sharing students’ work with their parents, I was able to help the parents focus on what the students
may be lacking and improve their work which was displayed through their efforts in each session. There
was also another member from Western Sydney University who also conducted his placement at the
Beloved Education Centre and I found that to be very beneficial. We were working together and helping
each other if we were ever stuck with certain activities. We shared our knowledge among each other
which helped me become a better teacher and develop teaching strategies that I know will help me once I
am finished this degree. We would also give each other advice after each lesson which made me more
aware of what I may be lacking with regard to pedagogical strategies. I have learnt that every student is
different and unique in their own way and that has really helped me become a better teacher in the
classroom. I found that one teaching strategy may work for one student but may not work for another
student. In saying so, I was able to create activities which maintained student engagement within the
classroom allowing for students to develop their learning. Such activities included kahoot presentations
which allowed students to use their electronic devices in order to complete the activity. This helped me
attend to students with mixed abilities as I was able to provide different activities for these students. I was
able to provide more complex activities for the gifted and talented students and I was able to simplify
activities for other students. Essentially, the students will receive the same information needed for each
lesson and will be able to understand it through the complexity of the work. This experience will definitely
help me become a better teacher as I was able to spend more time with the students individually and
understand their situations and learning difficulties.