Assess+copy+1st+dec

 BA in PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT  Margaret  Professional Development 3  Eric Ramaz  Word count:  Word count title and bibliography: 300 My name is Eric Ramaz, I am a full time Sport & Recreation lecturer at the banff and Buchan College of Further Education where I have worked for the past 15 years. Our college, who is situated in the north east of Scotland, is going through some major refurbishments and provide a service to nearly 1200 students of which an average of 2 % go to our sport section. Our section is made up of 7 staff members, 3 of which (including myself) are full time permanent and most importantly the curriculum leader who has been in post for the past 35 years will be leaving next year. Our students are in majority young people coming directly from the local academies but also include a few mature students from the UK and of east Europeans origins. Some of our students are planning to have a career in the leisure industry and others from the Uniformed Services section are going to join the forces, the east European students are with us mostly to perfect their English. We have also created a strong link with the local primary schools where we are providing a range of short courses and where our students do some work experience. My informal role at the college has evolved over the years to includes some health and wellness promotion through varied activities but my latest project has been technologically orientated with the creation of the “virtual revolution group”: a group of lecturers promoting new information technologies in our fast changing learning environment! In the past few months both projects, the primary schools link and the virtual revolution group have been put on hold due partly to the economic down turn and the refurbishment of the college. The East European student link project which brought us up to 20% number increase is also losing momentum due to the general economic down turn and we have only this year 1 remaining student form this group.

  This essay which is about existing reflecting theories and how they could apply to my practice should in theory start with their review but in the process of making this assessment my own theory starting emerging so today I will start with my own theory which will then refer to to clarify my beliefs. An organic theory incorporating learning, reflecting, personal and group development First imagine a tree made of: T   __ he roots which represent: __    The birth and the first few years of life, a necessary start where much information are integrated without much reflection  __ The small up and down facing branches which are __   The short crippled attempts to learn or understand, often short lived and not affecting the main trunk  __ We then have the main branches which come mostly in pairs on each side of the trunk __   They are a very important part as they represent learning and reflecting, they should always come in pairs to as they represent 2 sides, reflection and learning from reflection. One symbolise the looking back and reviewing information, situations or problems with the other the projecting and preparing for possible futures, this growth happen simultaneously with the mind shifting continuously from one to the other. As time passes more learning and reflecting happens, continuously constructing itself with the previous learning as foundations and this learning stays part of us,I believe being an effective reflective practitioner or even a balanced human being we should all thrive to see and understand these driving forces which shapes us all.

B   __ etween the main branches and the trunk we find a nexus __   <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> This represent the origin or the stimulation responsible for the reflection, it is the motivation factor and the driving force. Reflection cannot be forced onto us and without it learning is at best ineffective and short lived, most importantly as long as the motivation factor is present the learning will deepened like small branches always emerging

T  <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> __ he necessary symmetry and connection of the main branches: __   <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> they develop together like our mind jumping from the past to the future

T  <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> __ he problem with an asymmetrical growth __   <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">  __ : __    <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Only looking back at previous experiences or trying to anticipate a future without reflection can only causes serious leaning difficulties.

T  <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> __ he old branches: __   <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> previous learning and reflection found in the distant past which are now part us.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> __ the head: __    <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> Where new learning develops and new growths can appear, using the strength of past experiences.

Then imagine the forest and the necessary dependency of all the trees or imagine the lonely leaning tree on the side of the road battered by the wind, this would lead us to the group development part of my theory.

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Professional issues: a critical analysis. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">I feel I am at a professional cross-road created by many factors: economic, social, politic, personal and linked to group expectation. These are creating professional issues which need to be critically analysed and reflect on in order to prepare and adapt myself and the team. Some of these changes are factual where others maybe conceptual so concepts and ideas and pre-conceived ideas will have to be carefully looked on before setting up any plans. I have identified three main topics: My function within the team, funding available and motivation and lack of and the general attitude of the students. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**3 issues:**__ <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Changes within the section** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> with Jim leaving <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Many changes are coming my way and in order to adapt and keep our team from falling apart I believe I need to prepare myself for playing a different role in it. This new role is by no means a certainty but we are going to lose a curriculum leader who has shaped and influence the team for the past 35 years and this will affect all of us but potentially me more than most as I am next in the chain of command. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Action required: <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Easing up the transition, team building and sharing good and bad practice to learn from each other

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Economic downturn** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> with 10% less funding available this year (evidence source, 2010) As a direct result we could have a reduction of teaching hours for all classes, the impact will be great and in particular will by limiting the time we spend researching, discovering and constructing our understandings together, I am afraid this extra constraint could push us further away from a style of time consuming teaching style and back to a teaching to assessment approach targeting evidence and only producing surface learning: not taking time to create the nexus can only stunt new growths

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**The students lack of motivation and self believes.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">The characteristics of low self-esteem have been described (top ten facts about low self esteem, unknown year) as an inability to accept compliments, accentuating the negative, a reluctance to take on challenges, treating yourself badly or poor personal expectations, all characteristics I see with some of my students. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">I have been working with such group for many years without clearly linking it to low self-esteem so a clearly structured and recognized strategy based on behavioural and motivational theories could be more productive: <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">ref the following to different source <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">I would expect their motivation level to rise in par with their self-esteem as one could expect motivational and self-esteem techniques to work synergistically well <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Phil Race ( []<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> )has developed a theory called the Ripple effect where motivation takes priority over all other elements, in particular to promote it he speaks of  <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">which are already examples of favoured personal techniques.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">helping them change self-believes through experiences
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">letting them take credit for their successes
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">feel good learning through mistakes
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">feedback and feed forward,
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">feedback from each other,

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Outcome: Promoting a healthy challenging rewarding working environment for all by encouraging the use of critical reflection** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">The attendance to the Lunch time meeting will give a good indication of the effectiveness of the activity. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">All lecturers participating in the discussions and bringing one example of good practice or experience to share. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Minutes recorded. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Staff able to volunteer and share real experiences and reflections: this will be decided on by the facilitator in agreement with the group. ||  || <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**All staff to take turn and encouraged to sharing experiences**  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Eric Ramaz** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Richard Tucker** ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Goal: Promoting good practice and sharing good and bad experiences to learn from them together** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Measures of Effectiveness:**
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Objectives**__ |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Activities planned to achieve this objective**__  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Responsible Staff**__  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Team bounding and increasing inter-activity for all staff** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Bi-monthly Lunch time meetings with all section lecturers including one meeting facilitator**

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Kettle and Sellars (1996) researched how young teachers could improve their learning and teaching practice and found out that peer reflective group work were beneficial by helping them create new styles, recognize problems like pre-conceived ideas and further more were able to model new styles from this collaboration. But facilitator should be present to guide and refocus discussions when necessary (quote)

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Outcome: Adapting to the economical down-turn** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">A reduction of the effective cost of the courses on offer by the section |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Measures of Effectiveness:** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Overall teaching hours reduced by 10% or more <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Retention of students to the cut off date for funding provision ||   || <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**official tutor time cancelled** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Jim Wallace**  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Goal:** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Objectives**__ |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Activities planned to achieve this objective**__  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Responsible Staff**__  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**To reduce the Sport & Recreation courses contact hours from 21 to 18 hours.** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**I T modules taught by other sections cancelled** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Reducing cost of hire of the swimming pool** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Swimming pool time cancelled on Tuesday, to be replaced by personal training on Wednesday.**  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Eric Ramaz**  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Uniformed Services course hours to be reduced by 100 hours** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Supervised personal study sessions to be cancelled.**  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Linda Murray**  ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Outcome: Increasing self-awareness, self-believes and self-esteem of the Sport & Recreation students when promoting motivational techniques** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">the number of students volunteering for extra curriculum activities increasing from 25% to 33% or more <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">a better ability to accept compliments or positive feedback <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Students volunteering for coaching in class <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Students taking charge of lunch time activities ||   || <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Basketball shadow coaching** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Hill walking, map reading and guiding of groups** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Pear jumping** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**fitness training** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Leo harper** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Jim Wallace** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Eric Ramaz** || <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Eric Ramaz <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Jim Wallace ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Goal: to make them aware and give them many opportunities to develop as coaches and people** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Measures of Effectiveness:**
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Objectives**__ |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Activities planned to achieve this objective**__  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">__**Responsible Staff**__  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Building confidence of students** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Activities on offer covering a wider range of sports and activities**
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Work experience** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Short courses linked to work experience opportunities extended**  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Eric Ramaz**  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Opportunities for the students to practice their coaching and people skills** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Lunch time coaching activities**  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Eric Ramaz**  ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Building confidence and reflective skills** |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**Peer coaching: increasing these opportunities and range of activities with additional feedback sessions.**  |||| <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Leo Harper

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Bibliography <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">ARGIRIS C (1974) // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Behind the front page. // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> San Francisco: Jossey Bass. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">**ATHERTON J S (2010)** // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Learning and Teaching; Bloom's taxonomy  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> **[On-line] UK** <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">BIRMINGHAM W C and LEWIN B (1993) <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//The reflective practitioner in teaching; towards a research agenda.// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//Teaching and Teacher Education// // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">BLOOM B S (1956) // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain  //// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//.//  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> New York. McKay <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">CARNWEL R (2000). <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//Approaches to study and their impact on the need for support and guidance in distance learning// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">. // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//Open Learning// //<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">DALOZ L A (1986). <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//Effective Teaching and Mentoring: Realizing the transformational power of adult learning experiences// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">. San Francisco. Jossey Bass. <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">DAWN, T, HARKIN, J, TURNER, G (2000) // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Teaching Young Adults. A handbook for teachers in Post-Compulsory Education. // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> Routledge <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">DEVI A (2010) <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//Learning together: Kolb’s experiential theory and its application College of Business// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> Albany State University, Albany GA, USA <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">JACKSON C J (2009) // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Using the hybrid model of learning in personality to predict performance in the workplace  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">.KOLB D A (1984)  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development  //// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//.//  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Prentice-hall. The University of Michigan <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">KETTLE B & SELLARS N (1996). <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//The development of student teachers practical theory of teaching.// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(1), 1-24. EJ 526 790 <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">LARRIVEE B (2000) <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//Transforming Teaching Practice: Becoming the critically reflective teacher//  <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//Reflective Practice//  //<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">MOON J (1999) // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Reflection in learning and professional development: theory and practice  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> Routledge  <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">RACE, P (2005) // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Making Learning Happen  //// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//.//  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> Sage. London <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> ROBOTHAM D (1999) <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//The application of learning style theory in higher education teaching.// <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> Unpublished article, Wolverhampton Business School, Wolverhampton UK <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">SMITH M. K. (2001) // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">Donald Schön: learning, reflection and change  // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">. // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">//The encyclopedia of informal education// // <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">,  <span style="font-family: Arial,serif;">[|www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm]

<span style="font-family: Arial,serif;"> [] [] [] [] [] [] Accessed: 30 October 2010 [|Teaching Young Adults] [|http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i_ULKnRagmsC&pg=PA48&dq=surface+learning+deep+gibb&hl=en&ei=HPG6TOKOCYjHswab0qDLDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false] [] [|Journal of Experiential Education (2008) Volume 31, No. 1 pp. 3–18] [] June, 2009 pp 7579. [] [] [] []