Welcome to the WJETT blog
What is WJETT?
The WJETT blog or Warwick Journal of Education - Transforming Teaching blog is designed to encourage staff and students to disseminate good practice and to engage with their peers on academic cultural critique or areas of research that they find interesting. With the increased focus on ‘teachers as researchers’ in the sector, many qualified teachers are expected to publish the outcomes of any action research projects they undertake. The WJETT blog can be the first step on your journey towards publishing and enables you to experience publishing and reviewing in a friendly and supportive environment.
You will need to scroll down the page below the tags to see the posts.
What is your teaching philosophy?
I believe that an educational environment needs to be a place where all individuals feel safe, and a place where there is mutual respect. This is key to my teaching philosophy. I believe that successful learning takes place when students basic and more advanced emotional needs are being met (Maslow, 2018). Therefore, every day I make sure that students know they are respected, safe, and loved. I believe that a positive attitude is key to making the students feel this way.
Reflecting on my earliest educational touchstone memory, I remember my first teacher in Reception. This teacher was warm and caring. She made us feel as though we could achieve anything. Although it is naïve to believe that one teacher that early on in my life could affect my whole teaching philosophy now, I do like to think that the memory of her is something I want to continue into my teaching.
School always felt like a safe space for me, where I could engage in learning, reading, and all of the things I loved. I have always felt very lucky that my parents, who are arguably my first educational touchstone, have always supported me to achieve my best. I was always naturally inquisitive and wanted to understand the world around me. Fostering that natural curiosity that young people have is another major aspect of my teaching philosophy. I believe that all too often, particularly in the older grades, as we prepare students for exams, this natural curiosity can be pushed to one side. I have been working at an exams-based school for the past nine months, this has been a personal goal of mine to still work within the school’s ideology, but to also encourage my students to ask WHY. However, I do see the value of encouraging students to strive for success. I saw this first-hand when I moved from a UK Grammar school (where I was for five months) to an International School in Singapore. I see the importance, especially as an educator now, of students encouraging others to achieve. This is analysed in a study done about Singapore and their PISA rankings (Deng and Gopinathan, 2016). In the UK, I felt as though the popular children were the ones who were naughty, and perhaps the class clown. This was a vast contrast to my experience in Singapore where I found that the popular students were the ones who worked hard and excelled. I believe that had I not had this experience, I would not be where I am today. I loved education, but Singapore made me grateful for it.
I believe that my teaching philosophy comes through mostly with my rapport with my students. I believe in instilling the belief in students that they can achieve anything they set their mind to. From having a wide range of abilities in my class, I see the importance daily of celebrating the wins, however small. When children feel celebrated, I believe that it encourages them to work harder.
Bibliography
Becker, E., Goetz, T., Morger, V. and Ranellucci, J., 2014. The importance of teachers' emotions and instructional behavior for their students' emotions – An experience sampling analysis.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 43, pp.15-26. Deng, Z. and Gopinathan, S., 2016. PISA and high-performing education systems: explaining Singapore’s education success. Comparative Education, 52(4), pp.449-472.
Writing guidance
Can I write about anything in my blog post?
Yes pretty much. Academic cultural critique (Thomson and Mewburn, 2013) is always a good source of content for academic blogs. This can include (but is not limited to) comments and reflections on funding; higher education policy or academic life. You might also want to consider blogging about:
- Academic practice (Saper, 2006)
- Information and/or self-help advice
- Technical, teaching and careers advice
- Your research or practice
- How you’ve undertaken research
- The impact of research on your practice
- An area of research/practice that interests you
- Your teaching experiences/reflections
How long can my blog post be?
Each individual blog post should be no longer than 500 words. Long blocks of text are sometimes hard for readers to digest. Break up your content into shorter paragraphs, bullet points and lists whenever possible. Also include a list of keywords or tags as this makes it easier for Google to find your work.
Do I need to use citations?
No, this is a reflective piece so it does not need to include citations (but you obviously can include them if they are relevant).
Can I include links or images?
We would encourage you to include links to any articles that you have considered whilst writing your blog post. We also welcome the use of images (as long as you have permission to use them) as they can often help to illustrate a point and obviously will not be included in the word limit. Please remember this is a public site so if you want to include images of your students in your classes then you will need permission to do this.
What is the process for submitting a piece of work?
Your blog post should be emailed to A.Ball.1@warwick.ac.uk. Once the submission has been reviewed it will either be uploaded at the beginning of the next available week or sent back to you for editing if it requires amendments. You should then send the amended work to me once again and I will then upload it.