The Seminar 8 task was to:

1. Read Chapters 1 (already read) and 6 of Churchill et al. (2013)¹.
2. Watch the powerpoint presentation Australian Curriculum Seminar 8 (available on CANVAS), and reflecting on my Seminar 8 experience, respond to the following questions:
   • What teacher traits do you identify with?
   • Of the 7 APST Standards which do you already associate with and why?

3. Use the 3 key domains of teaching from the APST, Professional Knowledge, Professional Practice and Professional Engagement to structure the first stages of your personal statement.

4. Begin working on your Personal Statement: My philosophy of teaching - what kind of teacher am I/do I want to be and why? What is the role of a teacher in the process of learning? and post this to your e-portfolio, remember this is very much a first attempt and will continue to change and develop as you grow as an educator.

EDIT (17 July 2018): I had a go and drafted a personal statement on 16 March 2018. Although I originally started by structuring it around the 3 key domains of teaching from the APST, as I edited it evolved beyond that, although some remnants of it remain and each of the domains are still discussed, just not used for structure. This ended up going through one or two more re-writes, but ended up with a relatively nice finished product which I include below. Originally I had uploaded this to the splash page of my eportfolio, but since then I have come to understand what a personal statement is better, and in hindsight I realise what I had there was a good summary of my personal values. So I aim to write a more teaching-practice based personal statement with examples of my teaching for the splash page, but I will keep the values statement here as I think it still has some value.

Personal Teaching Statement

I aspire to be the kind of teacher that creates a safe environment in which students can interact and learn. I think achieving this goal will be a lifelong journey, and not an easy one. Three core values of mine sit at the centre of my strategy for achieving this goal:

• Lifelong Learning
• Transparency
• Inclusive Language and Behavior

Lifelong Learning

In order to create a safe environment for students to interact and learn I will need to tackle obstacles of many different types: social, cultural, academic, bureaucratic, political. Perhaps most importantly of all I will need to embrace and encourage constant and ongoing self-reflection and constructive criticism. Naturally, these processes will lead to a life of constant learning and development on my part as I constantly strive to improve. I embrace this, and actively seek it, relishing each chance to learn and improve.

Transparency

I value transparency highly, and aspire to be as transparent as possible in my teaching as well as in my personal development. Providing students with indepth feedback is crucial for supporting learning, and I think being transparent in my assessment tasks can support this goal well. My hope is that transparency can not only improve feedback to students, but also demonstrate my dedication to integrity and encouraging collaboration. My hope that transparency will encourage collaboration applies not only to collaboration with students, but with colleagues, parents, and the community at large as well. I hope that through transparency I can also find ways to encourage stakeholders to give me feedback on how I can improve my teaching. I expect interaction with colleagues, parents, students, and the community at large to provide some of the most useful information for continual improvement as a teacher, which is my day-to-day goal even while my ultimate goal remains to create a safe environment in which students can interact and learn.

Inclusive Language and Behavior

I think thoughtful behavior and use of language are powerful tools for communicating to those around us that they are safe, not being judged, and welcome. Although sometimes these things can be subtle, I believe the impact of these subtleties can be anything but. Small and perhaps seemingly innocuous adjustments to our behavior and use of language can create massive shifts in the way people around us feel and perceive us. I think developing keener awareness of the impact of my own behaviors and use of language, and making continual adjustments, will be key to creating environments in which students can feel safe and welcome, as well as being important in developing professional relationships with colleagues, parents, and more.

References: