ETL507 - Professional Reflective Portfolio - PART C

Please see Part A here and Part B here.
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As I have said in sections prior, I have learnt a lot during the last two years of my Post-Graduate degree. I value what I have learnt highly and I hope to use it going forward in my career. As I am an Early Career Teacher, I am still learning about what it means to be a Classroom Teacher, so much of what I still need to learn as a Teacher-Librarian is tied up in that. I aim to complete some Professional Development around literacy and literature for children and young adults. I also intend to ask questions and speak to library staff at various schools while I undertake Temporary Relief Teaching work to gain an understanding of how different schools run their libraries and what resources they have on offer for staff and students alike. I also want to continue to work with internal and external committees and organisations to help me gain leadership skills. This includes year-level or subject area specific meetings or whole-school committees as well as the School Libraries Association of South Australia (SLASA), where I have been offered the opportunity to become a committee member. While I cannot name specific programs or Professional Development courses that I wish to or could potentially undertake in the coming school year, due to COVID-19 uncertainty, I intend to take advantage of anything can help me improve my professional practice.

I have, over the course of my Professional Placement, started a resource bank for the Civics and Citizenship subject area (Mickan, 2020). I intend on getting that operational and start to highlight resources and curate a collection that can be used to assist in the teaching of the subject. I have found that Civics and Citizenship is an oft forgotten subject within the Australian Curriculum and as a SACE Stage 1 and 2 Legal Studies teacher, I have found that students can be under-prepared in terms of the basics of what they need to know. By using the knowledge I have gained in terms of collection curation and recommendation of resources, I wish to help push Civics and Citizenship within schools and highlight resources that can be utilised by staff of any level of experience. This helps to ensure that students are receiving their full education and access to the full curriculum that is their right to have access to.

To conclude, I have been incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn and to be able to become a fully-qualified Teacher-Librarian. This has enabled me to combine my two passions of teaching and librarianship in a way that when I was in Year 10, starting to look at future careers, didn't know was possible. I still have so much to learn and I fully intend to do so, not just for the betterment of myself but also for my students.

References

• Mickan, N. (2020). CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP. CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP. Retrieved 10 December 2020, from https://governmentandfederation.weebly.com/.