My Learning

Prior Knowledge
The beginning of instruction shall be made with the experience learners already have
this experience and the capacities that have been developed during its course
provide the starting point for all further learning (Dewey, 1938, p. 74).
1. In my post primary education I studied Business at higher level and even though 5
years have passed since I sat my leaving cert exam, I still had retained a lot of the
knowledge I had acquired from studying Unit 5 Business In Action in school. I
chose to cover Identifying Opportunities and Marketing for my assignment as
I always enjoyed studying these topics in school and I felt I could use my own
experience of being a student in the classroom trying to learn and study these
topics to shape my own teaching strategies. By reflecting on my own prior
knowledge from this period in my learning I knew the areas of difficulty I had
come across when studying these topics and because of this I felt I had to think and
come up with strategies that would help my students learning in a way that I would
have appreciated in school. Looking back at the different strategies I have studied
in the PME, I believe that the use of active learning would have contributed greatly
and aided my learning and understanding during certain sections of these topics
and I now plan to use these strategies when developing a strategy to teach
Identifying Opportunities and Marketing to my students.
2. Last year I was giving the opportunity to teach 2nd year business studies during my
teaching practice which allowed me to teach section 2 The Business
Environment and with this section a topic on Marketing is included. When
preparing my lessons to teach the students this topic I had acquired further
knowledge on marketing, which also allowed me to build upon my prior
knowledge from post primary school. When reflecting on my prior knowledge of
the topic Marketing I used my experiences of teaching it to my second year
students to look at the areas I felt they most enjoyed and the different learning
strategies I used to teach the topic that I felt were most successful in aiding my
students learning.

3. To build further upon my prior knowledge and to develop an integrated knowledge

framework on the topics Identifying Opportunities and Marketing I used
material that was right at my fingertips, the leaving cert syllabus and business
book. I spoke with my cooperating teacher and asked if I could borrow a leaving
cert business book for the year. When I obtained a copy of the book I read over the
topics numerous times as I wanted a gain comprehensive grasp on the material I
would be teaching to my students and also to gain a deeper insight and knowledge
on the topics so as I could plan my teaching strategies and individulised learning
goals for my students. When speaking to my cooperative teacher I also asked for
his advice on how he would teach these topics and the strategies he uses and also
what areas he found students struggled most with. Lastly, I went online to the
Department of Education and Skills website and read the syllabus structure and
requirements for Unit 5 Business in Action and what the main objective of this
section was. By reading the leaving cert business book and syllabus and speaking
to my cooperative teacher I gained a great deal of knowledge on the topics I had
chosen to do my assignment and had a great deal of prior knowledge moving
forward.
Learning Goals
There are four main learning goals I hope to achieve by the end of this assignment,
which I will use as a roadmap for my learning journey.
1. One of my learning goals I hope to achieve by the end of this assignment is the
goal to deepen my knowledge on the two topics I have chosen to base my
assignment on. I want to be confident in my knowledge on these topics and use this
confidence to answer any questions my students may have without any flaws. The
knowledge I hope to acquire will stand by me in the years ahead of my teaching
career and I hope to use this knowledge to link other units in the business course
when teaching the business syllabus as a whole.
2. I hope to learn how to use a diverse range of teaching strategies and methodologies
through the use of resources successfully. By learning which strategies and
methodologies work best I can use these techniques when teaching not only

leaving cert business but also junior cert business. I want to have explored and
created a vast range of different teaching resources using different websites and
tools and in doing so become confident in my ability to create these resources for
all topics in the future. I also want the resources that I create for the topics
Identifying Opportunities and Marketing to stand to me in the years to come
when teaching other leaving cert business years and not only help me successfully
teach these topics but also be of a high enough standard that I can share my
resources with my fellow teachers to use.
3. Another of my learning goals which I hope to achieve by the end of this
assignment is to have learned how to create a fully functioning website. I dont just
want to create a website for the sake of this assignment, I want to create a website
that I can continuously use throughout my teaching career. I want to learn how to
create a website that I can upload and share resources, for not only my students and
I to use, but also for the use of other business teachers. I also want to discover all
the different ways I could use my website to encourage my students to interact with
the content on the website, not only in the classroom, but also at home. My goal is
to create a website that I will be proud of, a website that my students will find
interesting and fun and a website that other teachers can use and see a vast range of
resources that might be helpful to them when teaching the business course.
4. Lastly, by doing this assignment I hope to achieve a more personal goal, the
building of my confidence as a teacher. As mentioned in my goals above by the
end of this assignment I want to have deepened my knowledge further on the two
topics I chose to cover for the assignment, learn how to successfully use a diverse
range of teaching strategies and methodologies in my teaching of these topics and
create a website that will benefit my students, my fellow teachers and of course
myself. By achieving all of these goals I hope to gain confidence as a teacher, as
being equipped with a deeper knowledge, great resources and a website to be
proud off, I will be able to stand at the top of my classroom and be confident that I
will deliver a great lesson and aide my students learning to its full potential.

Learning Strategies

SchumakerandDeshler(2006)definealearningstrategyasanindividualsapproach
toatask.Itincludeshowapersonthinksandactswhenplanning,executing,and
evaluatingperformanceonataskanditsoutcomes.

1. As mentioned above in my prior learning I obtained a leaving cert business book

from my co-operating teacher. I plan on reading through the chapters on my
chosen topics Identifying Opportunities and Marketing with a fine
toothcomb. This will allow me to further deepen my knowledge on these topics
and also will allow me to see which areas might be a little more difficult to grasp
than others and what teaching strategies and methodologies would suit best to aid
my students learning in those areas. I will also use the Department of Education
of Skills to look at Leaving Cert Business Guidelines for Teachers to get a
better understanding of the lesson objectives I wish my students to achieve by the
end of the teaching of these topics. I also plan to discuss further with my cooperating teacher any methodologies or strategies he may have used over the
years that he found successful when teaching these topics. And lastly, I will look
at the schools leaving cert business scheme of work to see the approximated time
to spend on each topic.
2. I plan on using a diverse range of teaching strategies and methodologies
throughout my teaching of the topics Identifying Opportunities and
Marketing. As mentioned earlier in my prior learning, I feel I would have
benefited greatly in school when I studied business and in specific the topics
Identifying Opportunities and Marketing if a range of different
methodologies and strategies were used through the use of a diverse range of
resources, as from my own prior knowledge of using these techniques when
teaching my students and especially my second years when covering the topic
marketing, I felt they engaged more with the material when different methods and
strategies of teaching were used as they allow students to take control of their
own learning. To plan for my use of a diverse range of teaching methodologies
and strategies I will research online the various different forms and how and why
they help aid students learning. I will also visit a range of sites which allow you,

the teacher, to create an array of different resources, such as quizzes, mind maps,
games, videos and so forth. I plan on also looking and websites, which contain
resources that other teachers have created and posted online for the use of
teachers in their own classroom. By researching and viewing an array of different
methods and resources, I will be able to choose and create which ones I believe
will work best with my students and will most successfully help my students
learning process throughout the teaching of these two topics.
3. Lastly, before I begin to create my website I will first look at an array of different
platforms created by other online users. By doing so I hope to get an idea of which
website platform would be most suited to my students and I. I plan on spending a
considerate amount of time navigating my way through the different website
platforms to establish whether they are easy to create and use, will I be able to
showcase my resources on it, will my students be able to interact with the website
and in general find out exactly what each website platform is offering. I will also
specifically look at websites created by teachers for the use of their students and
other teachers. By doing so I will gain an insight into how other teachers use
website platforms to showcase their resources and how exactly they use website
forums to allow their students to interact with curricular content online.
Evidence of Learning
1. I hope to show I have achieved my learning goals of using a diverse range of
teaching strategies and methodologies through the use of resources by
successfully explaining how I plan on using them throughout the teaching of
the topics Identifying Opportunities and Marketing. By explaining why I
created each resource and how I plan on using them with my students to teach
these topics I hope it will be evident that I have put a lot of thought into
developing methods and strategies that will not only aid each of my students
learning process as a whole but also that I took into account an array of
different methods and strategies that will help aid a diverse range of different
students learning abilities.
2. I intend to record my learning and show how I have achieved my learning
goals through the use of my website. By successfully creating a fully

functioning website I hope I will have demonstrated my learning on how to

create a fully functioning website. I also hope that from navigating your way
through the website it will be evident that I put a lot of time and thought into
choosing the best website platform to suit the needs of both my students and I.
I also hope that by showcasing my resources on my website it will be a
platform for myself to be able to record my learning and demonstrate what I
have learned through engaging in this assignment.
3. One of my learning goals I hope to achieve by the end of this assignment was
the goal to deepen my knowledge on the two topics I have chosen to base my
assignment on. Once again, I hope that by explaining how I plan on using
these diverse range of teaching strategies and methodologies that it will be
evident that I have a great deal of knowledge on my chosen topics and that by
using these techniques I am using the knowledge I have acquired to help aid
my students learning to the best of my ability.
Self Evaluation
1. One of the learning goals I hoped to achieve by the end of this assignment was
the goal to deepen my knowledge on the two topics I had chosen to base my
assignment on. I really believe I have accomplished that goal as I can honestly
say I now know those two topics like the back of hand. In creating the various
different resources for each topic and the time spent doing so, I engaged fully
with the content and in doing so deepened my knowledge. I now feel that I
would be confident in answering any questions my students may have on the
topic.
2. My second learning goal was to learn how to use a diverse range of teaching
strategies and methodologies through the use of resources successfully. This is
another goal I feel I have accomplished. The resources I created for my
assignments include a diverse range of different teaching strategies and
methodologies such as think-pair-share, group work, graphic organisers,
videos, worksheets and many more. I wanted these resources to stand to me in
the years to come and I believe they will as their diversity will not date and I
would be more than confident to use these resources throughout my future

teaching career. I also wanted to explore and create a vast range of resources
using different websites, and this I maybe did not achieve as much as I wanted
to as I felt slightly limited in the resources I could create using these websites
with the content in the chapters. But with the resources I did create, I am proud
to call them my own and I will definitely be confident when creating resources
for future chapters.
3. Another of my learning goals which I wanted to achieve by the end of this
assignment was to successfully create a fully functioning website that I can
continue to use throughout my teaching career and not just for the purpose of
the assignment. I am extremely happy with how my website turned out and I
love its design and layout. My website is now filled with an array of resources
that not only I can use with my students but also other teachers can use with
their students. I also successful created a website that allows my students to
use and engage with the content, not only in the classroom but also at home. I
am extremely proud of my website and I hope my students and other fellow
business teachers find my website useful, interesting and fun.
4.

My last and most personal goal was to build my confidence as a teacher. This
is the goal I am most proud of accomplishing. By achieving all the goals
mentioned above I now have so much more belief in myself as a teacher. I
now I have a new found confidence in myself. If I had to in the morning stand
in front of a class of 5th year students and teach these two topics I dont think I
would bat an eyelid. I now have a deep knowledge of these two topics, I have
great resources that I would be confident to use with the students knowing that
they would aid their learning process successfully and I have a website that
looks professional and one that I would be proud to let my students see and
navigate around. I now have the confidence in myself to deliver great lessons
and aid my students learning to its full potential.