Practice and Research - Feedback Point 7 Reflections

The Critical Review

While I took the time during the deferral period to focus on my wellbeing, it also afforded my some additional reading time. This has helped me to hone my concept for the module's critical review. My tutorials helped to refine some of my ideas, and I became intrigued with the idea of exploring style and meaning through the rifts and portals that appear in my Mostly Harmless Adventures setting.

This gave me a tighter focus for the critical review, and I have spend a good amount of time exploring potential sources for research. The OCA/OU online library has been essential for these resources, and I have been able to read and digest a lot. I have combined this with online resources as well as purchasing some physical copies of works that I felt most important to the case studies I was going to look at.

I built up an overview of the critical review first, getting an overall layout to check for structure. I then broke these heading down into the talking points I would need to write for each. I found this very helpful, as I could step through the overall arguments, making sure there was a cohesive flow and narrative to the whole thing.

I then started to fill out the first sections, before submitting to my tutor to give initial feedback on the premise and writing, this included the list of research that I had collected by that point. My plan was to continue the critical review to completion, and then integrate feedback.

Big Changes

The most significant thing to happen is my career change. At the end of March, I came across the Teach First charity. I had been considering a career in teaching for a number of years, but always thought that the logistics of training made it impossible. Through Teach First, however, I would be able to work as a teacher from day one, and train by doing. Not only that, but they specialise in placing their trainees into school with higher proportions of student deprivation. Not only would I get the opportunity to make an impact, but I would be able to do so with children that deserve an equitable chance of good life chances!

It's a very selective process and my eclectic route through life made be believe that I would end up with another rejection to add to the pile from jobjunting. To my delight, I was accepted! There were a number of creases to iron out because of my non-standard higher education, and they were concerned about doing my training whilst also studing for my illustration degree, but I was able to show how I have been able to balance my studies alongside a demanding career and family commitments.

The twist is, because of the nature of my initial undergraduate degree, I was selected to become a science teacher! Having been doing my OCA studies since 2018, I have naturally been living in an artist's mindset for some time! The thought of going back to science after all of this time was, frankly, daunting! I felt nervous as well as excited, and was mindful of a feeling at the pit of my stomach that I could come to resent having to teach science - why could I not teach art & design, or design and technology?

I knew if I did not attend to that feeling, that it would grow and fester. So I had to have a proper sit down with myself and resolve it one way or another. I made a specific point of reflecting on what I loved about science during my own time at school, and I also made note of all the skills that I have developed during my 20-year career in technology and OCA studies since 2018. Rather than pine for what I couldn't have, I made the point of looking for how I could make the most of embracing this opportunity.

Teachers are more than their subject

My deferral period gave me the space I needed to undertake the intensive Summer Institute needed to get my foundation teaching skills in place before September. During this process I realised that while I did need to have a secure subject knowledge, my success was going to be determined by how well I could manage a classroom, and create an effective environment for learning. The best teachers I met brought a wide range of skills into their classrooms, and I quickly realised that I had a lot to bring to the table.

In education, they talk about the concept of 'dual coding', which is the effective combination of verbal and visual information for better understanding, retention and recall. I had been doing this for years as part of my studies as well as through things like sketch-noting and visual facilitation at work. I was already ahead of the game and I have seen so many opportunities of how I can apply my degree studies to lessons and the classroom.

Science is everywhere

The next aspect that helped me to resolve my future as a science teacher is appreciating just how much I learned the subject through effective diagrams and visual explanations. Not only could I apply my visual communication skills to things like layout, lesson planning and classroom design, but I had the skills to create my own illustrations. In time, I could create my own portfolio of illustrations that can be used outside of the classroom as well. I also had knowledge and skills that can help me create learning resources for children and teachers alike - and I have discovered that there is a thriving ecosystem of free and paid content out there designed to help teachers. This is a massive opportunity for me to explore in the future.

Likewise, I stopped to appreciate and acknowledge that science is a part of everything - which means it crosses over into many other subjects and topics. Rather than begrudge working in the science department, I have the opportunity to develop connections and relationships with teaching colleagues across the school. I am excited to look for opportunities to connect our lessons, and especially explore how I can bring art and design into the science lab. Children respond positively when they feel like a subject is accessible and relevant to them. Science can be abstract to many people, so I will be looking at ways of connecting it to students through other subjects - the physics and chemistry of colour and paint, light absorption using cyanotype paper, light waves using pinhole camera photography. I am sure there will be more opportunities than I can think of now!

Likewise, I have every opportunity to continue exploring my passion for illustration as part of wider school life through extracurricular activities. All of these aspects give me a whole new direction to explore in Unit 3.2, and create a broad illustration portfolio that can balance creative storytelling with educational illustrations - a market I hadn't even considered until now.