Interpreting the VIT standards (Transcript)
F5: I found a few of them quite difficult to interpret. I think many pre-service teachers did. I found actually talking to other pre-service teachers on my placement as well as on other placements did help because I found that they too were experiencing the same misunderstandings. So we kind of worked through those together. I think the important thing was to take as many opportunities as presented to me as possible because I did find if I took those opportunities they kind of just by default were marked off really. It wasn't ... the standards weren't asking you to do anything ridiculous and outrageous, it was just part of your normal teaching. So if you were able to keep your records, you look back on these standards and realise I've already done it anyway. We had the option of going to a PD on one of our placement days which I took. That was on restorative practices. So I joined all the other teachers from the school as well as some of the other pre-service teachers to attend that PD. Also just things like yard duty and just taking any opportunities within the classroom, showing initiative, becoming involved in the students if they wanted to have a chat to you, have a chat to them, those kind of things really helped me to mark off those standards and reach what I was aiming for.
M3: I thought they were a bit, at first, a bit daunting but confusing, maybe because of my first placement. I wasn't quite aware of how I was going to meet those standards. Once again my mentor was really supportive. We went through everything and it turns out some of the things that I was doing was meeting those standards without me being aware of it.
F6: I read the standards first up and thought okay, this is a little bit overwhelming. But I guess my advice would be don't be too overwhelmed by them initially because you're not going to be able to address them and meeting them in the first few weeks and talk about it with your mentor and so they know, they'll be familiar with them and you can talk about and find out what ... what exposure you need in the classrooms to be able to reflect and in filling those standards.
F3: I completed my standards report with my comm ... my mentor, sorry. And I asked things, I just asked questions, what does it mean, what do I ... like, for example, I have an example here, for example standard 4a refers to the use of professional knowledge to establish clear, challenging and achievable learning environment for students as individuals and groups. So in this case it was quite obvious to me that grouping students according to their levels relates to that standard, because one thing that stood out in that school that I was in, they grouped students in terms of according to their abilities. For example they had maths groups, reading groups, writing groups and I was placed in Grade 1 and I was quite amazed that they're grouping student ... they're grouping students at this age. I think it's excellent that they focussing on that to meet the students' needs.
F4: I just read through everything, you know, just have a sit and have a read through everything. But it doesn't all fall into place until you're doing it, until you have the experiences to back up the evidence. It just doesn't really fall into place. I'm very fortunate that this year I've got a great mentor who's had 40 years of teaching experiences and has a great grasp on these standards. And she's been able to point me in the right direction with some of them, so her commitment to the pre-service teachers is great.
F4: But, yeah, just read and then it doesn't really fall into place until you're there on site. There was a fair bit of information on the hub with the slides. I printed them off and used them as a guide. But that still wasn't enough so then I got on line and I got some information from the ... the Queensland Registration Board of Teachers and they had, you know, 28 page document which looked at how to gather evidence and how to put your portfolio together. So I found that, there's about two or three pages there, that I continually turned to. So my evidence had a fair bit of variety in it I'd hope from photos to discussions to interviews to student ... copies of student work and pictures of student work and obviously feedback from my mentor. So was pretty varied.