Literature review

How to Survive your first year in teaching Sue Cowley 2003

I decided to review this literature as it’s a commercial booked aimed at the new teacher. New teachers are open for advice from anybody and this book has the potential to change a persons style of teaching and viewpoints on things like boundaries. Therefore I was interested to read it and read the authors opinion.

Cowley starts by talking about lesson planning on page 4 “Until you meet your students and get to know them a little, it is hard to anticipate their needs and interests”. I personally like this advice as it suggests that lessons are taylor made.

Cowley suggests that as a teacher you should start off by being as ‘hard’ as possible, she says you can always relax, but you can never get a class back once you’ve lost them. I agree with this to an extent but again it really depends on the type of school you teach at. Some students don’t react particularly well to ‘hard’ teaching, this, similar to the lessons plans I feel should also be ‘taylor made’. I especially like the quote ‘Boundaries should be fair, realistic and achievable’ Page 8.

‘Setting boundaries is a matter of personal taste and opinion, also depends a great deal on the type of students you teach’ This clarifies the point I made earlier, I also believe the nature of the subject you teach has a great effect on the type of discipline you choose to put in place. Creative, physical etc. Cowley recommends setting goals, creating games and giving rewards to control behaviour which I agree with.

Similar to the critical reflection we are encouraged to do her on the BAPP course Cowley suggests using self evaluation, to think about what works and what doesn’t and to continuously take notes, similar to our journal. This all noted on page 14.