October 16th – 23rd, 2019
My first two days at practicum were immensely informative and has made me much more excited to be a teacher. Although my end goal is to work in a middle or high school, it has been very eye-opening to see how the minds of small children work and observe their behavioural tendencies. I had the opportunity to observe almost every grade, except grade two and four. The subjects that I observed throughout those grades were Physical Education, Language Arts: writing in grade one and calendar in kindergarten, and Math. To my surprise, my favourite moments happened in my short visit with the grade six class during Math.
The teacher that I was observing won an award last year for the innovative strategies he is working on in his classroom. He is growing plants with the students and has a mini workshop to show the students how to build items with wood. However, the thing that stood out to me most were his classroom strategies. He was handing back math worksheets that they had done the day before and had the students make corrections on the ones they got wrong. The simplicity of mentioning to do question two before question eight was something I didn’t realize was necessary, but with this worksheet it was imperative because the questions correlated with each other as it went on. When it came time to start correcting their work, the students were quick to call on me for help which I found very welcoming and flattering. It had been a while since I’ve had to subtract four-digit numbers from each other and borrow from the ten’s, but I was able to pick up on it quickly enough for the students not to notice (hopefully). I surprised myself when I was able to explain the process of doing so without any instruction or guidance from the teacher himself, and it was a rewarding experience to see the students understand and complete the problem with the assistance that I gave them. Overall, my experience with practicum has been overwhelmingly affirming, and I am looking forward to teaching my lessons in the weeks to come.
October 30th – November 6th, 2019
These last two weeks of practicum have been nothing short of amazing and by far the most informative sessions I’ve had with teaching children. My previous experience with students have been in more of a Physical Education setting than a classroom setting so practicum has taught me so much. Many things have gone surprisingly well, however, there are things that haven’t gone so well and that I would definitely change in the future.
My first lesson that I did with my class was more on the boring side so I was worried that the kids weren’t going to be very engaged. To my surprise, they listened so well and I was so proud of them and myself for keeping it together (more so for the students because it was the day before Halloween!). For both of my lessons I worked on connecting to stories with the students because our TM mentioned that they have not really gone over it yet so this was perfect. The first lesson was just an introduction on connecting and we went over the three different “Brain Pockets” that we have. During this lesson, I thought I did a very good job at waiting them out until they were quiet and listening. I think that I learned this skill from coaching soccer because when you are outside and trying to explain drills to a class, you have to be very assertive and organized as to how to approach the drill without letting them get too chaotic. My second lesson you were there for which was so great! That lesson went so much better than the first which I was so happy about because as I mentioned to you, a few of the students can’t read so I was worried that they would not be as engaged, but they proved me wrong! Some of the students were asking if they could read a second book and I of course said yes, and that made me feel so good about the lesson. The one thing I wish I had done, which I also mentioned to you, was to tell the students to give me a thumbs up during the read aloud. I think that would have allowed for more discussion and perhaps they would’ve had a better idea of what a connection was before they went on to read their own book. Some lessons learned moving forward is to perhaps better explain myself before moving onto the activity, such as explaining what all of the expressions on the bookmark that I used were. My TM and I are going to work on making a big bookmark for the classroom like you suggested, she loved that idea! Thank you so much for your feedback, I appreciate it and I will be sure to use it to grow on in these next couple of weeks left in practicum and of course on my growth into becoming a better teacher.
November 13th – November 20th, 2019
This practicum was beyond informative and gave me the practical hands-on experience that I was hoping for. For only being there once a week, I grew so much as an individual and as a teacher candidate, and it makes me even more excited for what the longer practicums have in store. My notable areas of growth that I saw in myself were classroom management strategies and proactive organizational strategies. During my first lesson, I found that I had tunnel vision and would only pay attention to a few students at a time while I was helping during the activity. Luckily for me, there were other adults in the room that were able to help and that also made me not realize that I was having tunnel vision until I was told. By my last lesson, I was able to keep my head on a swivel and keep students on track. I was unaware that I was already using proactive organizational strategies because I have used them throughout my experience of coaching, which crosses over to teaching quite a bit! An example would be that I was able to give clear instructions and expectations before moving on to the activity. My one wish that I have for next practicum is to focus on my timing. I found that I gave myself too much time for instruction and not enough time for the actual activity. Although I was never rushed to finish an activity because my teacher mentor was lovely enough to give extra time, I need to make it a personal goal to work on it because I will not always have that luxury of extra time. I was so nervous to begin practicum because I didn’t know what to expect but now that the first one is over, I cannot wait for the next one because I know that I will keep growing and becoming better!