Reflections

WEEK 1

Being back at St. Pats was great. It was nice to see many of the students I was able to meet and connect with from the short practicum and visit days. I was surprised with how many names I was able to remember and this made the students feel important. Many students were excited to see me back, as they always are with a new face, but excited for upcoming unit.

One of the challenges I had coming in last week was coming in near the end of a Unit. All of the PE classes were working as groups creating their dance routines. I helped out where I could and took every opportunity of teaching moments, but many groups were quite motivated to practice on their own the whole class. During the PE class times I would circulate between groups and make sure they were on task and watch what they had thus far choreographed. I gave suggestions where necessary and reminded them of the components we would be looking at when they performed.

When the performances of their dance routines began on Friday, it was evident that groups had gotten together outside of school time to practice more, decide on costumes and work on timing and group tempo. The Dances were great and the crowd of students watching was hilarious. There was yelling, cheering, and mass amounts of encouragement when groups were performing. The tone that students set for others was a very safe environment in which to perform. This is the nature of the school, unity.

A teaching opportunity that I didn’t know I was going to be a part of, is turning out to be very positive. What they are working on doing at St. Pats with the grade 8’s is Problem Based Learning (PBL) and inquiry.  Every day, the last class of the day is devoted for grade 8 students to work on their inquiry projects on water. They are going through the same process that we did at UBC to come up with an inquiry question, devise questions from this question, find supporting research (or non-supporting research, and they will present their finding to the class. I have been given the opportunity to take on a group or two and work with them through this process.

Despite this next week being a very short week I am looking forward to doing a more teaching in my classes and with the students, and getting even more involved with St. Pats.

WEEK 2

This week I was able to engage more with the students, teach more classes, be involved with other events happening around the school, as well go to the Catholic Educators Conference.

In PE this week, the students were showcasing their Dances and it opened my eyes to aspects of assessment that we had discussed in Assessment class at UBC as well as in the small groups I am involved with at St.Pats.

For the PE dances, I found it difficult to assess due to the fact we were assessing the whole group as one unit. It was great that students were required to fill out peer and self evaluations on their participation, engagement and contribution to the group. I found that most students were very honest with themselves and about others in how they assessed one another. There were very few students seemed to give themselves a high mark and all other groupmates gave them a very low mark.

I taught my first french class this week and I experienced just how different teaching in a classroom setting is than in the gym. The grade 9 students in French were great. They were very patient and listened really well to all instructions. I realized how different the prep was for french than PE. I had to make sure all handouts had been photocopied, and that they went home with homework. I was able to get all students to participate in class by repeating after me or telling me their answer out loud.

The CEC was very educational. I pulled a great deal of ideas from the speakers. One of the main ideas from Grace Dearborn, was to talk less as a teacher, but ‘show’ more. Students are so used to seeing and watching these days and less responsive to simply verbal instruction. One of the techniques she used in her classroom was instead of telling students to settle down and pull out their necessary work, she showed a picture of it on the screen. She would then simply say for example “you have 22 seconds to look like this”. I will try and bring this into my classroom for French and Foods to see its effectiveness.

Another good point one of the speakers made at the conference was to bring JOY back into teaching and learning. We always hear about communication and building relationships with our students, but what about joy? One of the ways he did this in his own classroom, was through more hands on and group activities and self led learning. Instead of students looking up and regurgitating information, what about having them write a song together, recording a song, or designing something together. He found that this not only caused better relationships to form within his class, but that students retained more information about a topic then simply writing down their answers

All in all it was another great week, and I can’t wait for the next week. Badminton and Active health start and I have some cool ideas and activities planned. Also, I am now taking part as  a supervisor teacher for the grade 8 Inquiry (problem-based learning) block. The inquiry process the grade 8’s are using is very similar to the one we have been using for UBC, and maybe of the students projects and ideas are very interesting, so I can’t wait to see how they are coming along this week.

WEEK 3

Week 3 has gone really well. We finished up the dance units and all PE classes began Active Health and Badminton. I was a little nervous about badminton because I wasn’t sure how the student would take to a new model, but they really enjoyed it. I was truly amazed the first day of badminton when students stepped up to their role. It was students that regularly seemed to avoid helping or being a vital part in play that were stepping up. What was even more interesting was reading the self-evaluation sheets that students filled out at the end of class, and seeing how much of a leader they felt they were. Some student were very hard on themselves and didn’t see themselves as leaders at all, when they truly were.

In French class, I’m learning a lot about teaching within a classroom. I saw how important it was to know exactly what you want to cover and the approximate amount of time it will take to cover it, so things don’t run short, or run long. From my very first French class, I have been able to be very aware of this, and it is no longer an issue for me.

From class to class, it is amazing how teaching the identical 2nd class gets easier. For example I have two Active Health/Badminton 9 classes and the 2nd class of each is always easiest. Things seem to flow more naturally and I can expand more, and get the students into better discussion in the second class. The students have really taken to the hand on approach of active health and taking a serious look at their nutrition choices and their lifestyle fitness and health choices.
Again, I look forward to what next week has in store.

WEEK 4

Time is flying by way too quickly. It has been go-go this week as we prepare for the inquiry exhibition next week with the grade 8’s. It has been great to be such a part of what is going on at St. Pats with the shift to Problem Based Learning. It is new for them, and we are all working out the kinks together and I feel I am learning just as much as the students doing their inquiry projects. Watching this come together for the students is very relatable to me, having just finished my own inquiry project and paper for UBC.

I finished my 2 and half weeks of teaching French 9, and realized more of what it took to be a classroom teacher. My focus while teaching this class, was to ensure they understood by asking questions, getting them to respond orally to questions, keeping them focus with engaging activities and letting them discuss in groups/teams. I received great feedback from the students (as I gave them a cue card for feedback) regarding their learning and areas I could improve upon. Some key areas were: giving them more time to think and then respond, check for understanding more,  have greater wait time so that I have everyone’s attention (yes this came from a student who greatly noticed disruptions). This feedback helped a great deal as well as what they enjoyed about class. I learned if you bring kids students candy they respond really well ;), they loved how I incorporated a game into class learning and that we spent a greater amount of in class time reviewing for the quiz.

Working at St. Pats has been great teaching experience in terms of knowing how to be flexible, on a daily basis. Classes and schedules get changed so frequently, and field trips and grade retreats happen all the time. This being said, my lessons get switch up all the time to adapt to the changes and I have gotten even better at making changes on the fly. I think this is a crucial part of being an educator, being flexible, handling what is given to you, and doing the most you can with the opportunity and time you have with the students.

As report cards are coming up, I’m excited to learn how everything work, and im excited for soccer which starts up next week. I will be helping out with tryouts, and then assisting the Senior Team this year.

WEEK 5

Again, how time flies. The inquiry exhibition felt like it snuck right up and it was here this week. It was a great success and it was great to see students so proud of the work they did, as well as the many parents that came.  Those from head office and other schools came to see how St. Pats PBL inquiry turned out in the end, and they were impressed.  I was very impressed with those students I have only ever taught in PE to see what question they came up with and, how their project turned out.

Earlier in the week, all the teachers involved in inquiry met with their students and together filled out an assessment. The assessment was grade less and touched on learning outcomes from all subject areas (except French). The student and teacher combined gave them self a check in each outcome in one of the following categories: Not assessed, not yet meets, developing, consistent, mastery. It was interesting to see how honest students were, especially when there were no marks involved. They were very good to give examples of how and why they justified where they placed themselves on the spectrum.  I had a lot of fun helping set up, being a part of and taking down after the exhibition night, and even more impressed to see the final product of their projects. I wasn’t sure how some would turn out after seeing where they were at the week before but they seemed to all pull it together.

One thing that I really noticed this past week as things were crazy scheduling wise with students, is to really be aware of what the class is feeling and go along with it. We joke that the St. Pats motto, is ‘flexibility’ but its more than scheduling flexibility but flexibility in lessons to go with the flow of the students. There may be some days where next to nothing of what was planned gets done, but by changing the lesson the students are engaged and ready to listen. After noticing this I have made a conscious effort to ask each class, where the students are at, simply by a show of hands. Once I know I can work with them and not against them.

Steve challenged me this week to hit 100% teaching load, as I know I will have no problem teaching 80%. So I picked up a Social studies grade 8 class to get some more experience teaching another subject. I’m really excited for this.  The senior girls head to Hawaii this Wednesday and practices will be put on a hold, but working with the girls in a setting outside the classroom has been great. Also, Friday I helped out Olivia and her crew painting the set for the play and working with some of my less athletic students in PE outside of the PE class setting was phenomenal, they were more in their element, had confidence and excelled.

WEEK 6

Past the midpoint meeting, past the first half, and on to a needed spring break for both staff and students.

The feel of this week was a little different as I could feel that students felt it was spring break. Everything has a little bit less structure and students were starting to check out early.

This week was the last of the badminton and active health unit for the 8’s, 9’s and 10’s. With both classes of 9’s it was also this week that their disease projects were due. I was very impressed how much work they put into the projects. They were all very well done. One class did PowerPoint and Prezi presentations, and the other class did posters or something visible and tangible to present.  I’m still learning what students are capable of completing in each class and alter things as I go, as I learn. With the first class of 9’s, some groups were able to gather ALL the information they needed for their project by the end of the class and were already working on putting it into presentation format. For the first class of 9’s, I hadn’t officially asked groups to incorporate in a healthy eating plan according to the disease they were working on, but for the second class I did. Initially I was worried about giving too much work for PE outside class time, but they were given ample time in class to work on the project, and so incorporated in a healthy eating plan in a case format. Students found this very helpful and applicable and learned a great deal in the process. It took simple research and put it into practical use.

Continuing to be flexible is a skill in which I think I have adapted into well. Things pop up all the time and things gets shuffled around all the time, I have been able to change plans and ideas on the fly. This past week was career day, prayer service, and pep rally for the boys basketball. Rooms were shuffled around, gymnasiums were being used, and time was taken away from class, but it never bothers the students. I have gotten used to this and it’s a matter of going along with everything and as I said, adapting on the fly.

Last week, I commented on getting a feel for the class before starting my lesson, and I was able to do this more this week. Students would give me a show of hands of where they’re at, or I would ask a few questions and get a feel from their responses. Simple questions such as: ‘ how is everyone doing today’ ‘ who has a great lunch’ who is a little on the tired side’. From these questions and the amount of responses I received I could get a sense of how majority of the class was feeling.

This I will continue to do, and even incorporate it into a checking for understanding method.

For the disease projects I used a few checking for understanding methods from the list that Steve sent out last week. After every presenter, while the others were setting up I would ask a few key questions directly from the presentations and I was surprised how much information the students retained, especially those who I felt weren’t listening. If there was silence when I asked a question, I would get them to turn to a partner and talk it over, and then I would ask again after giving them 20 seconds to discuss it first. Almost all the time I would get an answer after they talked it over.

It will be a busy spring break working on all my unit plans and lesson plans and to be ready to dive in 100% after spring break. It’s stressing me out how much I still have to do and know it wont be a relaxing spring break at all. I want to go in for the next 5 weeks ready and with as much done as possible ahead of time, so I’m not stressing each weekend and week to have the lesson plans done ready for the following week.

WEEK 7 

This past week was a very short week with only 3 days of school because of an extended spring break. It was great to be back and see all the students and hear about what they did on spring break.

In PE, they were all very excited to start a new unit of inventing game (which only some knew very little about because of siblings), but others excited nonetheless. I made a point to be very energetic and excited as well as I introduced the unit. I feel that introducing this unit went much more smoothly than the last. There were very few things I missed out of saying and students were given a better “bigger picture”. This was something I wanted to work on from the previous unit, as with Active Health I felt it was unclear what students would be assessed on. With the inventing games unit, I made that very clear.  I incorporated in Leadership from the previous unit to tie the two units together.

Another aspect I wanted to work on for the remainder of the practicum was reinforcing classroom expectations and using appropriate wait time and proximity to maintain a certain classroom climate. I am definitely improving in this area (especially with my grade 8’s). I make it a point to walk in the direction of the group that is still talking or orient myself closer to the noisy group. I found this cuts down on waiting time, as well as always gets the attention of the group that is not paying attention.

The past 3 days have been 100% load and it has been great! There is not a lot of down time, and the days fly by so quickly. I like the extra challenged of being at 100% because it also forces me to get a lot done each day after school (or after Senior soccer practice) to be fully prepared for the days to come.