During my first week of practicum, a teacher told me that my practicum truly isn’t real until I’ve cried. I was overwhelmed with my practicum in the first few days and I thought to myself lucky me, I got that over and done with really quickly. Once I had let out those feelings of anxiety and accepted that these few months were going to test me in ways I had never been tested before, I felt more confident in the classroom and I was better at accepting my limits. Turns out I was wrong – my practicum truly hit me this past week, and it hit me really hard.

I started teaching full load and even though I only have two preps, I still feel incredibly overwhelmed. I feel that I have too many things to do and not enough time to do them. My mind is running a thousand miles a minute constantly but I am unable to keep up with it. Even when I sit and try to plan what I have to do, I can’t think straight. Instead of accepting the work, I dreaded it. I woke up each morning more exhausted than the previous day. I no longer feel like I can do this, that I can be a teacher. I feel defeated.

It is moments like these that I recognize one of my weaknesses: my poor ability to manage stress. I tend to bring stress upon myself; I want my lessons to be “perfect” with engaging and meaningful activities, or I want all of my students to have a deep understanding of the material while feeling confident and supported. And when I cannot reach my often unattainable goals, I feel that I can and should do more and more until I burn out to make them a reality. Once I remember that this is something I can work on, I can accept that this too shall pass. I lose confidence in my abilities as a teacher when I become overwhelmed, yet I am frequently reminded that I am doing a good job and even if I put in less effort to be perfect, I would still be exceeding expectations.

Highlight of the week: Even though it has been a rough week, the power of positive thinking really makes a difference. I started teaching my IB course this week and while the content is overwhelming, the students are a joy to teach. They are so kind and accepted me without hesitation as their teacher. I was worried as I am inexperienced and having a good teacher is crucial to success in IB. But I had many students tell me that I was explaining well, they enjoyed my activities (jigsaw and plates) and were eager to come to class each day. It seems my planning, preparation and hard work is appreciated and only drives me to continue to provide the best possible lessons for my students.

Is it really a break if you spend two weeks marking projects, labs, quizzes and journals? As well as unit planning, lesson planning, activity creating and making 7 weeks of note packages? I’d still say so, I got a lot of sleep!

My biggest challenge of the break was marking the Gallery Walk projects. I had a rubric set out so marking the content was not hard. The difficulty was dealing with the ample plagiarism that was rampant in one of the classes.

The students are in grade 10. I figured that plagiarism was understood at this level. Apparently not. I had to go through projects and highlight paragraph after paragraph that were clearly plagiarized, even if a word or two had been changed. I had told the class that they had to write things in their own words, and that they had to include in text citations for information that clearly was not their own. Some students tried in text citations and I gave them credit for trying. Other students copied and pasted full paragraphs and didn’t give any credit at all. It was difficult to mark. I knew that the topics were difficult, but I could clearly tell which groups took the time to understand the material and write in their own words and which did not. I also found it difficult to give marks to groups when one person committed all the plagiarism and the other did not. I had stressed this was a group project and if they had worked together, this would not have happened. It was difficult to come to terms with and I am not looking forward to the conversations I will be having with students tomorrow about their grades. I hope that these students reflect on their actions and will change their future habits. I will encourage students to discuss their actions with me, but academic dishonesty is academic dishonesty and I will not be offering “second chances” for them to redeem themselves. I am still undecided about students who had their projects “sabotaged” by their partners, but I am eager to collaborate with other teachers on what I can do. I’ll keep you updated on how this unfolds!

I have thought of ways to reduce plagiarism in this project in the future. Instead of having written portions, students will only present posters with pictures and key words and will have to learn their topic and present it. This would eliminate plagiarism and would ensure that students are learning their topic rather than copying and memorizing. A large part of their mark would be answering my questions which is something that they cannot rehearse. In any other project or assignment, I will always strongly stress academic dishonesty now and will indicate the consequences of not receiving a passing mark. I will also let them know that I am the teacher that will search sentences that I do not think belongs to them and will find their plagiarism. I hope that this will deter students from such dishonesty in the future.

After a long six weeks, Spring Break has finally arrived. This past week has been a great, albeit exhausting, and I’m ready for some catch up sleep and ample prep time! Lots happened this week: another TC and I switched classes for the day to gain experience as a TOC, my Science 10 classes presented their Application of Genetics projects over two days, Parent-Teacher Interviews were on Wednesday, and I had my mid-point meeting! It was very busy but there were so many incredible moments, it will be hard to summarize them all in this one post.

Highs:

• Even though we were informed 30 minutes prior to switching, my day as a TOC was a lot of fun. My SA seemed surprised at my lack of stress over having to give up my class for the day and not know what I would be doing during the day, but I felt that my classes for the day would be easy enough to follow along. My organization and depth in lesson plans made me feel confident that the TC could teach the material with little issue. In the classes I went to, I found that I had a great time with the students. My goal was to learn as many names as possible right away so I could make those connections quickly. One of the blocks was a Science 8 which at first made me feel uneasy as everyone had always said that grade 8s are difficult to teach, but I found that if I could channel their energy and talkative nature, we would have very productive and meaningful conversations. When we debriefed at the end of the day, I received a lot of really good feedback about how I handled some situations and how I presented myself to the class.
• The Application of Genetics Gallery Walks occurred on Wednesday and Thursday, with a lot of success. One my classes was far more engaged in the activity and were actively listening and interested in the projects being presented. I had one of the Vice Principals come to visit the Gallery Walk to see the work that students had put together, and he seemed to be impressed with their work. The students seemed to really like this project as they were very well versed in their topics and genuinely excited to talk about them.
• Parent-Teacher interviews, while exhausting, were a lot of fun. I received a lot of amazing feedback from parents! So many parents came in just because they had heard a lot about me being a great teacher and wanted to put a face to the name. They said that their children were really enjoying my classes and were coming home and talking a lot about what they had done in science class that day. I have been told that I am doing a good job by other teachers and even students, but hearing this confirmation from parents really solidified my confidence.

Lows:

• During my TOC switch, I ran into a few difficult situations were some of the students were complaining about their teacher, who happens to be a good friend of mine. I know that they (the teacher) had expressed a lot of frustration and stress over this class as they had been working very hard but couldn’t get their students to understand the material. I could not empathize with them as I saw how the students felt, but I also saw many of them unwilling to work slightly harder to be able to understand. I wanted to help out, but because I was so unfamiliar with the content (plant biology was never been my strong suit), I felt useless other than as a frequent enforcer or work who offered a lot of encouragement.
• My only concern with the TOC switch was “what if the students don’t understand what they were taught?” When we had our debrief, we discussed how many teachers have TOCs act as “babysitters” of worksheets, because they don’t want to have to reteach the material and would rather just teach it when they have returned. I could understand this, but as I could be a potential TOC, I didn’t like the idea of other teachers seeing me as a “babysitter.” It was slightly discouraging, but I do understand that a lot of effort is required to create thorough lesson plans to ensure that anyone could teach it.
• One of my Science 10 classes did not take the Gallery Walks as seriously, which was very disappointing. Three groups came in with empty poster boards, trying to scramble to put them together at the beginning of class, while two other groups did not to the project at all. The students also spent more time socializing during the Gallery Walk rather than presenting their information. It was disheartening, but I thought that this may occur. This class is far more independent and needs to be actively engaged or else they find importance elsewhere. This was the case and I found I spent too much time trying to keep students engaged in presentations than I could listen.
• During the Parent-Teacher Interviews, I noticed that a few of the parents were extremely confused to see me, as their child had not told them that they had a student teacher as their teacher. No parent complained, but some seemed worried that their child was not being taught by a proper teacher. My SA was always there to back me up and indicated that I was an excellent teacher. I found it discouraging that the students had not said anything to their parents, and that the lack of communication between parent and child was concerning.
• After the projects, I realized my Spring Break was going to be full of marking – 30+ poster projects, 50+ labs, 50+ quizzes… I may have piled too many assignments into one week!

Most important thing I have learned this week: Communication is key to any working relationship. Whether that be between myself and a student or parent, or between parents and children, if communication is lacking, the relationship cannot be strong. I hope that I can continue to work on my communication skills, and I that I can find ways in the future to encourage more communication at home.

This past week has been a great one! I got engaged over the weekend and it was very exciting to share the news with my classes. I have always found it difficult to know how much of my personal life I should share with students, but I was too excited to not share this. My students were equally as excited, breaking into cheers and applause (I admit, they almost were more excited than I was!). It was so sweet to see how supportive of my happiness they were. On Friday, my fiancé was a guest speaker for our class, and the students were equally excited to meet him! It was an amazing feeling to feel so welcome and cared for by my students.

Highs:

•  The large activity of the week was a Jigsaw in which students learned and taught each other about non-Mendelian inheritance. The goal of the activity was to introduce these complicated topics to the students and allow them to take some responsibility over their learning. One of my classes took the activity really seriously, watched the videos multiple times and made sure that everyone in their groups was able to explain the content. When they separated into their sharing groups, some students went above and beyond in their teaching, using plates as mini white boards to show diagrams. A few students were even asking their peers probing questions! Even though at the end, the vast majority were still confused about sex-linked inheritance (the most complicated form), they had a firm understanding of incomplete- and co-dominance. They seemed very proud of themselves to have guided their own learning, and the learning of others.
• Prior to our practicum, we were encouraged to find a guest speaker. I am currently teaching the genetics unit, so I am extremely fortunate that my fiancé is a graduate student at the Genome Sciences Centre at the BC Cancer Research Agency! I arranged with administration to have him come in a do a presentation on cancer, genetic sequencing, and what his research is about. When I first told them we were going to have a guest speaker, I received many eye rolls and looks of disdain. Then I informed them that the guest was my fiancé and their expressions completely changed to excitement. It’s amazing how impressions change their attitudes! The presentation and activities went really well. My fiancé was extremely impressed by their understanding and the questions that they asked. I had students do a KWL for the presentation, and my fiancé went through and read all of the questions that they wrote down and even answered some that weren’t asked in class because he felt that they were extremely meaningful questions.
• My fiancé also spoke to the IB Chemistry students and IB Biology students about his research, research as a career, and UBC. At the beginning of his presentation to them he asked the students how many wanted to go to medical school. He wanted to show students about other careers that are possible, especially in the field of research and how it is so important to the medical field. These students were genuinely interested in what he had to say as they are thinking about their futures, university and careers. It was nice for them to have a primary source of information regarding university, medical school and graduate studies.

Lows:

• Even through all of the excitement of this week, I’m still incredibly sick. I can’t seem to kick this cold. I spent all week reminding students that if I have a voice, it is very easily lost. I told them that if I started to talk too loud to remind me (which they did!) but I’ve been finding it hard not to. When I’m excited, I naturally get louder. I’m finding that without the ability to get louder, I feel less excited. I’m also very tired which isn’t helping my excitement levels. I find that my students are more engaged when I’m seen as a form of entertainment, so their interest levels seemed lower this week.
• While the inheritance jigsaw saw great success in one class, it saw much less in the other. The students had less class time to work on understanding and explaining the material, and limited their knowledge to watching the video once or twice. They barely discussed the topics with each other an dI had to go from group to group to facilitate the discussions to probe for levels of understanding. They did not take notes on their topic like the other class, so when they had to break into their teaching groups, they were not able to explain their topics as well. They made huge assumptions that I was going to teach them the material and this was just a warm up (which I had not said). I told the students at the end of class that since they were now experts on the topics that we would be moving on tomorrow and if they still had questions, they should rewatch the videos later this evening as I had posted them all on the blog. The students seemed shocked but when I reminded them that they were being the teachers and were responsible for each other’s learning, I could see some internal reflection occurring. They were questioning their teaching ability as well as how seriously they had taken the activity. Of course the next day I had a handout that we went over on each of the types of inheritance, but I wanted the students to take accountability for their (lack of) understanding. It made me feel like the “bad guy” and I received many looks of “isn’t she the teacher, why isn’t she teaching us” but learning and being told are not the same things, even if they aren’t capable of seeing that yet.
• The guest speaker was a hit in one class, but not as much in the other. They were less engaged, and I spent my hour walking around waking students up. I felt bad for my fiancé as he was trying hard to keep them engaged, but a long presentation on topics that they were entirely uninterested in made it hard for them to stay awake.
• The students wrote a DNA quiz and did really well on the content, but I noticed that a large group of students did not understand the question and wrote down everything they knew about the topic. This technically included the right answers, but I did not give them full marks for the question as they did not answer the question. This resulted in many students complaining, but when I asked them “did you answer the question” their response was always a hesitant “no.” I reminded students how important it is to answer questions – if I ask them what kind of pizza they want, they can’t tell me how to make a pizza which includes the ingredients they want.

Lesson of the week:  I may be engaged (pun intended), but I can’t keep everyone else engaged. I can do my best with interactive lessons, a variety of activities and learning experiences, and even spice things up by not having me be the teacher, but it won’t always work. I know that this is a hard lesson for me to accept, but it is something that I will work on. I can only guide and offer opportunity for development, and must accept that not all students will be as invested in our learning journey as I am.