Category Archives: Teaching Experience

Interdisciplinary Irrigation Project: Social Studies and Science in the Makerspace

While teaching about early civilizations in grade 6 social studies, our students learned the importance of rivers, silt, and irrigation in our societal shift towards farming and sedentary lives. As we live in the Sahel, where fresh water is scarce and droughts are common, irrigation is also an important practice in our communities.

Using our school Makerspace, some specific materials, and a little background research, students were required to build a small-scale irrigation system that would provide small amounts of water continuously to our school garden without needing a person to do something each day (outline of the challenge).

The students were required to plan out their design, work together as a team to build the system, test it, make changes as necessary (part of the design process), and then demonstrate their creation. Each class then voted on the irrigation system they believed worked best, and that was the one we installed in the garden. The students were required to write a reflection, tying in what we learned in class to their experiences, and reflect on their learning process during the assignment (checklist and outline for the reflection).

Working together to construct an irrigation system.

Using equipment safely, and cooperating.

Final product applying potential energy and the force of gravity with increased height

One of the winning products

A testing phase

The students loved the assignment, though they struggled with using their time effectively, working collaboratively, and brainstorming ideas. The next time I do a large construction assignment like this, I will make sure to show them examples of how to brainstorm ideas, and how to design and test prototypes (smaller examples of what they are trying to do, before the larger final product). Additionally, before construction, I will help the students practice communicating during disputes, and help the students assign roles during the project.

Some of the reflections created by the students were excellent. Here is an example reflection created by a student, where all identifying information has been removed: student exemplar.

Maker Education

From September 2015 until December 2015, I was a substitute for the Technology Integration Specialist at the International School of Dakar. During this time, I helped research and set up the MakerSpace.

I created an introductory letter for our teachers to begin their involvement in the space. Below is the letter, which includes links to ideas on how to use the space, and ideas on how to incorporate the use of the space into their existing curriculum.

Why use the Makerspace?

“The maker movement in education is built upon the foundation of constructionism, which is the philosophy of hands-on learning through building things” (Kurti, Kurti & Fleming, 2014)

“Constructionism” is an application of constructivist learning principles
The primary objective of the teacher in the case of Maker Education is to facilitate the acquisition of concepts by building a specific project
Encouraging deep questioning during construction is a crucial component of Maker Education
Innovation naturally arises from students being challenged to find a solution to a particular problem
One of the most important considerations in the educational makerspace environment is how to invite curiosity

“There is no right or wrong way to use a Makerspace. From simple craft projects that allow students to explore their creativity, to advanced electronics, it can all happen in a Makerspace.” (MakerSpaces Australia)

MakerSpaces can be used to build from set instructions, build from own designs, or build based on a loose idea from someone else. The students can have restrictions on their materials, or no restrictions at all. Students should be encouraged to ask questions and solve problems that can be extended beyond the classroom walls.

How to incorporate the Makerspace into your curriculum?

The Elementary school examples below can (and probably should) be modified to meet the needs of your classroom. Ideally, students should be coming up with their own designs as often as possible to create something new, or to redesign something existing in a new way.

Master List of Ideas for the MakerSpace: Click to view and add!

Grade Level	Example Curricular Component	MakerSpace project idea
Grade 1	Insects unit	The “create an insect” project can be modified so the students design an insect that has regular or modified insect components to live in a certain environment, or eat a certain type of food, or survive a certain challenge, etc.
Grade 2	Geography unit	Have students design and build a model of their own city, state, or country. Problematize it by saying that students must design their layout to maximize access to water, or give students limiting factors such as space, resources, tools, etc.
Grade 3	Musical Matters	Have students design and build a one-person musical instrument/band set that makes various sounds. Use as a launching pad to discuss the Essential Questions (How can I make music? Who can make music? Why do people make music? Why do people write down music? How can music be written?)
Grade 4	Electricity	Have students Design and build a mini robot that accomplishes a task: eg. make a robot that draws a picture (coffee bot) (candy tin robot) (toothbrush robots) or Design and create Design wearable circuits (eg. a light up or flickering broach or a wearable safety device) or design and create an LED paper flower or greeting cards
Grade 5	Science Club	Students can make their own Rube Goldberg machines to explore the scientific process and scientific inquiry
Grade 6	Social Studies	While learning about the importance of irrigation in ancient civilizations, students can research modern day irrigation systems, and try to design and build an irrigation system that will water continuously for 3 days.
Grade 7	Language Arts	Students can design and build marketing displays for their stories, or design and sew/make t-shirts that reflect the stories they have written
Grade 9	Math Radicals	Students can design/build a game board about what they have learned in the previous radicals unit. (Example board game, Totally Radical, can be viewed and improved upon, or students can create and design their own game depending on ability)
Grade 10	Grade 10, Human geography of the Middle East	Topographical Tapigami: Historical maps of Israel/Palestine (independence, modern, settlements, topography)

These are only a few potential examples. There are many many many more ways you can use the MakerSpace to create, explore, discover, and build. If you use the space, don’t forget to include it in our Makerspace Classroom experiences page!

To help with the use of the space, I created grade-dependent safety protocols (Elementary, Middle, High) and a list of recommended tool use per grade. I used the Makerspace quite a bit with my classes after that, as can be seen from the Irrigation project and Solar Lamps to name a couple.

Student Portfolios and Student-led Conferences

In my initial practicum experience, the administration had asked teachers to conduct student-led conferences. I had never heard of this practice, and thought it was an interesting concept that was in line with my belief in the importance of empowering students with ownership over their own learning. The subject was brought up again at an end of year meeting during my second practicum, where several teachers were advocating for a change towards student-led conferences, and away from teacher-led conferences.

I began searching for resources on the value of student led conferences, and how to conduct them. According to Bailey and Guskey (2001), student-led conferences promote and enhance three important elements that improve student performance. Student-led conferences increase student responsibility, relevance of learning, and effectiveness of reporting. They argue that when students are aware that they must report to their parents on their progress, students see the importance of completing their assignments, focussing on learning outcomes, keeping track of work, completing tasks to a high standard, and monitoring their improvements and struggles through reflection. Furthermore, Hebert (1998) noted that the child-centered qualitative approach of student-selected work enhances student involvement, sense of connectedness with learning, and self-discovery.

I found a great article from edutopia that provides a detailed account of how to set students up for successful student-led conferences. A key take away being that both students and parents must be aware of the process well in advance. Active and deliberate instruction about the value of student portfolios and how to effectively participate in student led conferences is crucial (Hebert, 1998). In my future classroom, I would like to introduce the idea of student self-reporting during the initial few weeks when focusing on personalizing student learning. As we discuss the various ways in which students learn, we can begin to discuss how they can monitor their progress over time, and lead the discussion with their parents. Specifically, helping students identify where they came from, where they are now, and where they want to be with their learning. The preparation for student-led conferences will tie in nicely to instruction on goal setting and metacognition. During this time, I will also include parents on the dialogue about the benefits of this process for improved student learning, and what to expect from their child during these conferences.

Plan for Personalization

I believe that in order for me to best assist my students with their learning, I need to get a better understanding of their goals, needs, and current abilities. Through various resources, course notes, and experience, I have created a preliminary mind map of how I would like to approach this in my future class.

I think it is imperative to understand the student’s perceptions of school and education. By inquiring into why students believe they are at school, I can begin to explore the expectations of the students, parents, school administration, government, and teachers with the students, and help them set goals for the year based on what they want to get out of their education. During this process, I would like to provide lessons about setting SMART goals, and introduce the concept of self-regulated learning.

Exploring students’ beliefs about why they are in school would be a great starting point for discussing student and teacher roles and expectations within the classroom. From here, the class can co-construct those expectations, along with the classroom values and routines. I believe in actively teaching the values by constructing understanding through examples, which can also include lessons about the importance of positive relationships. Ensuring the students understand what positive relationships are, they can identify them, and can act in accordance with creating them, I believe the students will be better equipped to create a community with a sense of belonging for everyone.

Additionally, exploring students’ interests will help foster student-teacher relationships, and provide opportunities for me to personalize the content while I teach core competencies and skills. Topics of interest play a large role in motivation for students, in addition to an awareness of their learning process. I believe it will be important to allot time to teach students about how we learn, both on a psychological and physiological level so that students can identify the circumstances that help them learn best. This includes teaching students about metacognition, learner types, motivation, learning environments, types of questioning (Bloom’s Taxonomy), the different mindsets, etc., in addition to the role of certain important structures in the brain.

I believe that a basic understanding of neurophysiology and neuroanatomy are important for student awareness of learning, and the development of self-regulated learners. By exploring brain and mental health, students can learn about how the body deals with stress and how it affects their learning. I hope to give students time to explore what the stressors in their lives may be, how to recognize when they are stressed, and practice a variety of coping mechanisms.

I would like students to be aware of numerous strategies for each task, so they can select the optimal strategy to enhance efficiency and reduce anxiety. By praising students based on their use of strategies, and selection of appropriate strategies, I hope to foster a growth mindset within the class. At this time, I believe it is also crucial to provide instruction about fixed versus growth mindsets, and facilitate numerous discussions about learning through this lens. In particular, I would like to have a lot of dialogue about mistakes and failures, so students can learn to embrace the set backs, reflect upon them, modify/adapt, and try again without feeling defeated.

An essential component to both the learning process and the creation of a growth mindset climate is assessment. I believe that it is important to set the guidelines for assessment expectations and goals early in the year. I would like to discuss the purpose of assessment, particularly formative assessment, with the students to enhance and reiterate the idea of improvements and process over product. Additionally, I think it is essential for students to understand the importance of self-, peer- and teacher- assessments in their overall learning process.

Furthermore, 21st century learning is an important part of today’s classrooms. I would like to make sure the students have active discussions about the use of technology and the information they find with it. At the beginning of the year, I would like to explore the pros and cons of technology use, digital citizenship, digital footprints, and reliability of sources/information. I believe it is imperative to co-construct these expectations early in the year, to ensure responsible and appropriate use of technology and sources.

By obtaining all of this information, providing the required instruction, and reviewing the student answers to the questions in the mind map, I believe I will be able to successfully promote learning by personalizing instruction for each of my students.

Assessment – Recording and Sharing

One of the aspects of assessment I originally struggled with was deciding what should be recorded. In my initial practicum experience, I had a lot of time to reflect on the day, and inevitably recorded almost everything about students. As I shifted into the significantly more challenging second practicum, I had to limit my recording time and be more selective during the recording process. During my second practicum, I was able to refine my record keeping skills, and experiment with a couple different modes of recording student progress.

I decided to keep a Word Document Folder for each student during my initial practicum. I created a list of “Check-in Questions” and often held conferences with students one-on-one, and later recorded their answers.

Check in Questions

How are you feeling, in general?

How are you feeling about what you are learning in class? (Math, Science, GH)

What are you finding easy?

What are you finding difficult?

Is there anything you are currently confused about?

What can you do to enhance your understanding in those areas? OR how can you further challenge yourself to get the most out of your education?

What resources do you have/need to be successful?

What is your plan of action?

Is there anything you want to learn more about?

Do you have any questions for me?

November 27, 2014

I thoroughly documented student strengths, areas in need of improvement, interests, hobbies, and anything else that would help me develop a more holistic understanding of each student. This process took a lot of time, and I do not think it would be realistic to have these ongoing, in depth, one-on-one conferences in a regular classroom setting. I would still like to know the answers to these check-in questions and more, however I think a more efficient use of time would be to explore questions related to these in a circle, creating open dialogue with the entire class. I still believe one-on-one conferencing for formative assessment purposes is important, especially for students on the lower and higher ends of comprehension and performance, however ongoing circles may facilitate the process of developing a greater holistic view of the classroom environment, student needs, abilities, and interests.

When I began my second practicum, I decided to record student notes based on specific subjects. I created a table for each subject, which included the class list on the left, and the specific ongoing assessments on the right. For each assessment (formative or summative) I wrote comments about the specific struggles the student experienced so I could revisit needed concepts, either individually or as a class. My comments were brief, and conveyed the information I required to adjust and modify my instruction. However, when I began to experiment with FreshGrade, I realized that parents and students require more than just highlighted notes on student struggles. I realized that I needed to paint a holistic picture of the student’s growth over time, including strengths, interests, and achievements. I was aware of these aspects of each student generally, but had not recorded specific examples.

“When I was writing comments to include on FreshGrade this week, I realized that although I kept adequate descriptions of student struggles (for follow up lessons, and to adjust/amend teaching), I didn’t have much documentation of strengths. My records of assessment need to include more than just the qualitative notes on what they need to improve on, because students and their parents need to also be made aware of successes! I’m glad I started doing FreshGrade this week, so that I noticed there was a flaw in my assessment record keeping.” Week 6 of long practicum

The ongoing contact with parents through FreshGrade helped me refine my recording process so I could better communicate overall student learning with both parents, students, and administration. FreshGrade also allowed me to take pictures of the rubrics and the projects to share directly with parents, and create an ongoing portfolio of their progress and performance. I had limited time to explore and experiment with FreshGrade in my second practicum, but it is a tool I look forward to gaining more experience with in the future.

“FreshGrade..form[s] a continuous glimpse into each child’s progress that parents and students can share.” – Sir Ken Robinson

Assessment – Choice, Differentiation and Feedback

In general, I think Inquiry projects are a great way to provide students with choice in how they want to demonstrate their knowledge. During the initial stages of our inquiry project, the class brainstormed numerous ways they could demonstrate their learning using a padlet wall (Demonstrate Our Learning!). To capture the truly unique journey of the inquiry project, I asked each student to create an ongoing folder for the project, which included their detailed learner profile (indicating what they needed in order to learn best during the project’s execution), their main inquiry question, subquestions for researching purposes, and their preferred method of demonstrating the knowledge and understanding they acquired through the project.

The students were given the criteria for the folders on an ongoing basis, and I provided written feedback for each of the required components. When I reviewed the folders as a whole, it was evident that each student was at a different stage in their learning process. I decided to try the “triangle” approach, which was a strategy we acquired during our assessment course. I drew all three sides of the triangle on the folder if the students had completed all required components to the agreed upon standards and were ready to progress to the next stage. Students were given two sides of the triangle if they needed revision in one aspect of the folder, and only one side of the triangle if they needed revision in more than one area of the folder. With any level of triangle completion, students could be given an asterix (*), which meant that they needed to conference with me to clarify or elaborate an aspect of their project. With all of this information, I created a table so that students could see where they were at, what they would be doing during class time, what they would do once they finished, and when they needed to meet with me. I wrote the conferencing lists in decreasing order of urgency, and allowed students who were not on the list to sign up under the title “Anyone else.” I believe this process and the project as a whole allowed for successful differentiation of student learning.

Names have been changed

“I found this method extremely effective in terms of students working at different rates, and scheduling individual conferences. However, as I showed it to the class, I also realized that it may make some students feel uncomfortable given the chart displayed their progress to the class. So I addressed the issue by emphasizing that everyone works and learns at their own rate, that this is normal, and encouraged. The process empowered the students to work hard to get the additional parts of the triangle, and I had several students finish their part, show me what they had done, and asked for their triangle to be completed.

I held the conferences at my desk in an order based on who needed it most (ie. who could not continue without direction to who just needed a few suggestions or minor revisions). I thought this worked really well. Many students were actively on task, and many students came up to discuss their progress and their projects during the “Anyone else” conference time. They have made some great improvements on their topics, and I got a chance to talk to them one on one about the direction of their work.” Week 3 of long practicum

Another way I believe I successfully differentiated assessment and appreciated the varied journeys of student learning, was during a science assessment. After explaining that everyone’s journey was different, I told the students that I would have three separate tests available. The tests required the same knowledge, but at varying levels of depth and application. I created a test rubric based on the BC Curriculum that would be used for all three tests, showed the rubric to the students prior to the tests, and explained that the rubric would hold more weight than the numerical score (I chose to include the numerical score because it was what students requested). I gave the students a practice test which covered the same concepts to try on their own, and then we went over the answers as a class. I explained that the practice test was at the same level as the more in depth of the three available science tests, and that they could use this practice test to informally assess where they were at with relation to the expectations. In hindsight, I should have also had the students use the rubric themselves to assess their learning based on the practice test, so they could better understand how I would be assessing their level of comprehension with a rubric in lieu (or in this case, in addition to) numerical scores.

After the practice test, I asked each student individually which test they wanted to take. This acted as a form of self-assessment, and let me know where each student thought they were in the class. Once I marked the tests with the rubric, the students were given an opportunity to review my feedback and then review their course notes. Students were encouraged to book an appointment with me to explain what they now knew, and how they have improved their understanding, so I could adjust their rubric accordingly.

As evaluation was necessary for the latter portion of my extended practicum due to end of term reporting, I had used the opportunity to experiment with alternate ways of summative assessment. This process was significantly more work than a typical end of unit test, though I believe it helped the students feel more successful, and encouraged them to challenge themselves. The concept of a rubric on a test (especially as the same rubric was used for all three variations of the test) was initially confusing for the students, which is why I would opt to do more front-loading with the use of exemplars the next time I use this process. I have come to realize that rubrics can take a lot of practice to get right, and can be difficult to create so that all possible submissions can be reliably assessed. However, co-construction and student revision significantly helped the process, and along with front-loading this will be key for my future practice.

Due to time constraints, I made it optional to meet with me about the feedback to improve their evaluation, however if I were to redo this process, I would have all students demonstrate their use of feedback through either a written reflection, a project, or a conference. As stated in my philosophy, I believe that providing students with the time to read, reflect and act on feedback is one of the most important aspects of assessment. I tried to incorporate this component into several other assessments as well. After students provided comments on peer-assessments, or after I provided comments, I allotted class time to thoroughly read the comments, make notes on how they will use the comments to improve their work, and then to act on the comments. This worked particularly well during a persuasive essay unit (First Draft – Peer Assessment, Second Draft – Teacher Assessment ), and it is a practice I plan to continue.

Assessment – CFU and Transparency

Throughout my practica experiences, I had opportunities to both assess and evaluate student work. I experimented with several forms of ongoing assessment to check for student understanding, provided opportunities for students to act on written feedback, and promoted transparency of the assessment process through the co-construction and active revision of criteria.

During class time, I found it effective to use physical strategies such as the “five finger test” and “thumbs up, thumbs to the side, or thumbs down” to rapidly check the overall level of comprehension in the class. I found that this process provided me with immediate feedback about whether I needed to clarify something, or whether I could proceed to asking specific questions about the concept or task to further substantiate understanding. During this combined process, I came to realize that asking higher order questions to check for understanding were the most effective, but that I needed to prepare those questions ahead of time to best promote student thinking. I used the prepared higher order questions in a whole class setting, in smaller groups, or sometimes as exit slips in their reflection journals (Wassermann, 1992).

There are several other strategies that I would like to try in the future, such as the use of “traffic lights,” and I would like to further explore the use of gallery walks as a means of checking for understanding. I used gallery walks twice during my practica to get an overall sense of student understanding about several ideas at once. I found that the inherent anonymity of student responses was both beneficial and detrimental to my awareness of their overall understanding. Some students were more willing to write a response when their names were not attached to their comments, however the activity did not clarify if, how many, or which students were having trouble with the concept. Ultimately, I liked that the students could read their peers’ contributions so they could get a feel for their own level of understanding about the concept/topic, and perhaps learn from others’ contributions or question the validity of the contributions.

“I showed the class several examples of inquiry questions and asked them to tell me whether the question was a “good” question or a “bad” question (for the purpose of an inquiry project), and explain why. We then came up with criteria about what makes a question “good” or “bad” for an inquiry project. The class was confident identifying good and bad questions and explaining their rationale, however, when I asked them to turn a bad question into a good question, they found this much more difficult. This may be an area that I will have to work on more with them. Perhaps a gallery walk exercise where I have bad questions around the room, and they take sticky notes and put their good question underneath it.” December 4^th 2014

When the students participated in the gallery walk the next class, they fed off of each other’s ideas and came up with many suggestions to improve the posted questions. They were able to take the “bad” (closed) questions and turn them into several “good” (open-ended) questions. After the gallery walk, each table group was assigned one of the posters, and asked to discuss the contributions of their peers. They were asked to evaluate the contributions based on our co-constructed criteria, and then choose the best three questions on the board and explain their selections to the class. The activity generated a lot of discussion, and I was able to confirm that almost all of the students now not only knew the difference between the “good” and “bad” questions, but could actively generate good questions themselves.

Including the students in the criteria process was very effective, especially when the criteria was actively constructed through the examination of successful and unsuccessful exemplars. I found that the criteria the class proposed for “good” inquiry questions included not only all of the points I had wanted to include, but also valid points I hadn’t yet considered. I repeated the process of co-constructing criteria with students on two other occasions with similar results, and found the process had a positive impact on the quality of work the students submitted.

assessment

Similarly, I found that including the students in the criteria process in other ways also contributed to higher quality submissions. When I had pre-generated the criteria for a project, discussed revisions with the class, and actively highlighted the differences between an assignment that meets expectations and an assignment that exceeds expectations, the majority of the students aimed to exceed expectations (Student Work Example 1, Example 2).

Overall, the ongoing informal formative assessments helped me adapt my lessons based on student understanding, and the transparency of creating or examining criteria with the students led to much higher quality assignment submissions. I believe that both of these practices enhance overall student learning and motivation. I plan to continue with these practices and explore others in the future.

Classroom Environment – Capstone

Capstone

To see the blog posts about my experiences with classroom environment during my first and second practica, click below:

Initial Practicum

Second Practicum

Overall, both my initial and second practica provided me with phenomenal and diverse experiences around creating and maintaining classroom environment and meaningful student-teacher relationships. As a future full time classroom teacher, I believe that it will be very important for me to spend the time at the beginning of the year to get to know my students on both personal and academic levels, make an effort to incorporate regular and consistent class-wide discussions about the learning process and classroom environment, personalize the instruction based on these findings, co-construct classroom values, roles and expectations, actively teach and model what those values and expectations look like, and explore learning, reflection, and motivation with the students. Similar to Brigit, I genuinely believe those moments of making sure I spoke to at least two or three students a day about their lives outside of school made a positive impact on my rapport with the students in my first practicum, and the consistent circle dialogues in my second practicum enhanced our mutual respect for one another and created a sense of autonomy among the students. By listening to their needs, incorporating their interests, and modifying instruction for the class in both practica, I believe I successfully contributed to a positive social and emotional classroom climate to varying degrees.

Based on literature about self-regulated learning (Zumbrunn, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011), and from my own experiences in these two practica, the importance of teaching children about their own learning process has been highlighted. Similar to my first practicum experience, I would like to spend time exploring how learning occurs, what can help or hinder the learning experience, and the diversity of learner needs in my future practice. I would like to do this by building learner profiles with the students, exploring their interests and passions, practicing mindfulness, and promoting goal setting and personal reflections which support metacognition and metamotivation. I mentioned in my philosophy of classroom environment that I believed it was important to highlight that each student’s learning journey was unique, which would reduce competitiveness and optimize the environment for taking risks, asking questions and exploring solutions. To this end, I would also like to explore the ideas of the growth and fixed mindsets with my future classes (Dweck, 2006), adding to their understanding of learning and capabilities. I read Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset post practica, and I believe that teaching students about these mindsets will give them the autonomy to choose, and hopefully become better independent self-regulated learners.

Furthermore, I believe it is extremely important to contribute to the school community in addition to the classroom community to fortify the relationships with students. In my future practice, I believe that I will either begin or contribute to clubs that my students may be interested in, participate in school events, activities, and festivities, and create a strong connection with parents (I am particularly interested in using FreshGrade to make home-school connections with parents).

The second portion of my practicum opened my eyes to the importance of allocating time to develop proactive classroom environment approaches, and provided me with many challenging experiences.

“The biggest hurdle in all of this however, is the classroom management. It is feeling rather overwhelming, and I am finding myself frustrated for not knowing what to do. It is completely exhausting, and I am really trying not to resort to punitive approaches, but it seems to be what works (I know it is a bandaid fix, and doesn’t help the students develop self-discipline in the long run, but I am only here for such a short period of time, and want to be as effective as I can within that short time frame. I am also getting a sense that there is a pressure to complete content, thereby foregoing time I would ideally spend on the development of skills and strategies that I believe to be so incredibly important. This appears to be part of the divide between theory and practice….time.” Week 5 of long practicum

The week after I had written this reflection, I began trying more reactive approaches, mainly open dialogue about specific incidences that occurred. The dialogues allowed the students to actively reflect on their behaviour and how it affected those around them, and to explore options for restitution. These strategies worked in the short term, and I believe that if they were practiced regularly in the long term would build the foundation of respect and trust between myself and the students. The dialogues still take considerable time out of the day, but hopefully in a long-term placement, the incidences would become less and less frequent.

Classroom Environment- Second Practicum

Second Practicum

To see the blog posts about my experiences with classroom environment during my initial practicum and my capstone comments, click below:

Initial Practicum

Capstone

My second practicum class underwent several changes in teachers throughout the year. They began the year in September with two part time teachers, four months later one of those teachers was replaced by the returning homeroom teacher, and four months after that I took over the class for the latter portion of my practicum. With the teacher role changing several times throughout the year, there was a lack of continuity for the students, which affected the cohesion of the classroom community. The students developed a reputation in the school for being rowdy and chatty, and by the time I came into the classroom towards the end of the school year, students were exhibiting signs of burn out. Recognizing this, I engaged students in conversations about their sense of community and their needs.

“On Monday and Tuesday, I met the two classes that I would be teaching for the remainder of my practicum. Based on the success of my last practicum, I didn’t want to simply dive in as a stern and authoritarian teacher, despite their reputation. Instead, I wanted to use this opportunity to create a classroom environment that included me as their instructor. I did a lot of research: read bits of Tribes by Jeanne Gibbs, Barrie Bennett’s classroom management resource, and I reviewed the notes from our classroom environment course. I decided to try and initiate circles of dialogue with the classes, similar to the circle that began my first practicum experience.

I facilitated a dialogue circle with the first class, however the group was extremely chatty and did not respect the rule which dictates that one person speaks at a time. The next time we did a dialogue circle, I let the students create the circle agreements. The second attempt at the dialogue circle was more time efficient, and I believe the autonomy played a role in that.” Week 4 of long practicum

Web weaving circle activity, demonstrating our interconnections

Dialogue circles became a major part of my community-building action plan. Circles had come up in many contexts throughout my courses and initial practicum: for class meetings, daily check-ins, restorative justice, and subject specific dialogue to discuss, debate, or share learning. The concept was first introduced to me through an indigenous education leader, and I read further about circles in various resources. HavWeb weavining the class sit in circles allows for everyone’s face to be seen and each individual has a chance to speak and to be heard. The circle itself “represents the interconnectedness of all things (people, earth, moon, sun) […] bringing people of all ages together for the purposes of teaching, listening, and learning” (Running Wolf & Rickard, 2003). A talking circle is “seen as an effective tool that fosters respect, models good listening skills, settles disputes, resolves conflicts, and builds self-esteem” (Running Wolf & Rickard, 2003).

For me, having regular times to encourage full class dialogue was a crucial aspect to building the foundation of our community, setting new/revised classroom expectations, and taking a proactive approach to classroom management. Our first few talking circles were aimed at getting to know one another, and checking in on how the students felt about their learning. As the reflection above indicates, the class had difficulty respecting the rules of the circle; circles for dialogue and discussion were new to them, and they had been required to adjust to so much change already. In the circle, the students told me that they were very stressed about having to move their desks and chairs into circle formation, and they expressed a desire to only have circle time once in a while. As a group, we decided to have the circles a maximum of once per week, and we chose a time to do that (through reflection, the mornings seemed to be the most effective times for circle meetings).

“I noticed that having the meeting at the beginning of the day when they were calm meant they talked out of turn less and were more respectful towards one another. They brought up some great observations about the week. They noted what we did well and what goals we need to set for the upcoming week (talking less, listening more, and keeping the class clean). I think I should delegate a secretary to record our weekly goals and write them on the board somewhere so they can see them throughout the week” Week 6 of long practicum

We used much of our circle time discussing issues the students were having in class, and solutions to those concerns. I encouraged everyone to contribute to the discussions, though they always had the right to pass. The students mentioned that they struggled with all the different teaching styles and expectations, and requested that I teach in a more traditional way (straight forward instruction with tests as assessments) as it was something that was familiar. They found the integrated units, project based learning, and inquiry to be too overwhelming at this point in the year. As my primary concern was to create the best learning environment for them, I changed my approach. Their relief was palpable, and in their end of year letters to me, many expressed gratitude for the circles and for their voiced concerns being recognized and acted upon.

Despite regular circles of dialogue to promote classroom community and approach classroom management proactively, there were still many instances of disconnect between myself and the class as a whole. Consequently, classroom behaviour was a persistent challenge. I believe that if the class had started out with regular classroom circles, and continually touched base as a whole class, the circles would have been more effective in promoting self-discipline. As I came in with only a month of school remaining, there were only a few opportunities for circles of dialogue, and even less after the class voted to have them just once a week. In my future practice, I plan to introduce circles from the beginning and develop their use in the classroom consistently throughout the school year.

Of course, I do not believe circles of dialogue alone are enough to promote a strong sense of community. As indicated in my philosophy, I believe that key features of building classroom community involve giving the students a common goal to work towards, ensuring that each student is important and valuable towards the success of that goal, and having an inherent risk of failure (Linsin, 2009). To achieve this goal, and ultimately a collaborative classroom environment, I designed a French language project where the students were required to work together to design and create a country for our class. The project was inspired by the children’s book, How To Build Your Own Country, and at first generated enthusiasm among the students.

“The week started out great! The students seemed calm, and although they groaned at the idea of another project, were excited they got to choose which aspect of the project they got to do, and during at least one point in the day I saw students working on their part without being asked (it was a free block). I decided to use a deck of cards, hand out the cards, and allow the students to sign up as I called out random card numbers. It was orderly, and gave the students some choice in their project. The lesson went much longer than anticipated, and therefore I didn’t get around to the criteria or the assessment, but was able to include it into the circle meeting we had later in the day.” Week 6 of long practicum

The project itself was not perfect (as discussed in this section), but did make some contribution to the classroom community, even if that contribution was limited. I think the project had great potential to contribute to classroom community, however the time restraints impaired the effectiveness of the project. Instead of becoming a cross-curricular unifying project, it became an isolated activity that could not be integrated or referred to in other classes because time ran out.

Although the outcome did not have the effect I had anticipated, the project itself still promoted collaboration among all students. The groups had to work together to coordinate their efforts, and present their projects with a unified front. For example, the currency they designed contained images of both the lightning bolt from the country’s flag, and the country’s map, and portions of the country’s national anthem. Similarly, their passport was colour coordinated with the country’s flag.

Ultimately, I think my initial plan for the project was too ambitious. I had imagined the students finishing their projects in one week, and then building on the joint effort by integrating their projects into other classroom activities thereafter. Instead, the projects took double the time, and once they were fully complete and displayed on the walls there were limited opportunities to actively use what they had created. Ideally, this would be a project done at the beginning of the year, so there is ample time to integrate the students’ contributions to their fictional country.

Both the circles of dialogue and the collaborative project were attempts to proactively address classroom behaviour through the development of community. However, as the practicum continued, I began to realize that these long term, gradual approaches were not as effective in the short-term environment, as both the time constraints and end of year mentality were limiting factors. Ultimately, I began using more reactive approaches to behavioural management, such as incident specific dialogue with either individuals who were particularly disruptive or disrespectful, or with the class as a whole.

“After the incident occurred, I sat down with him and we talked about having to work towards regulating our own behaviour and regulating the behaviour of our group. We talked first about ways we could contribute to group regulation (as self-regulation is a harder thing to tackle), and he indicated that he could “shush” the group when they got noisy, and he could remind the others to be respectful.

During the next lesson, each time he contributed to regulating the group when they started to get out of control, I thanked them for the specific strategy he used, validating that he had correctly identified disrespectful behaviour. I will work on providing him with strategies to self-regulate next week.” Week 6 of long practicum

The students were highly engaged in the open dialogue, and contributed to great solutions for future self-discipline. The discussions highlighted their thinking process, and demonstrated that they were aware of what needed to be done to self-regulate their behaviour. However, their ability to actively act on their impulses was limited. As such, during one of our circle meetings, we made a behaviour flow chart. The aim of the chart was to scaffold their development of self-discipline through a series of questions and prompts. The poster was a great addition to refer to in the class, as it was co-constructed by the students themselves based on our co-constructed classroom values and expectations.

“The continual calling out and complaining had become a big issue during one of the integrated science classes this week. As a result, I stopped the lesson, sat down, and had a talk with them about how those comments affected me. I explained that the comments were hurtful, as I had put a lot of time and effort into preparing the lessons, and aimed to make them as engaging and interactive as possible. I told them that if the concern was genuine, and they thought that they needed to discuss an issue with me, calling out in front of the entire class is not the way to do it. It puts me on the spot, and the culmination of all the complaining is making me feel defeated. If they had a real issue, I encouraged them to speak with me privately after class. After having this talk, the complaints occurred less, and almost all the students stopped. For the remainder of the week, the students stopped complaining.” Week 6 of long practicum

The open dialogues, either on an individual or classroom level, although reactive and not proactive, were effective means of directly addressing specific behavioural concerns in the class. I believe that a solid combination of proactive and reactive approaches is required for successful classroom management and the maintenance of a positive classroom community.

Classroom Environment- Initial Practicum

As a Teacher Candidate, I was lucky enough to have two significantly different experiences that dramatically highlighted the importance of student-teacher relationships and building trust, respect, and care gradually and purposefully over time. In the initial portion of my practicum, I spent several months in the classroom on a weekly basis, observing, frontloading, and most importantly, talking to the students. I had a chance to develop a vital rapport with the class, which resulted in a mutual understanding about expectations, roles, and values. The latter half of my practicum was radically different, and comparable to the role of a short-term teacher on call (substitute teacher). My introduction to the class was brief, and there was little flexibility in allotting time to actively work with the class to develop our community and relationships. Naturally, there were instances of frustration as we initially found our way together. However, through research, dedication, and continual active reflection, I was able to experiment with various strategies to support my philosophy of classroom environment. Overall, my second practicum contributed to a valuable learning experience that has helped me recognize my strengths and areas of future growth.

Initial Practicum

To see the blog posts about my experiences with classroom environment during my second practicum and my capstone comments, click below:

Second Practicum

Capstone

On the first full day of my practicum, I was actively included into the budding classroom community, which set the tone for my initial practicum experience. Time was set aside for a thorough exchange of introductions, the class made me a large card, and a talking circle was initiated which addressed some expectations of roles and learning in the classroom.

“I had my first full day with my School Advisor and new class. He was extremely welcoming, and made me feel very comfortable in class. He organized a talking circle where the students got to each tell me what they valued in a teacher. At the end of the exercise they brought out a very large handmade welcome card for me. It really set the tone for my experience in the class, and made me think about how I can do the same for students at the beginning of the year.” Thursday October 16^th 2014

Time and participation in both classroom and school activities played an integral role in my inclusion within, and contributions to the developing community. By attending the school’s opening ceremony, class tours of the school, and participating in the Halloween festivities, I became integrated within the foundations and framework of the community’s success. I believe my appearance at, and participation in, activities outside of the classroom demonstrated my commitment and dedication to our community, and contributed to the respect and trust that developed between myself and the class. My attendance at the student-led parent-teacher conferences further extended my presence from the classroom community to the home environment where parents were able to meet me, in addition to their full-time classroom teacher.

“Today, the teachers were fairly tired, as they had parent teacher interviews until past 8pm on Wednesday night. I attended the interviews and was able to meet a few of the parents. The mother of a girl I had explained something to the week before thanked me and said that her daughter now had a much greater understanding of the concepts covered in math. This interaction made me happy, both for the student’s sense of success, my ability to help her become successful, and my inclusion in the student’s stories home; I feel as though I am becoming a member of the community in this classroom.” Thursday October 23^rd 2014

Although I did not directly coordinate the activities that initiated the development of classroom community, my involvement provided avenues for the formation of positive student-teacher relationships. These avenues began meaningful dialogue, which naturally initiated the process of incorporating student voice (and consequently ownership) within the classroom as I began to increasingly take on the role as classroom teacher.

The Homework Board

“When I began to assign homework for the day, the students began to complain. I decided to open the topic up for discussion, and assigned one person as representative to tell me about what other homework they had from other classes. From there, we collectively made a graphic organizer and decided on three options for the current homework situation. We then voted on which situation the students found to be the most realistic in terms of expectations and time required to be successful. The students were happy with the democratic approach, and I could tell they felt respected that their voices were being heard.” Week 2 of long practicum

The example above was one of the many instances that my acknowledgement of student voice resulted in elevated mutual respect within the classroom. These instances played an important role in both my relationship with the whole class, and my individual relationships with students. Fostering positive relationships with individual students became a priority for me after reading Spirals of Inquiry, which described the story of an experienced English teacher named Brigit that has “influenced many BC inquiry educators” (Halbert & Kaser, 2013). At the beginning of each year, many students would line up outside the counselor’s office requesting to be placed in Brigit’s English class. The students in her classes rarely skipped, and expressed genuine enthusiasm for her course, resulting in high class participation rates and the highest success rates in the district. After months of inquiry, it was found that Brigit made an explicit effort “to speak with each of her learners every day about some aspect of their personal lives […taking] the few moments available to her as learners came to her class to connect with them” (Halbert & Kaser, 2013).

After reading that article, I made a valiant effort to do the same during my practicum. I found it very difficult to talk to each learner each day, however I made sure to put some time aside to speak with at least two or three students each day. I also began doing “learning check-ins” where I would sit down with one or two students each day during project work time and inquire about how they were feeling about their learning, what they needed in order to be successful, and what plans could be put in place to best improve their learning experience.

In addition to making an effort to speak to each student on a personal level, I found that inquiry based projects also provided me with a lot of information about students’ passions, personalities, strengths and weaknesses. I spent time in conferences with students as they explored their interests, values, mindsets, and goals, making it possible for me to personalize future instruction. Additionally, as inquiry projects are inherently more self-directed, and require self-regulation of student learning, we were able to explore individual learning needs. In order to create the best environment for students to do this, we did several activities to determine students’ metacognition, learning needs, and metamotivation.

I was able to spend several classes exploring these concepts with the class, through activities and discussions pertaining to learner types, learning environments, learning strategies, and reflection. The culminating activity was a detailed learner profile for each student, and they had the option to share their discoveries with the class to build awareness of the diversity in needs. These activities helped students not only recognize what they needed in terms of materials, activities, and environment to best succeed, but also what others needed to best succeed. I believe this played a role in building lasting mutual respect for the members of our community, an understanding of diversity, and a recognition of unique learning journeys.

“My hook for today’s lesson was related to what the class is currently studying in Science (water). I used the subject to illustrate a point about different learning styles. The class indicated that they had previously heard about the types of learners from another class, but they hadn’t done anything with the information. We explored the concepts through stations with just text, just images, just audio, and stations with a small experiment.

I decided to try a “prior activation” approach, as was recommended by Deb. I wrote guiding questions on the board before the stations exercise, and told the class that this is what they should be thinking about while they do the activity, and that we will be discussing the answers to these questions after the activity. It worked very well, and the students all had something to contribute at the end of the activity. It made for good discussion, and allowed the students to make better connections between what they were doing and what they were being asked.

Their final learner profiles took a while for them to complete, but I had scheduled enough time for this based on how they have performed previously on other tasks. There was no stress for them to finish quickly, but I did walk around asking questions to help them stay on task.” Week 1 of long practicum

Awareness of stressors and stress reduction was also a focus of creating a positive classroom environment. We did this by taking an in depth look at the brain and the body’s stress pathways. These activities were supported by the MindUp program (Scholastic, 2011), and aimed to reduce the impact of negative emotions on disrupting the learning process (Boekaerts, 2010). By creating healthy mind platters, and exploring ways to find appropriate balance in their lives, students became more aware of the external factors affecting their learning and explored ways to reduce anxiety (such as mindfulness).

The result of this exploration and front-loading was enhanced compassion and empathy for the various learners in the classroom, ultimately reducing the stress and promoting positive emotions. I believe the result of the positive classroom environment was captured in an observation conducted by my Faculty Advisor (Anecdotal Report – Brittney Merryweather – Apr 16, 2015). Based on literature, and my personal experiences with the success of this program in my practicum, I would love the opportunity to incorporate a mindfulness program into my classroom teachings.