“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Bruce Lee
How was my practicum experience?
I had several naive perceptions coming into my practicum school about how student-centred learning would take effect in the classroom. Being student-centred doesn’t necessarily mean leaving everything up to students, but finding the right level of guidance for each level of students. Scaffolding, in theory, made sense; but I had to really think and visualize what scaffolding would physically look like for each activity and project. For example, I learned that teaching a skill like movie editing to my Science 8 class required a lot more than simply telling students how to use the program. Specific objectives, practice time and formative assessments had to be made and delivered in manageable steps to build up this skill. Large projects, such as the Biology 11 Plant Inquiry, required a lot of planning and organizing deadlines for students in order to scaffold time management. Grounding theories in practice has been an interesting challenge and has made me reflect a lot more on my own use of knowledge. Creating good analogies and making clear and creative connections between my knowledge and the students’ knowledge has shown to be most effective in the classroom. In the future, I want to focus on the translation of theoretical concepts into effective forms of practice and application.
Class Website (Weebly)
To view sample lesson plans, unit plans and student work, choose from the following grade levels: