I truly enjoyed reading this article! All of the 7 habits are critical to emotional wellness. I have been learning about bits and pieces of these habits all year, it was refreshing to read about them together. My favourite was number 7: Maintain passion and playfulness. This tied in nicely with a peer’s inquiry presentation today. I like to believe that I have a good sense of humour and I try to bring that into the classroom as much as I can. It was easy doing it in a K/1 classroom but if I ever have an intermediate grade I would definitely take out the time to incorporate play into my lessons. Having fun with the curriculum content is an easy way to get all students engaged and learning without them even knowing that they are doing work! I also liked habit number 3: Ditch the easy caricature. It is human nature to categorize people based on their strengths or weaknesses, and it can be hard to stray away from that kind of thinking. Seeing people as fully developed thinkers is something that will come with practice but is VERY important to do to get to know students as a whole. Great article, I will be saving this one for sure.
Author Archives: Harjot Johal
Philosophy of Education- Working Draft
Throughout the past 12 weeks I have changed so much from the student teacher I was before going into long practicum and I realize now that my philosophy is ever changing. Now I value the belief in creating a well balanced classroom based on respect, communication and cooperation. I will strive to ensure all my students are supported, engaged and feel valued. Building positive relationships and fostering a strong community is paramount to me. As a teacher I will be a role model to every student I meet so it is my goal to epitomize the good qualities that I want to see in them. Lastly, I still believe in making learning memorable is something I strive for because knowing that your students remember something they learned from you is beyond satisfying.
Exit slip July 14
One thing that I believe makes for really good teaching is taking that time to build relationships with your students and build a good class community. If you don’t take this time as a teacher before you start teaching any content, I do not think students will get the full experience of learning. Also, as hard as it may seem, a good teacher tries their best to spilt the time between students to assess and discuss their learning.
Good teaching is measured in the way students react to your lessons and the learning that you see happening throughout the year. If your students have improved in any way since the beginning of the year, academically or socially, you have taught them something!
The SEL presentations at the beginning of class are very helpful in providing me with some ideas for my future classrooms. It is a great way to build some activities to bring to a TOC class or to integrate into certain lessons. They all create a sense of community and relationship building between the students and the teacher, which I enjoy and hope to bring to my own classroom one day. I’ve also enjoyed listening to everyone’s mini inquiry ideas, you can really do inquiry projects in so many different ways! The MOA experience was eye-opening and I look forward to starting my own inquiry project with a field trip. Now that I have had experience working with my own class I feel as though I am finding so many interesting ideas to add to my teaching.
May 14
Week 6 & 7 down! What an adventure. It is bittersweet to think about how close I am till the end.
My class and I had an exciting couple of weeks. Last week we watched a high school performance of Shrek. There was a lot of excitement from the students and at times it was hard to contain during the day. My fellow TCs and I started our mini soccer tournament with our school and it is safe to say that the students love it! All grades are so excited to play at lunch, they keep asking their teachers when its their turn to play. It feels good knowing that we have created an opportunity for the soccer lovers at the school (there is a lot!) to get a taste of some competition and have fun at the same time. We first decided to hold the tournament to every Tuesday, but there are a lot of children from each grade that signed up so we decided to do Friday at lunch as well.
I almost done teaching my butterfly unit and my class really enjoyed having the butterflies be a part of the class. They loved coming into class every morning to check up on them and see if they saw anything different. Having the insect in the class made for a better learning experience.
I have so many more ideas that I would love to include of the last 2 weeks of practicum, but sadly there is not enough time. One of my ideas is for the students in my grade to hold a lemonade sale. As I am teaching them about coins, and the value of the coins, I thought it would be great for them to deal with exchanging coins through a lemonade stand. I also wanted to put the proceeds towards the Alberta Canadian Red Cross to help those affected by the Fort McMurry fires. I need to discuss details with my SA and hopefully I can put this plan in action!! I think it would make for a great learning experience.
May 4
The last two weeks of being Ms. Johal have been great learning experiences. I think I am learning more from my students than my students are learning from me! I have noticed how fast time flies by and how little time I have left for everything I have planned.
On April 20 my class and I went to a field trip to the Earthwise Garden. I had recently taught my students about composting so we learned more about what to put into a worm compost bin and the tour guides there even gave our class their own worm compost bin! So currently in my classroom we have a worm compost bin that we take care of together, and we have caterpillars as well. I found field trips to be a little stressful, because you have to constantly be checking if all the kids are there and keep them calm. Students were very excited to be at the garden but there were many times where some of them were mis behaving and I had to pull them aside to talk to them. Some students just cannot contain their excitement!
My midpoint meetings with my SA and FA went very well and I am surprised and excited that they both think so highly of my work so far. It is a good feeling knowing that I am doing something right and that my hard work is paying off. I want to thank them for their support and sharing their wisdom. Things that I can continue to work on from this point on: be a little more firm with the students that disrupt my lessons, be more confident in my story telling and singing in front of the students and take my time on my lessons. Some lessons that I have had I rushed through them so that I could get the full lesson done in the time I was given. This is not always a good idea. If we do not get through it all it is okay, what I should focus on is how well my students are understanding the content. This could be done through personal assessment (asking the student individually during or after the lesson) or as a class (asking the class if they have any other questions or asking them what they have learned so far).
Lots of excitement for the last 4 weeks of practicum! I have so much more to teach and I am really looking forward to it all.
April 16
This week my class started their cooking classes. Every Tuesday afternoon we will be baking or cooking a treat for the class. This gives students in small groups an opportunity to be part of the cooking process, help measure ingredients and feel proud of what they have accomplished. Each week a parent volunteer and I will be taking a group of students and baking or cooking something of the class. I look forward to the learning that will take place along this process.
On Thursday I started a unit on coins. I did not realize how hard it would be to explain the different value of each coin to students. The first lesson was a coin sorting activity but I learned that the students need lots more practice recognizing the coins so I will have stations planned for them next week so that they will get more information about each coin and I can have more one-on-one time with them.
My SA invited me to a workshop at the Delta Manor on Thursday night, it was a workshop on oral language in the primary grades sponsored by the Barbra Jarvis Foundation. I am glad that I tagged along because I learned some very useful information and great activities to use in the classroom. This was one of the more practical workshops I have been in thus far and I am already going to use what I learned next week! It was nice to discuss my new learnings with my SA because she has so much advice that she can give me when I am teaching these new ideas.
April 9
It was another eventful and fun week in my kindergarten/ grade 1 class. I taught a lot more this week and I am really enjoying it thus far. I am also in charge of track and field practices with the intermediate students, specifically sprints. Since I have been working with primary students a lot I look forward to getting to know the intermediate students at this school. Hopefully at the end of my practicum I can sneak in a lesson with the intermediate grades. I think I would enjoy working with those age groups as well. Overall I have been having lots of positive feedback from my SA and others in the school which is pushing me to keep working hard throughout these 10 weeks. Next week I will be starting my earth day unit which I am looking forward to because I really want to teach my students about recycling, reusing and reducing so that they can start thinking about keeping our environment safe. My classroom management skills have gotten a lot stronger so this week I hope to focus more on the content I am teaching and try not to forget to leave any important information out.
April 4, 2016
Week one of practicum down! Lots of learning took place this week for me and my students. I am excited and confident for the weeks ahead. Although it is a lot of prep work to keep up with the lessons, I am enjoying the teaching thus far. This week I was observed by my SA first and then followed by my FA. My SA had some good feedback on my Spring brainstorm lesson. She liked that the students were engaged but suggested I be firmer with them when they are not following class expectations. This is something that I have been working on and will continue to work on so that the students respect me when I am speaking. In my upcoming lessons I also hope to give students more time to think about the questions, I am finding that I sometimes am rushed for time and try to do everything quickly. This does not give students enough time to think about what they are going to write about/ draw about in writing periods.
My FA was pleased with my lesson which was very uplifting and encouraging. I am still working on how to assess my students when they are finished their work, so I plan to create a checklist that will help me better identify which students are getting the lesson and which are not. I do keep track right now but I think the checklist would be much more helpful in the future. This week I hope to encourage more discussion by asking more open ended questions when doing my lessons. I look forward to another week of practicum.
Annotated Bibliography
Hallam, S. & Price, J. (1998). Can the use of background music improve the behavior and academic performance of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties? British Journal of Special Education. 25(2), 88-91.
This study looked at the effects of providing background music in the classroom on the behavior and academic performance of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties. The results indicated positive results for those students whose problems were related to constant stimulus-seeking and over-activity. These finding suggest that the classical music can have a calming effect on children who may have a hard time focusing during work periods in the classroom.
Hastings, P. R. & Bham, S. M. (2003). The relationship between student behaviour patterns and teacher burnout. School of Psychology International. 24(1), 115-126.
This article discusses the associations between student misbehaviour and teacher burnout. The aims of the study of 100 British primary school teachers were: to explore the properties of a measure of student behaviour in the classroom and to test the prediction of burnout dimensions from dimensions of student behaviour.
Leaman, L. (2007). Dictionary of disruption: A practical guide to behavioural management. New York, NY. Continuum International Publishing Group.
This is a very useful informational text that provides suggestions on how to deal with specific behaviours that are commonly found in the classroom. It talks about physical aggression, self esteem, group behaviour and much more, all laid out in alphabetical order.
MacGarth, M. (2000). The art of peaceful teaching in the primary school: Improving behaviour and preserving motivation. London, UK. David Fulton Publishers Ltd.
This book aims at helping primary teachers improve behaviour, preserve motivation and foster cooperation by developing positive relationships with pupils and their parents. It takes and empathetic approach to understanding and managing disruptive behaviour.
Ostrosky, M. M., Mouzourou, C., Dorsey, E. A., Favazza, P. C., & Leboeuf, L. M. (2015). Pick a book, any book: Using children’s books to support positive attitudes toward peers with disabilities. Young Exceptional Children, 18(1), 30.
This article discusses the impact of reading on child development, the use of books featuring characters with disabilities, children’s understandings about and interactions with peers with special needs, including books about special needs in early childhood classrooms, and using guided discussions to support young children’s positive attitudes about individuals with special needs.
http://dsm.psychiatryonline.org/doi/book/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
This website serves as a great tool to look up any disorders under the DSM-5. It is also a navigation website that links to journals, books and news around psychology.
My learnings & 10 week practicum
I think it is safe to say that I have learned many strategies to deal with behavioural issues in the classroom, but I still have much more to learn. I am finding that when I deal with mis behaviour in my classroom I get mixed reactions from my students; some understand and I can have dialogue with them to try and figure out a solution but others do not hesitate to ignore what I have to say. I am not surprised by this, I do have very young students that I am dealing with, but I wonder how I can get to the students that ignore my requests? There is one student in particular that is having a difficult time listening and behaving and it is my goal for the long practicum to have the courage to keep trying to help her situation. I have found that it is really easy to leave her issues for the other teachers in the classroom to deal with, but I feel as though I need to step in and help as well. I think during my lessons I will have opportunities to deal with her misbehaviour and hopefully I can help her through it.