Today’s practicum visit was a fast, hands on, and wonderful learning experience.
Our student adviser was away all afternoon and the class was a bit more out of control than usual. Additionally, the TOC had a hard time keeping eyes on everything that was going on. During a math block, two girls who are a level behind than the rest of the class were working on their math problems together off on the side. One of the girls had a hard time, but with a little bit of positive encouragement she was more motivated to do her work. This did not work for the other girl. She was completely unwilling to even pick up a pencil, and mentioned as she has on other days before that she doesn’t like doing any work. I quickly realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere with her. Luckily my faculty adviser stepped in at the perfect moment, and like a fairy god mother gave me some extremely helpful advice. I am in a lucky position that I am a student teacher, and I should use my time at the beginning of my practicum to just focus on building relationships and trust with the students. After this advice I went over to the struggling student and chatted about her favorite foods, hobbies, family members, future goals, and more. Her mood and body language changed quickly, and im really hoping that the ground work of a good relationship with her will help her be more willing to learn from me later on.
My homeroom is quite interesting because the children are all on different levels of academic competency. Some students are below grade level, and some are above. The children that are above, and usually finish their work faster are given a chance to work on academic programs on Chromebooks when they are done early. These children are also given math worksheets that a more difficult to challenge them. Children that are below average are often given math sheets, or spelling tests that are a bit easier, and do their work on the side with the guidance of an EA (there are 2 EA’s in this class).