2 week practicum: Week 2

Bumpy moments:
The second week of my practicum is complete. I have thoroughly enjoyed being in this school every day and getting to know the schools culture, teachers, and students. It really is a great school! I taught a few more lessons within this week and they went great although there were some bumpy moments along the way. Classroom management is still a struggle for me. I still need to figure out some techniques and strategies that work best for me but I know these skills will develop over time. It’s interesting because some strategies work sometimes and others work other times in different situations. I think it’s important to have a ‘toolbox’ of different classroom management techniques that can be used throughout the day. I am very interested in learning more about classroom management and moving forward, I will be trying out different techniques to see which ones work best. My highlight of the week was after I completed a lesson on Canada with the students. They were so interested and engaged after I gave groups of student’s large maps of Canada for them to explore. They seemed to like this and after the lesson wrapped up many of them came to me asking where they could get their own map to explore further. This made me believe they really enjoyed the lesson. This is why I want to be a teacher. I want to create a passion to learn within my students and that lesson did just that. Teaching still brings with it many questions and wonders. I still wonder about assessment. I’m interested in learning more about that and how assessment works with grade 2/3s where there is no letter grades on their report cards. As well, I was responsible for taking a student out of the class and ask them to count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. When a child struggled I gave them an opportunity to try again if they liked to. Some of the students seemed very nervous so I thought maybe their nerves got the best of them. This also poses questions regarding assessment for me. I have learnt that it is about the student’s progress and journey within learning that matters. Every child is very different and I am learning how different they can be. Assessing their different skills and needs is something that still rattles my brain. Overall, this practicum was my first step in becoming a teacher. It went very well and although there were some bumpy moments along the way, I know I will learn from them and grow from them. Teachers go through these moments daily and being a new teacher is bound to bring with it some difficult moments. Once I figure out some great techniques that work for me I know I will be able to face these bumpy moments head on and deal with them in an efficient, positive way.
-Jessica Nerada