I plan on bringing my inquiry into my practicum class in the following ways:

  1. It’s important to me as an educator to bring experiential learning into the classroom. I believe that by creating hands on learning experiences for my class, my students will be motivated and engaged. Not only do I strive to make my lessons hands on and engaging, but I also am going to create lessons that make real-world connections. By doing so, my lessons will be relevant and meaningful for my students. By bringing in real items that students can connect to, I think student engagement and motivation will increase drastically.
  2. I aim to give my students choice within the classroom. I now know that giving students a choice is very beneficial in increasing their motivation. I am going to allow my students to present certain tasks in a multitude of ways. My students have such a wide range of abilities and their funds of knowledge are endless, therefore I believe it’s important to give options that appeal to their individualities. I know that by giving my students a choice of drawing a picture to show their understanding or writing a paragraph to represent their understanding, giving a choice will go along way.
  3. I will bring SEL into my practicum classroom. Brain breaks are going to become apart of my daily routine. These ‘3 minute motivators’ are going to be used as a way to refocus my students and give them a much needed break from the task at hand. As well, I aim to create strong student-teacher relationships within my practicum class. This is very important to me as an educator. I want my students to feel acknowledged and appreciated within the classroom. I know that students are more motivated to learn by teachers whom they respect and trust. I will create these positive relationships with my students by doing daily check-ins in the morning to see how they are doing. As well, I want to have an open door policy where students feel like they can talk to me. I will bring SEL themes into the classroom through children’s literature. Books are a great way to teach students about important issues in a fun, relatable, and engaging way. I also want to build a good classroom community and will try to accomplish this by incorporating group work into my lessons. I believe that through group work students will learn how to cooperate with one another and work together which will result in relationships being built.
  4. I now know the importance of incorporating technology into the classroom and although I am not very good with technology, one goal that I have for myself is to use technology within my practicum class. I hope to bring technology in by incorporating video clips to engage students and teach about different subjects in a fun way and goNoodle is a great program to use for brain breaks.
  5. Finally, I want to foster a growth mindset within my students. I aim to focus on the process rather than the end result. I will praise my students for their effort and their individual growth. I will try to reduce my use of the phrase, “good job” because it is mundane and lacks personalization. I rather praise my students by zoning in on something interesting that student has done and accomplished. It is all about the learning! I will bring the message that it is okay to make mistakes into my classroom. What’s important is the students effort.

I look forward to bringing my inquiry into my practicum classroom and  although it will be a challenge, I remain motivated to create a learning environment where my students are motivated and engaged themselves.