I thought I would submit one last practicum reflection on my blog before transferring over to emailing them to my advisor. Personally, I really like keeping my reflections on a blog because I feel like it is my own space to collect reflections… that being said, I understand why some things are better sent directly AND realize that, without a weekly assignment to come here to submit, it will become a challenge for me to find my own time/motivation to continue to reflect here. So let’s make the best of this reflection!
I start my 2-week practicum tomorrow and, compared to my cohort members, I am feeling surprisingly calm about everything. Thursday’s class went AMAZINGLY well. Although it was stressful meeting and talking to each of the students that I did not meet last week, between the two visits I somehow managed to meet most of them–the biggest stress will now be retaining all 56 names when I start tomorrow!
Merging ideas that I had from my course work and from the conference that I attended, I developed what could be my favourite introductory activity, and implemented it on Thursday. First, I introduced myself to the class with a picture activity, where I printed out 12 pictures about important things in my life, and asked the students to work in groups to figure out that story. Since I am dealing with the gifted children who I felt would be motivated by challenges, I included some images to test their geographical knowledge, and tried to include some language arts and math concepts in my actual storytelling. After presenting the activity, I gave the students a link to a google form that I set up, asking them for a little bit about their lives.
Despite having an assignment due on Friday, I made the unwise decision to take a peek at the early results late Thursday night. 1:30AM on Friday morning my mind was buzzing with excitement and wouldn’t let me sleep until I emailed my school advisor about how excited I was to be working with the class, and asking for permission to compile a presentation with their results.
Not only did my activity keep the students engaged throughout the time, I also sensed a distinct difference in their overall attitude towards me after the activity. By the end of these introductory visits, I cannot overemphasize how important a good introduction is to forming bonds with students. I have also remembered to keep in mind that students have excellent opinions about how their class should be run, and that tapping into that fund of knowledge can have so many positive outcomes. I really hope to keep that in mind as I move forward, because I think that losing sight of that priority will be one of the greatest failures I could make as a teacher.