Tag Archives: PE 11/12

Practicum weeks 9 & 10 thoughts

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These last two weeks have been a blur.  It was an emotional roller coaster where I knew I was going to pass my practicum, but I still had to work hard to make sure that I maintain the best reputation that I could.  These two weeks made me feel the most connected to my students and it was a bittersweet moment when we had to part ways.  I so moved that students who I thought were unreceptive to my teaching actually came up to me and started telling me how much they think I’m a good teacher, also other students who I knew enjoyed my lessons would come up to me and ask if there was any way I could stay and teach longer.  These comments made me feel like I had actually accomplished something in the time that I was with them.  I was even more moved when one girl who usually didn’t care in class came up to me and handed in all the homework that she had missed.

Another thing that made me burst with pride was when two students with IEPs got class average marks on the last unit test that I gave them.  This was probably the biggest accomplishment that I had this whole practicum.  One of the two students finished his test and said to me, “I’m surprised at how many questions I felt like I knew the answers to.”  This particular student got below 50% on all his previous unit tests with me, and then he suddenly had some sort of epiphany and the content stuck.  These two students with IEPs had also started gaining confidence to join in discussions and to answer questions out loud in class by the 5th or 6th week that I was with them.  I became so proud of them that every time I marked their work, I cheered every mark they got correct and  begged them in my head to get a decent mark.

This practicum has helped me grow in many dimensions.  I was able to connect with students on a personal level while still maintaining the structure, command and order that a classroom should have.  I found a balance between what I wanted to try, with what my SAs and FA wanted me to do, and what students wanted to do in class.  I cannot express my gratitude for all the mentorship that I got from different staff, not just my SAs, and also my appreciation for the students who accepted me as their teacher and learned from me.

Practicum week 8 thoughts

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For week 8 I was challenged to reflect on my practicum by my Faculty Advisor,  here were the questions to consider and my answers to them.  It definitely made me think about what I had actually achieved in the short amount of time that I was at McNair Secondary School

1.How have you contributed to the school community (what were you involved in outside of the classroom)?

I have contributed to the school community by guest judging in McNair’s singing competition, playing on the teacher’s lunch hour intramural sports team, and coaching and sponsoring the grade 8 boys’ volleyball team

2.Describe the different ways that you addressed diversity in the classroom (provided individualized instruction – adapted or modified- or helped students that needed additional support)?

In PE class, I did not need to address individualized instruction as all students were able to understand through my demonstrations, and all students with disabilities had their own personal Educational Assistants who would help them.

 In Socials class, I addressed diversity by teaching with different multimedia tools and using a variety of activities that accommodate different types of learning styles.  I additionally supported students by offering myself outside of class time (e.g. lunch time, after school), in these situations, I would sit down with students and guide them to appropriate answers for projects and assignments by asking guiding questions.  For in class work or test time, I allow students who need/ask for extra help to go to the learning resources room.

3.List some of the different assessment practices you used beyond tests, quizzes, and questioning.

Think-pair-share

K/W/L

Carousel activity

Jigsaw activity

4.Give some examples of how you used group work in your lessons.

Paired projects

Group presentations

Creating a “talk show”

Jigsaw activity

Carousel activity

5.Give some examples of interesting hooks that you used in class to capture the students’ interest (how did you motivate the class)?

Video clips relating to course content (e.g. instructional, skits, songs, movie clips)

Picture analysis

Quote analysis

Current events/interesting thought or video (unrelated to course content) of the day

6.Give some examples of innovative teaching practices and/or creative activities that you used to engage students in learning (aside from lecture, power point, question & answer, lab experiments)

Jeopardy review

Kahoot

Creating a talk show

Drawing comics

Writing short stories

Simulations

7.Describe a lesson that you are particularly proud of.  Why are you proud of this lesson and why do you feel it was so effective?

I was particularly proud of my simulation lesson of French culture and social classes before the rise of the French Revolution.  My simulation generated feelings similar to that of the actual people of the French society of that time.  I had students try to start an uprising on the people who were “wealthy” in the simulation.  The actual words said during the simulation were, “Can we start a Revolution and take their money from them…” I was pleased because I did not expect the feelings to actual rise up in this way, I just wanted them to get an appreciation and general idea of how different social classes felt.  This lesson was effective because in lessons after that, I could refer back to their feelings during the simulation to give them a more personal perspective on why different events happened the way they did during the French Revolution (e.g. why did certain people rise to power, why did the general public allow these people rise to power, what sort of things were promised to the general public that would sound appealing to agree to let these people rise to power, etc.)

8.What professional development activities have you participated in?

Professional development day at Cambie Secondary School

Collaboration day meetings

McNair staff meetings

Networking with veteran teachers from various schools and TOCs by sharing ideas and receiving practical advice

9.Is there any other information that you would like to share that would help me with your report?

All teachers and TOCs who observed my lessons have told me that I do a good job building strong relationships with my students.  Most students respect my authority and work hard to do well in my class.  Two out of the three classes that I taught were disappointed when they found out when I announced when I was leaving and specifically asked if I could stay longer.

Practicum week 7 thoughts

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This week I attempted to put my inquiry project to use and had both my PE 10 and PE 11/12 do an inventing games unit.  Over the span of four days, the students invented games that were very genius in nature and their peers seemed to have a lot of fun playing the different games.  Based on my observations, the grade 11/12s had no problem doing the unit, in fact they seemed to enjoy it because it gave them a lot of “free time”.  My grade 10 students on the other hand did what was required of them, but they seemed to be going through the motions.  I explained to them that this was the testing of a new concept of teaching and that most of my colleagues are also trying it out at their practicum schools.  At the end of the unit, I asked them for feedback and they all thought that it was not as enjoyable as actually playing traditional games.  Upon conferring with other colleagues, one had the exact same response from her grade 9s and a few others will report back once they have tried their inventing games units with their classes.

I think one problem that has been brought up before by other UBC BEd students and former BEd students is how much they disliked the amount of theory that the program teaches us about.  At the retail store that I work at, I get a lot of teachers as customers and they all say very similar things about the program.  I wonder if there is a way to actually take away theory and actually test things so that every year, the new teacher candidates will learn things that are not theoretical, and instead will learn things about what was tested by the previous year’s teacher candidates.  All the theoretical things taught to us seem so interesting, exciting and new to us, but to the students, it seems like we’re taking away their enjoyment of PE.  I believe that if we are to be true to our goal of developing life long activity in our students, we need to take away theory and use previous application experiences to guide our teaching methods.

Practicum week 6 thoughts

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This last week went by very quickly, there was a lot of excitement happening at the school with spirit week, Senior boys provincial basketball game, and the anticipation of the arrival of spring break.  I felt like all of my classes were performing exceptionally well as a whole.  The only problem I had was with my senior PE class, this is the class that I just picked up and have the least exposure to so far.  The first week that I had them went smoothly, because it was well organized and combined with the other three PE classes in that block.  This week was a bit of a roller coaster ride with the senior PE class.  The week started out well with our dance performances with guest appearances by two other teachers/teacher candidates.  The students were well behaved, very supportive of each other, and engaged in what was happening.  The next day I introduced the inventing games unit, and for the rest of the week we invented games from the “target games” from the TGFU model (Click here for my criteria that I used for inventing games).  I started the unit by teaching them my invented game called “disc bocce” (Click here for lesson plan on disc bocce).  Surprisingly, the students were really into the game and were having more fun than I expected.  The actual inventing games aspect took a little while for all the groups the get settled down and get working, but for the most part, they were all engaged in inventing their games.  On the final day before spring break, I had them teach each other their invented games and they were rowdier than usual.  I’m not sure if it was because it was the day before spring break, or the fact that target games are less active by nature and they wanted to move, or I just have not 100% earned their respect as their teacher just yet, or a combination of all of the above.  It just disheartened me a little bit because I thought senior PE was going to be easy to control because they are older and should be more “mature”.

It was definitely interesting trying out the inventing games model.  This was a model taught to my PE cohort by the actual inventor of this teaching model (Dr. Joy Butler from UBC).  She strongly believes that this is the way to go in order to motivate students to play and have fun while learning at the same time.  It was funny the students reactions when they found out that they were the one’s having to invent the games and not that I invent a bunch of games for them to play.  For the most part I think Dr. Butler is actually onto something by creating this teaching model.  I was very pleased at how all the groups of students came up with games completely unique from each other.  One group even took away the sedentary nature of conventional target games and added a role that required a lot of moving around and tossing game objects.