Practicum

I was blessed to spend the year in the same classroom, a 4/5 split class in the Surrey School District. I began weekly visits in October and continued to complete a 2 week practicum, followed by more visits, and finally, a 10 week extended practicum in which I took on a full teaching load for 4 weeks. This page documents some of the ups and downs of my journey.

The practicum didn’t go as planned. Instead I adapted the “plan” as it went on and started short-term planning on a weekly and daily basis as was needed. Opportunities for projects arose and I let the students guide the learning, allowing them to partake in what they were interested in.

These are some of the highlights of my practicum.

 

At the mid-point, my focus was on creating extensions for students who finished early and needed to be challenged.

As I enter the second-half of my practicum, I am presented with a unique opportunity to reflect on the lessons I have learned and those I continue to work towards.

One of my areas identified for continued growth was to create and enact valuable, meaningful extensions for students who finish work early. As I’ve examined my own teaching style, I have struggled to understand how to create these opportunities for students who need an extra challenge without it becoming more work for the students.

As a student myself, I was often one who finished work early and was “rewarded” by having to complete extra work and often questioned how this was fair. Where is the incentive to finish work in a punctual manner? Is it possible to truly make this work meaningful?

This past week I challenged myself to think about this in each of my lessons. As my school advisor had suggested, these students were not opposed to completing additional work, at least not outwardly.

When planning a math lesson, for example, I made the initial practice work manageable for most students (I still need to work on adaptations for students who need more support) and had supplemental worksheets for students who finished early. Rather than make these extra work for these students, I ensured that these were of a higher level thinking, requiring more thought, and truly extending their thought process. For some students in grade 5, I challenged them with grade 6 practice on the topic.

I had a similar experience after a Science lesson. I aimed initial practice to the needs of most students and had an activity for those who finished early. As the lesson was on simple machines, I used a crossword that linked the factual information from the text to real-life examples and got students thinking (and excited) about what exactly a simple machine is. My school advisor actually complemented me on this and said he felt it was a good extension. For these students, it didn’t seem like extra work, but I was able to keep them on-task and stimulate their understanding and interest of the topic.

My plan for the remainder of the practicum (and for continued success) is to focus on the needs of individual students. While it may be difficult to talk about extensions and adaptations for the entirety of a unit, I can control how I will use these to meet each student’s needs on a lesson-by-lesson basis. Each time I prepare work for any given lesson, I plan to think about who will be completing this work and how I can prepare to meet these needs. I try to ask myself: Is this amount of work necessary to gauge student understanding? Can this work be accomplished? In a timely manner? How can I extend lessons for those who finish early? How can I make these extensions meaningful? How can I avoid simply piling work on students or eliminating work from others? How can I meet the needs of each student? 

Creating extensions became a natural part of lesson planning. Although it was difficult at first, I was able to integrate ideas and promote the concept of extending one’s learning through fun, yet meaningful activities.

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What was unexpected, however, was how challenging I came to find classroom management. Upon reflection, I realized that my preoccupation with the curriculum and content led me to forego other things in the classroom. With two weeks to go, I settled down to refocus my classroom and created a classroom contract. Each student (and teacher) contributed to a set of class rules and had to agree to the final result, signified by signing their names.

 

 

 

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Leaving my practicum came so suddenly, I hardly had time to breathe. I had been so preoccupied with making sure the transition was smooth and my obligations were met, I nearly forgot to enjoy the last blissful moments I had with my students. I cried the day I left, unsure of what was to come. Some say the practicum is the “hard” part. This was not true for me. For me, the practicum was easy, leaving was the hard part.