I would say this week had its fair share of triumphs. It is always reassuring knowing that you are headed in the right direction, especially when your mind gets lost in doubt and chaos. My main takeaway this week is to always remember to celebrate the triumphs that happen in your teaching experiences – whether it was a successful lesson and the students grasped the concept, or the behaviour student in your class wrote a few words in a writing activity (when usually it is a struggle.) My school advisor really brought this to light to me, and going forward I’ll try to write down one triumph that occurred in my daily reflections that I like to keep. My midpoint meeting was also a humbling experience this week. Hearing that I am on the right track is probably the best thing so far. I am grateful for the support my school advisors, and you Frank, have given me. I do get a little uncomfortable hearing the “strengths” as I don’t like to be put on the spot, but after the fact, I am happy to know that I have found a place in my school advisors’ classroom. The end of the week was also something to be celebrated. Our students were excited to make their life cycle booklets, and they turned out great! It’s one thing to have a successful lesson, but when you hear “Can we make that?!” or “Can we take it home?” – it is a great feeling. I felt the activity was a good way for the students to know the life cycle, and to engage them in making their own “finished product.” Even one of my behaviour students was on task and tried his best. He told me that we really wanted to make it for his grandmother and could not wait to show her. For me, that was definitely the triumph of the day.

Sometimes when I’m lesson planning, I get caught up in the logistics of the lesson. But what I have to remember is that everything falls into place when you know the end goal, and you have fun with the students while you’re up there in front of them. If you’re excited, then there’s a good possibility they will reciprocate that excitement!

Even though this week was a short week, it sure felt like a long regular week!

I was quite nervous to launch my math unit this week, but thankfully it unraveled better than expected. I feel comforted when I can rely on storybooks as part of my lesson, especially when it comes to math. The students seem to enjoy the “change of pace” during my math sessions this week. I incorporated children’s literature as well collaborative games; I had students sitting in a circle instead of facing me all the time. My school advisors also informed me that students were engaged in my math activities. Going forward, I know what kinds of modes to incorporate. It was also interesting to be in front of a new group setting – since the four divisions on our side of the hallway separate students according to ability. New mixture of students, new kinds of classroom management strategies!

I think my biggest learning experience this week was not to always assume my “older learners” can do “older learner” things. We had created differentiated worksheets for our insect theme lesson on movement (jump, fly, crawl.) For the younger ones, the instructions were for them to cut, sort and paste insects according to their main movement. The expectations for the older students (grade 2) were to draw and label. I guess I assumed my grade 2’s liked to draw because I noticed their doodles during centres or indoor recess. But I realized that drawing these insects were quite difficult for them. In the end, some of my younger students ended up completing the worksheet before the older students, which is usually vice-versa for other activities! Seeing that they were having difficulty with drawing, I gave copies of the younger students’ cut and paste insects for them to copy for their own work. The result was lots of unfinished work, and due to the afternoon Easter egg hunt, there was no opportunity to catch up. Learning from this, I will assess what exactly I want the students to draw first before incorporating it into the lesson.

Still trying to keep up with lesson prep beforehand and assessing how much prep is worth the end product. Is it really worth printing numerous bingo cards and pieces for a 15-minute activity that will never ever be done again? Maybe not…I did not do this, but it definitely crossed my mind! I am hoping that with the full immersion coming very soon, I can get the hang of planning effective lessons without the long hours of prep.

I would say that after the second week of the long practicum, things are slowly falling into place. My confidence is increasing with being in front of the students (for formal lessons and transitions.) I am starting to get a sense of what can be accomplished within a lesson; what my students are capable of and their pacing with their work. This week provided lots of insight in terms of their ability to grasp small concepts, especially with our insect lesson on senses. It appears that most of my students grasp the concept in their head, and can verbally explain to me their thinking. But when it comes to putting it on paper…it can be a challenge. So going forward…what are other ways I can make it easier to transfer their thinking onto paper? I am quite pleased with how they are understanding the body parts of an insect. They were quite proud to explain to their parents during the student led conferences this week.

Speaking of student led conferences…what an interesting experience! This was an opportunity to really see what the relationships between my students and their families were like. I did not have a huge role, although I did stay behind until the very end. My school advisors allowed me to do some planning and circulate every now and then. I also ended up greeting the students arriving with their families and finding them a table. There may have been some informal “babysitting” with the younger siblings that came along. I couldn’t resist! I love toddlers! I introduced myself to parents when I could; the ones that I spoke to are lovely and seem very interested in what my experience has been like. I really cherish interacting with the families of the students. I know that if I were to have my own classroom one day, I would go out of my way to make families feel welcome and not afraid to speak to me.

Towards the end of the week, I really started thinking more about the inclusion and progress of the student with autism in my class. I made a worksheet for him which he could do with his support worker (cutting and pasting for the fine motor skills.) But his support worker had mentioned to me, not as a criticism, that “he does not get the concept of the lesson.” I know that I cannot change things overnight with the student, but I do want to make some sort of impact on his learning during this long practicum. If he could tell me the three main body parts of the insect, I would be happy. His learning has really made me think more deeply about my planning going forward. You had mentioned to Scarlet and I during our quick debrief that we should not “forget” about our students with a designation – just because they have a support worker, doesn’t mean they are fully responsible for helping them through the lessons. This really resonated with me this week.

There was a little bit of “burnout” this week; hoping things will become more second nature in the weeks to come.

The first week of the long practicum laid the groundwork for the remaining 9 weeks to come. I received helpful feedback on what to work on going forward and am also beginning to establish presence in front of the students. I was also fortunate to have both of my school advisors present at Dickens earlier in the week to touch base and to really ease my “anxiety” going into the long practicum. The first day was more observing as I was not familiar with the Monday activities. However, it is always a pleasure watching my school advisor teach and I can learn a lot from her. By Friday, I was leading most of the day, including the small transitions like bringing the students to the lunchroom, gathering students at carpet, and also helping more with classroom management while my school advisor was leading. We also launched our Insect Unit this week, which has started out very promising. It was interesting to have done the first lesson with our peers at UBC, and then with our students. The flow of the lesson was just as expected (and successful) but the classroom management really surfaces when it comes to your own students. There were triumphs this week: I was able to engage a behaviour student in all of the Insect lessons and tried the “giving you two choices” strategy – with success! The student did not want to participate in silent reading so I gave two choices – I will select a book for you or you can choose your own. This meant that I was really becoming an authority figure to this student, rather than a “classroom helper.” Along with triumphs, there were also things to consider going forward. Here are my main “takeaways” from this week:

• Don’t be afraid of “uncharted territory”: Coming from an inquiry based cohort, I am no stranger to the concept. But when teaching the first insect lesson, I felt some fear if I asked “Why?” to a student’s response; I would not be prepared for their answer – “uncharted territory.” For example, I had written in my lesson plan to question students why they had placed certain animals in the categories of mammals, fish and insects. But I had “skipped” this step because I was worried that too much information would be revealed by the student OR I would be unsure how to handle that student’s response. You would be surprised of students’ background knowledge…
• Knowing what “responding to call outs” means: I receive this feedback regularly and it is something I am striving to improve on. But up until now, I didn’t realize I was actually unclear on what it meant. I thought it was verbally reprimanding a student who called out an answer (“Johnny, no!”), but according to my school advisor, it is giving affirmation to students who call out answers without putting their hand up. For example, I would ask a question “What are the three main body parts of an insect?” and I would say “correct” to the student who called all of them out without being told. I was heartbroken to learn that one of my behaviour students was waiting patiently with his hand up, and I did not even notice. Which leads to my next takeaway…
• Decide how you want to receive answers from students, and try to be consistent: Do I want to choose “quiet” hands, or have the class answer all together. I should establish how I want to receive my answers first, before affirming.
• Using time wisely before and after school: Making photocopies last minute is not fun. Going forward, it is recommended, especially by our very organized school advisors, to really be on top of making photocopies ahead of time. Coming in early in the morning certainly has its benefits: no students around, quiet atmosphere, no lineups at the copy machine, prep in peace!