If I had to pick one word to describe my first day at practicum this past Thursday, it would simply be “rewarding.” I had the chance to experience three quite different grade levels and get a sense of the curriculum, class structures, and methods of teaching involved in each. Being a small school, I was able to interact with almost all of the staff and even some parents. This really opened my eyes to the importance of “community” in this school. That is, all the adults, including parents show such a keen interest in developing the finest learning environment possible for the students. For example, even though the kindergarten parents had just received notification of the Terry Fox Run happening on Friday, they were prepared to volunteer and bring in snacks and drinks for the students – I loved that! In terms of classroom expectations and rules/routines, I thought all three classes I visited had some similarities; however, there were some differences so I will discuss each individually.

In the K/1 class, there were lots of verbal instructions. In fact, when the students were being introduced to a project, the teacher (Ms. Johnson) even said “there is some good news and bad news… the bad news is there is a lot of instruction.” However, she always followed this with reassurance such as pointing out the help students can offer each other or ask for from herself or one of the student teachers. There were many different posters on the wall detailing different kinds of classroom expectations and behaviors. What I noticed was these posters were in locations the smaller students could actually read; for example, by the doors. Democracy and choice was another feature this teacher incorporated into the class routine. For example, somehow she ended up making the statement “J is the best letter” and then she asked the class to vote if they liked the letter J. I thought this was neat because even though the vote was for a simple matter, it indicates to the students the teacher values their opinion. Within my time in the classroom, I observed two main expectations of the students: raising hands and asking for the teacher’s permission for anything outside of the work the students were supposed to be doing.

In the 4/5 class, verbal instruction was key again; however, Mr.Hodgson did this with a more strict and strong tone. Mainly he spoke out the instructions for each lesson and supplemented this with the smart board. For example, he offered samples of the work students were to do on the board and then turned on the board’s timer as a way of letting the students know how much time they had for each assignment. Classroom expectations/rules were also found on posters on the front walls of the classroom – again so that they were easily visible as most students’ desks were facing the front. The main expectations I observed were raising hands to speak and following task-specific instructions such as silently and individually working. Lastly, if students were not adhering to task-specific instructions, Mr.Hodgson made use of warnings; first the student would receive a verbal warning after which their name would go on the board. Apart from this, he allowed students to work freely until he noticed any disruptions or students going off task.

The grade seven class was quite different from the other two in that there was a lot of student self-direction involved. The clearest example I observed was during math: Ms. Toews instructed the students to take notes however she said it was up to the students how they wanted to do this. For example, they could write in their math book, on a loose-leaf paper, follow the method described in the textbook and so on. That said, there were a lot of classroom instructions posted throughout the classroom – there was one whole white board dedicated to posters of ideas like honesty, respect, etc. One that stood out to me was titled “Bothwell’s High 5” which were “Responsibility, Cooperativeness, Empathy, Kindness, Safety and Courageousness, Respectfulness.” Raising hands after the teacher spoke and being on-task were key behaviors Ms. Toews expected of her students. For example, at one point she was still in the middle of a question when students began raising hands, she stopped and asked them to wait for her to complete her question. In the end, I thought this class had a clear balance of restricting rules and student autonomy.