It was great to be back in class yesterday! It felt like the two-week practicum again. In fact the students thought I would be coming back the next day again, I wish I were!

One of my main goals for the rest of the term is to work on classroom management. After having the class on classroom management earlier this week, I realized that a lot of the strategies we talked about are used in my practicum class. So while I was in my practicum class this week I made a conscious effort to keep notes about specific classroom management strategies my S.A. uses and I used throughout the day. I was amazed to see just how much management is needed, even in my grade seven class. And because of this I noticed there are many different strategies that are used for different type of situations. I think I observed three main different types of situations in which different classroom management strategies were used.

The first situation sort of falls into classroom discussion participation and how my S.A. wants this participation to look like. Being in grade seven, mostly when my S.A. or I ask the students questions they automatically raise their hands. Generally they know not to be calling out without being asked to. However, sometimes my S.A. is direct and says “hands up,” and then asks the questions. I feel like this works really well when students are really distracted or excited about the discussion topic. This is because when they are excited they just want to quickly voice their opinions. So in order to regulate this, the students need to be straightforwardly told to only raise their hands to speak and wait on their turn. I also found that whenever I have taught, I do usually ask for “hands up” before I ask the questions just because it helps me better manage the classroom and maintain students’ focus. Also, this simple direction giving adds to the students’ perception of my presence as another form of teacher in the class. This is important because if they develop that perception of me early it will allow for better classroom management moving forward into the 10 weeks. In other instances my S.A. also tells the students that she will be calling out on individual students to answer questions or offer ideas. I have noticed this works well when only a small number of students consistently reply whereas the others – mainly the students towards the back – are not participating. This plays out especially well when my S.A. or I keep a class list with us while asking questions so that students can actually see us keeping a record of their participation. From experience I can say that when this is done, students are more motivated to participate and the number of hands raised increases significantly. The last strategy my S.A. has used a lot recently is “think-pair-share,” she does not necessarily call out “okay time to think-pair-share,” she just simply says okay think about “x” for a x amount of time and then put your thumb up so I know you are ready to share. Then they share with a neighbor after which students who want to can share their ideas with the entire class. I feel like this strategy works well to boost participation as those students who just don’t participate because they don’t want to share with the entire class have a more comfortable chance to offer as well (in pairs). I also really like the idea of “thumbs up when you are ready” and I have used this when I teach because it helps a teacher understand how much time is needed for students to answer a specific question.

The second situation revolves around direction giving. In my opinion giving clear directions is one of the most important aspects of classroom management in any grade level. Because without well-defined directions, students will be guaranteed to be simply lost; thus affecting their learning. There are 3 parts to direction giving that have stood out for me and I have tried incorporating these into my teaching – being slow, repetition, and multimodal. By being slow I mean delivering instructions at a pace that works for your specific class’ understanding. For me this took practice, the first time I taught I thought I was a little too quick (because this is how we have been taught for the last 4 years in university); therefore, I have tried to slow down in my more recent lessons. Moreover by being slow I think it is important to emphasize important details of instructions and I usually do this by using hand gestures, eye contact, and my voice tone. Second I listed repetition and by this I mean after giving instructions myself, I think it really works to have students repeat the instructions – and if one person misses something, others can add in. This benefits both students and the teacher I believe because students can fully understand the instructions by repeating out loud and the teacher can gain an understanding for where the class’ understanding is at a given point. Lastly, something that I have gained from our Socials class is the importance of giving instructions in different modalities. I believe it can be as easy as just giving instructions verbally and visually – so speaking out and writing on the board/smartboard/overhead. This way even after you have verbally given instructions, students are able to refer to a visual reminder as well.

The third and last situation is just as important – getting and maintaining students’ attention. My S.A. is great at this and so I have been paying close “attention” to her behavior as she gets students’ attention. What really works for my class is counting down from 5 after which the students are to clap twice and essentially freeze. So I have consistently made use of this strategy as well and what I make sure to do is thank them after for giving me their attention – again to add to building a positive relationship with the students. Proximity is another tactic that I know I have used frequently as I circulate around the room while my S.A. teaches. This works well with the students who are situated more towards the edges of the classroom, as they seem to believe that the teacher cannot see what they are doing. Lastly, I think it can be important to sometimes even remind students why it is important to listen. For example, so that they don’t miss information, or even something like “when you spoke, everyone else listened, so now you should listen too.” Again this just ties into motivation and using different strategies to boost student motivation in the various areas I have discussed above.

In the end, I feel like the more days we spend in the class, the more we will keep learning about classroom management (another reason why I wish we could just stay there!). Also, the workshops on Tuesday mornings are really helpful as we get to share our experiences and hear about other strategies we might not have known of before!

Wow, I don’t understand how the two weeks are already over, it seems like we just went in for the first day yesterday and now the two weeks are over. It honestly went by way too quickly and I wish this short practicum could have lasted longer. Like I have said previously, actually being in the classroom and taking part in teaching has definitely reinforced my aspiration to become a teacher. This last week was somewhat different from the first week in that I had a more active role in the classroom. The first week I did a lot of observing so that I could better understand the classroom dynamics and structure. In a sense, I feel like in the first week I was trying to build relationships and recognize important details about the class and their learning. I feel like these initial understandings really informed my teaching this week. I felt as the week went along and I carried out each of my lessons, I learned more and more about managing the class. And because of this I felt more confident with each lesson.

After my first big lesson at the beginning of the week, I made a conscious effort to focus on some specific areas of classroom management so that I could deliver my remaining lessons as effectively as possible. The first area I looked into was giving instructions to students. I have realized that to be perfectly clear with instructions, I need to look at my instructions from a student’s perspective. So, just because I understand a set of directions, this does not guarantee that the students will completely understand as well. So, what I did was look at my instructions for my lessons and think are there any questions students might ask as I give these instructions and then I did some modifications to include the answers to these questions in my instructions. For example, in one of my socials artifacts lesson, I thought the students might go through the activity and figure out whom the artifacts belong to really quickly and then they will think they are done. So, I tried to make it really clear in my instructions that I do not just want them to tell me who the artifacts belong to but I also need a solid explanation for why each of the artifacts would belong to that certain person. Along with this, to make my instructions as clear as possible, I tried to emphasize important words as I spoke. I did this by changing my tone to a higher pitch or generally speaking a little louder when I was saying something important. And when I would do this, I tried to pause a little between speaking so students really could understand that they need to pay attention to that part of my instructions. Then after giving the instructions myself, I tried to get students to repeat the instructions as much as I could. And I feel like this helps the students as they word the instructions a little different and in a way that I believe they find most easy to understand. Also, this lets me know if students’ understanding matches what I tried to instruct. This way if I notice any confusion, I can address it.

Another area of classroom management that I focused on was student attention. I have noticed there is a lot of participation in this class. However, a majority of the time, the participation is from the same group of students. So, for one of the group activities in my socials lesson, I thought to assign each student a role. Each student was given a role card so that they would all be contributing to the group in different ways. When having a class discussion and asking questions, I have learned that I am going to have to call on students because they will not answer on their own. And this is not just for questions, I feel like I was confident enough to even call out on students when they just were not paying attention when one of the other students or I was speaking. I also thought this strategy helps to clarify my position in the class; specifically, that I will be teaching them and when I do teach that time is not just “free time,” they actually need to pay attention. Similarly, I learned I need to wait for everyone’s attention before I begin speaking/instructing and this can be as simple as just standing at the front of the class, but not speaking until everyone is ready to listen. And it is really interesting to see how students react to this; they do in fact realize what I (or my S.A.) am doing and begin to tell off-task students to pay attention. In a way, this allows students to self-regulate and through this they could develop a better understanding of my expectations while I teach. In terms of expectations, I tried to make clear how I expect my questions to be answered. So before I asked a question I would say “hands up…” I do feel like I’m trying to build some clear expectations and be somewhat firm with time because I always remember how we were told to be firm to begin with and develop rules and boundaries and then slowly pull back to become less firm over time.

Something I would really like to work on for the rest of the term comes under Section 6: Classroom Climate of the Performance checklist – wait time. I mentioned above that a lot of the same students are repeatedly raising their hands to participate in class discussions. I discussed this with my school advisor and we concluded that it would be valuable to allow for a longer wait-time between the time I ask a question and pick on a student to answer. This way more students will have the time to raise their hands to contribute. Along with this, wait time can be provided by allowing the time to think and first share with a neighbor and then with the rest of the class (think-pair-share). This probably helps ease the anxiety of some students who fear sharing their ideas with the entire class. That is, they can first share with just one partner and reassure each other or even modify their answers/ideas to something they would feel more comfortable sharing with the rest of the class.

Along with this, I would like to continue developing my relationship with a special needs student in my class – something that would come under Section 4: Diversity and Social Justice. An item on this section reads “demonstrates sensitivity to individual diversity.” Keeping this in mind, it is my goal to cultivate a positive relationship with this student by learning and understanding the type of interactions that work best for this student. That is, those which garner the best response from her. I have noticed this student does not appreciate if others push to communicate with her. For example, it is harder to start a conversation with her and maintain the conversation; it is better to build on what she offers. And the more this happens, the more she will offer. I hope that once I am able to build communication with this student – which will probably occur with the help of my SA and the E.A. – then I can eventually get her to do academic work. And looking back to this past week, I was able to get this student to complete some work and she even shared it with me at the end. What I noticed was, in order to get her to agree to academic work, the instructions need to be kept fairly short and there needs to be a reward set to be received upon completion. All these little interactions with this student are helping to foster a positive relationship with her. Already it has been great learning for me as I am gaining an understanding of diverse learning styles and how to best accommodate and incorporate them into the classroom.

Truth be told, I could go on and on about these past two weeks. But to end off, I would like to say I truly know it was a fantastic experience because I am just waiting for the day we get to back into the classroom!

I cannot believe it has already been a week! A single word by itself could not describe my experience. It was sort of scary but fun, interesting and refreshing; but, most importantly it was a great learning experience. In this short period of time, I feel like I have gained a vast amount of knowledge. A lot of this knowledge has come from information and advice Karen has shared and then from just observing the daily activities in the classroom. Many different things have stuck with me and I have been keeping a daily journal so that I could keep a record of all my learning. For this reflection I will share two points of learning that seem most important to me.

One of the really interesting things I learned about on Thursday was “Freshgrade.” Freshgrade is a new form of reporting Karen is looking into and I was able to sit in on a meeting between Karen, two other interested teachers and the principal. I felt like this meeting was really inspiring because it sort of exemplified the importance of evolving and what inquiry looks like. Some teachers feel like the current reporting methods need to be improved to more accurately reflect students’ performance so they are seriously considering the switch over to Freshgrade. This program basically allows for parent-teacher communication throughout the year as teachers are to “selectively” send parents images and descriptions of student work. “Selectively,” means teachers must pick and choose between student work that best highlights performance. This way parents are not just receiving updates when report cards go out. However, even with this program there are normal report cards three times a year – they just look a little different. They have less to do with percentages or letter grades and are more like individual student portfolios based on performance standards like the 6 principals of formative assessment and core competencies. What was really interesting to me was the fact that because the district has not made Freshgrade mandatory, teachers must gain permission from parents before actually using the program. This means teachers have to educate parents about the program, its values, and its benefits. This just goes to show that evolving and inquiring requires a lot of hard work and effort, it is not something that happens just because you want it to. That being said, with my beginning understanding off Freshgrade, I feel like it aligns quite well with what we have been learning about diverse student learning and the importance of holistic learning. I believe Freshgrade will expose student learning in more areas than would a standard report card. As a result, everyone involved (teachers, students, and parents) will more likely understand what areas students are performing well in and those in which they need assistance. Karen has submitted an application to join the pilot program of Freshgrade and it will be interesting to see how everything plays out. I definitely feel like assessment and more specifically, Freshgrade, can be a point of inquiry for me if our class does end up using it. It will be a great learning experience as there is a high chance of a program like Freshgrade becoming mandatory sometime in the near future (Maple Ridge is already using something similar).

Moving on, classroom management has been something I thought about a lot this week. For me classroom management is specifically about student attention and student engagement. In terms of getting students’ attention, the most important part of my learning has to be the fact that you really cannot begin teaching or giving instructions if students are distracted or not listening. That being said, I have seen that students do not always listen right away the first time you ask. After a discussion with Karen, we concluded that I could use different ways of getting student attention. However, we think it will be better if I stick to one or two initially so the students understand I am serious when I ask for their attention. Karen already has a strategy where she counts down from 5 and the students clap when she reaches “1” and freeze. This has worked for me; however, I believe I need to also directly tell the students “I need your attention” as they are only beginning to understand that I am also a teacher in their class. I believe student engagement, in action, is participation; that is how much students are participating in various class activities. I mainly focused on participation in terms of discussion and answering questions. Through asking my own questions and observing Karen ask questions, I have seen that there is a group of students who consistently raise their hands and the rest almost never do or only sometimes. In some sense I have already sort of inquired into this as I brought it up with Karen and we talked about some ways to get more students to participate. For example, think-pair-share seems to work because it, in a way, takes away the fear of talking in front of the entire class as you first share with just one person. Like I mentioned above, I feel like sometimes you just have to be direct with the students – whether that is for their attention or their participation. So, being direct would mean telling the students you require everyone to participate and if you see some are not participating, you will call on students. I have seen Karen do this and I actually remember this being done in my own classes and it can be effetive. I believe classroom management is something very complex and it branches off into many different sub-topics like student attention and participation and because of this, effective classroom management can only come with my (or any other teacher’s) hard work and practice. It seems like something that develops with time and experience and so I feel like this would be pretty ideal for inquiry. More importantly, it is something I am actually interested in learning about because I feel like without effective classroom management on the teacher’s part, student learning will easily suffer. One night I did some research and I was not surprised when I found many articles discussing how modern-day technology has affected student attention spans – essentially use of technology has resulted in shortened attention spans. So it was interesting to read that teachers need to “adapt” to this change by incorporating more interactive activities and group-work. Again, this area really has caught my attention already and I hope to be able to incorporate it into my inquiry – and if not, I believe just learning about methods of gaining student attention will be very beneficial.

I would like to briefly mention the other areas of interest I noted on this week. My class has a class meeting once a week where they discuss anything important to them. They have an anonymous jar in which students can drop ideas (“wishes” for topics to be discussed in the meeting. And from what I have observed, students do like to voice their opinions and feelings. I actually think this ties into my classroom management area above as the class meeting is a very important time to have students participate. Also fitting somewhat into classroom management is how we as teachers ask students a question; that is the wording of a question. This too can be really complex as the way we ask a question determines how students will answer. I have learned that beginning a question with “can you tell me…” may sound like you are asking for a yes or no answer so sometimes you need to take off the “can you” and just ask students “tell me a time when…” The idea of negative and positive wording in instructions was also something really interesting. Instead of telling students “not to interrupt when others are speaking,” it might be more beneficial to tell them “when others are speaking, you quietly and respectfully listen.” Basically, from what I have observed and spoke with Karen about, it is sometimes more important to tell students what they should be doing rather than what they should not be doing.

In the end, I would just like to say this week has probably been one of the most enriching and fun weeks of my life. I have easily realized that there is so much to learn and this has just reinforced my dream to become a teacher – there will almost never be a dull day, I will always have something to learn or someone/something to learn from!