Monthly Archives: May 2015

TOC day – May 20/2015

During Practicum

The TOC day was an extremely valuable experience for me because it was sort of like a sneak peek into future reality. That is, in the near future, as a new teacher, life will pretty much be like the TOC day. Going into a new class of students, a new school, even quite possibly a drastically new community on a day to day basis. I have to say, it was a little nerve racking the night before but at the same time it was exciting. It is exciting in the sense that, as a TOC in different classes, you will almost never have the same two days. In the most basic sense, there will most likely be new students to teach, a new grade level, even a new classroom atmosphere. Can you just imagine the possibilities, they are endless!

I think for me, it was a little nerve racking because I knew I was going to be spending my day in a primary level class. Not only was that a drastic change from my upper intermediate class, but it was also different from my preference of an intermediate class. So I was thinking, can I really do this? My first plan of action was to keep the confidence I have in my own class, and second remain calm. I believe These “two C’s” – confidence and calm were really important for my TOC day and generally as a TOC in the future. A teacher once told me, being confident is key, because if you are not confident, the students will literally be able to smell your anxieties or fears. So, I think if you are conveying to the students you are not ready for the day, that will in a sense rub off on the students as well. Imagine being a student, and you notice your teacher is not very comfortable in his/her role, chances are this will throw you off, affect your learning. As a result, I will always have these “two C’s” in the back of my head as a teacher, not only for myself but more importantly for the benefit of my students.

The biggest difference I noticed between primary and intermediate – probably the most obvious – is the amount of guidance and instruction required. When I was thinking back to this difference after school on the TOC day I realized I almost treat my grade sevens like university students. I can explain concepts and ideas to them and then expect them to work on their own. Even when I am circulating in the class, most students do not require my help. For example, I am able to give the grade sevens their own inquiry project into Greece and they are able to come up with ideas that I feel I could not even produce myself. In the primary level, there is much more guidance required if you, the teacher, expect students work to be a certain way. For example, with something like spelling or grammar work, depending on the reading level of the class, the teacher needs to go through all the reading with the class. Instructions must be made directly clear to the students, even if they are written on the board or a worksheet, the teacher will almost always have to verbally review expectations beforehand. That being said, coming back to inquiry projects. After doing some thinking, I realized, if expectations are not completely fixed to be a certain way, a simplified form of inquiry is possible at the primary level as well. Yes, definitely the content and work produced will be extremely different from the intermediate level. However, it will still be something the students have created on their own, with a different type of guidance from the teacher.

This then made me realize again the importance of adapting and flexibility. This is so crucial as a TOC. You need to be ready to make the jump from kindergarten one day to grade six the next day. My SA gave me an excellent strategy to use as a TOC, which I used this past TOC day. At the beginning of the day, you write on the board “surprise” or “free time.” You explain to the students that this is something they can earn, a surprise or free time. However, if at any point the teacher thinks the students are not behaving as expected, whatever the expectations might be, a letter comes off. But these letters can be earned back as well – almost like a game, which I think is so motivating for the students. The point is to keep all the letters or a certain number of letters to earn the given reward. This works well for a TOC, because the strategy will probably be new to the students whereas in a regular class, using this strategy over and over would not make it as effective. So, whenever I found the students were misbehaving, I would just remind them of the word on the board, and this helped get them back on track. In the end, they were deserving of their surprise, and they got to to choose from pencils I had brought.

Being in the primary class also taught me a lot about myself. Although I have gone into primary classes before to cover preps, this was different as it was a whole day. I got to see my more nurturing side come out. I was much more patient with the younger students as I had to guide each student in different ways. Where in the grade seven class I usually guide students in relation to the content, in the primary class there was a lot of behaviour related guidance as well. For example, asking students to sit a certain way, waiting for their parents after school, helping students get ready for recess and lunch and so on. I almost felt like a mom to 22 little kids. This was something I had not really experienced before and I really enjoyed it!

In the end, I think this day was really enjoyable for me because it not only was a learning experience for the future but it also allowed me to reflect on myself as a teacher and my abilities. I now realize that with flexibility and new strategies, I am able to bring out my more nurturing side and apply this in conjunction with my teaching. I’m very thankful to have had this opportunity!

Henna Art – May 11, 2015

Student Work

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At the end of the day, we had a henna lesson. We started with a discussion of henna and the importance it has in the Indian culture. Students knew a lot about it and we related it to modern day culture. For example, we talked about henna parties in Indian weddings and the students connected this to bachelorette parties from Western culture – something I did not think of myself! I also had my friend who is very familiar with henna application come in and help the students and they were really excited to see a new face in the classroom. I had thought I would have to work with the boys much more than I had to. They were actually doing fine on their own. I think this was probably because I left the assignment quite open-ended and asked them to explore with their creativity. I allowed them to use their devices to search designs and had images of henna designs on the Smart Board. I had thought some students might not want to use the henna on their body so I gave them an option of applying onto thick Bristol board. It was great fun and learning!

Going to the Landfill! – May 4 2015

During Practicum

Last week our class went on a field trip to the local landfill and then a picnic at a close by park, Deas Island. I have to say, the field trip really surprised me. We had an employee of the landfill as a tour guide and the bus driver literally drove us around the different parts of the landfill. The most surprising part for me was how clean the landfill was, I did not expect it to be like that. There was a lot of wildlife as well – eagles and deer – something that really excited both the students and us teachers!

That being said, I now realize how field trips are not just a learning experience for the students, but sometimes for the teacher as well. When teaching about topics and ideas that are fairly new to you, that you do not know much about, a related field trip can be a good introduction for both the teacher and students.

In another sense, a field trip serves to answer a common question students have, “what does this have to with life?” or “when will I ever use this in my life?” Going on a field trip connects material from the class to places and experiences in the real world. Students get to see what they are learning about and how it takes place in the real world. I believe this is the most important part of going on a field trip. It provides purpose for learning so really a field trip can serve as an introduction to why we are learning a certain topic, a closure for the same reason or even right in the middle as a reminder.

As a teacher, you have the opportunity to interact with your students in a different atmosphere, an atmosphere almost completely different from the classroom. As a result, you get to make valuable observations about your students’ behavior and communication in the real world. For the students, this is a chance to essentially inquire deeper into a given idea/topic. For example, when there is a tour guide or even just the teacher, students are able to ask questions when something peeks their interest. When we were at the landfill, the tour guide left a lot of time for questions and the questions some of my students asked were amazing. Very critical and thought provoking. These questions again made me realize that field trips are very beneficial for students’ learning.

Although our picnic in the park got cut short because of the intense rainfall, I observed something really interesting. Light-hearted parts of field trips like the lunch at a park allow students to bond in a different setting as well. Something that I think is really crucial at this age level. Students get to realize that as they grow up, the classroom will not be the only place where they have to interact and communicate with others. There will be many more settings where they have to work and/or play with others. In the end, this field trip really opened my eyes to the benefits of taking learning outside of the classroom and I’m really excited for the field trips in this coming month!

Beginning Poetry with a Kahoot!

Student Work

Today (April 30/2015) we began poetry! When I told the students we would be beginning poetry, I got the moaning and groaning that I had expected. But, I had my plan of attack. I tried to make this lesson as engaging as possible. However, I needed to keep the beginning somewhat calm, so I chose to have the students do a quick write about anything they think of when they hear poetry. They then shared their thoughts out-loud. But, I thought some students would be sort of sensitive to this as some aspects of poetry can be personal for some. So, I had to first explain that not everything has to be shared out loud, only what they are comfortable with. And to my surprise, the students had a lot of interesting stuff to share and in their quick writes. As a form of assessment for learning, this will really help me with deciding how the unit will develop in the upcoming lessons.

After this quick write, I thought I had to address the students’ fears and hesitations about poetry. I thought it was really important to emphasize the limitless nature of poetry. That is, there is no correct way of going about poetry. Coming back to the idea of always trying to give the students a purpose, I explained that this is a time they would be able to experiment with writing and language. I always think relating learning content to real-life is really important in establishing purpose. So I gave examples from my own life and understanding the position they are in, because I was in their position only ten years ago. Then they did something I had not anticipated, they calculated my age. It was a funny moment and I just took it to support my point further. That is, that I really do understand how they feel because I’ve been through it as well. I then got them to think about how we deal with our emotions – whether happy or sad – through expressing ourselves using language. This got us to talk about the importance of emotion and feelings in poetry.

This discussion was supplemented by a poetic license. I really tried to exaggerate and emphasize what happens when students get this license – almost like it was a real license. I told them they could break the rules now, that they were ready for poetry. I thought it is like a concrete piece of evidence that the students are ready to read, write, even analyze poetry. My favorite part of teaching is when the students surprise me with ideas/aspects of topics that I did not even begin to think about. For example, when we started talking about breaking the typical rules of English language and writing, the students began thinking about writing poetry on topics like food. Now, I know that food will definitely be a part of one of our poetry lessons. Then on the poetic licenses, it required students to write their names. When they came to this part, a couple of students were asking me “do we write our real name?” and I was actually a little confused. What they were trying to do was write a nickname as their poet name. I thought this was so creative, a sign of their engagement.

We then moved onto a Kahoot quiz I made about poetry terms, which really was a kahoot! I had expected the students to be pretty “hyper” about this interactive quiz. Although, I had a paper version in case, I did not need to use it. Because, I thought this is the first time we are using this program in class and they were definitely going to be excited because of the competitive nature of the quiz. However, I did need to give a few beginning instructions, like keeping their usernames appropriate, not yelling out answers and allowing enough time to get everyone connected to the program. I tried to let them just enjoy the interactive quiz. However, to make it more of a learning experience as well, I debriefed after questions I felt needed a discussion. This way students were able to explain their answers. During the quiz, the class was probably the loudest they have ever been. But they really were engaged and I would definitely use it again because even though they were loud, they were really thinking about the questions – just in a competitive manner. I ended off the quiz by explaining this is just the introduction to these terms and they got a vocabulary list they will be filling out as they learn about each.

We then moved onto the humorous poems by Ken Nesbitt. I chose these poems on purpose as well because I thought they would be a pleasant way to start off poetry and to demonstrate that poetry does not always need to be sad or serious. I was really careful with the poems I chose, trying to make them as relatable to the students’ lives as possible. And, as I receive the students’ analysis’ of the poems, a lot of their responses include how understanding these poems was easier because they poems relate to their life.

I had to change the brain break to the end because if I had done it in the middle of the lesson, it may have caused the students to become more distracted. Because of this, I had to incorporate the brain break into my closure, which ended up working really well, as the students were able to review. I also made sure to remind them about our Kahoot quiz and the ideas from our previous discussion. This was the first time I have had the students be so excited about something like the Kahoot. I could have asked them to quiet down, but then I thought what would be the point of the Kahoot if they were not excited, then it would be like any other paper quiz. So, I realized that sometimes we need to change our usual expectations of the students when we introduce new programs and ways of learning like Kahoot. Instead of looking at their behavior as negative, I saw it as very positive – a demonstration of their participation and engagement. This was a great example of how to include technology in your class to make a topic which students are hesitant about – like poetry – into something they enjoy!