Today was the first day of our long-term practicum and I pretty much jumped in as soon as the students arrived in the morning! I liked beginning the day off with them because they were just as excited to see me, as I was to be in the classroom! And on my part, starting off right away didn’t really leave any time for me to be nervous or question myself. I thought this helped my confidence level and I felt very comfortable beginning by settling the class in. Also, the students were quite calm and focused which made the teaching a little easier for me as well.

I started the day with Socials and began my unit on Ancient India. Lucky for me, Socials is a subject the class really enjoys so when I said I would be teaching Socials, I received a really positive response. The lesson started with locating India on a blank world map displayed on the Smart Board. I gave students about three minutes to think in their groups and then students came up to the Smart Board to place a dot on a blank map identifying where they think India is on the map. To my surprise, even though a majority of the students have not learned about India in school or do not have much background knowledge about India, a lot of their predictions were very close. I also recognized the students enjoy using the Smart Board and they are much more engaged even when their use is as minimal as placing a dot on a map. For example, I had told the students they would have about five minutes to think about their prediction and to raise their hand when ready to make their prediction. And, the students were actually discussing with their group and it only took about two minutes for hands to start rising. After their predictions, I brought up two different maps – a world map with India labeled among the other countries and then a zoomed in version, which was a closer look at India. Using this map, I began a discussion about what just looking at the map could tell us about India, trying to get their critical thinking going. We first looked at neighboring countries, the continent India is in and then moved onto the southern region of India. I asked what looked really interesting about this region (the surrounding water bodies) and students pointed out the easy access to many water bodies. I then asked why this is important or beneficial to the people living in India. We talked about a lot of access to fresh water, easy opportunities for shipping out, transportation and exporting and how this helps their economy. I then mentioned that one of India’s strong industries is exporting to the rest of the world and that this is possible because of their geographical position close to water bodies. I then questioned the location of India in relation to the equator and the students pointed out how close it is to the equator. I asked how this could affect life in India as locations close to the equator receive more exposure to the sun. And students brought up terms like climate, weather, temperature and generally how India is a really hot country. I shared my own experiences in the country and asked if anyone else has been to India and had one student share his experience in the hot weather. After this discussion I mentioned how my roots are in India, so I’m really excited to teach about this civilization. And leading from this I brought in the scavenger hunt activity because it would benefit them to have an understanding of the basics of India today to fully understand the development of this civilization. I asked students to work with a partner in their table group and use one iPad between the two. Once they had their iPad and supplies ready, I explained that the scavenger hunt worksheet had the websites they should be looking through; however, the specific questions did not have an accompanying link. I explained why: this way they would be navigating all three websites and might even run into some information not required by the activity but would help build their understanding. And also I thought this made the activity a little more challenging and required students to think a little deeper if they actually had to read all the content on the websites. The pair work was good with one iPad because this meant they were actually working on the hunt together as opposed to having two iPads and then they would easily just divide the questions. I actually learned a lot myself from this activity. Specifically, the fact that sometimes you plan for an assignment one way and when you come to do it with the class, they bring up aspects that you may not have even thought of. For example, some of the students were asking if they could use other websites to find answers or simply just type in the question to Google. But, I asked them to only use the websites I had provided as I knew they were appropriate and as a warning I might even ask which website the answer was found on to ensure accountability. I also had some early finishers, so I had to come up with something for them to do. I asked them to list five interesting facts or ideas about India that were not asked about in the hunt and list these on the back of the worksheet so they could share with the rest of the class. We then discussed the answers and the early finishers shared their interesting facts. When the students shared their answers, I had to point out that it is okay if you have a different answer because some questions can have more than one answer and I encouraged them to share their different answers. I also tried to build on the student’s answers and offer information from my own experience with India. I feel like this is something I would like to keep doing as it makes the material more interesting for students and they were listening more when I added my own little details instead of just repeating what they had just said. Something my s.a. and I have talked about when responding is to try to repeat correct answers students provide but re-wording them in my own words just to emphasize.

We then transitioned over to math and continued with the probability unit. We started with a question based on the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story, which definitely hooked in the students – I had them summarize the plot first. Students worked on the first problem in pairs and then we were going to discuss the problem as a class on the Smart Board. However, a couple of minutes in, I noticed that a handful of the students had forgotten some of the concepts and terms (e.g., favorable outcomes, sample space) as it had been a couple weeks since my last probability lesson. So, then I decided to change things up and work on the problem together. First we reviewed some of the key terms that students had forgotten and then used this to work through the problem. I enjoy moments like these where I have to change my lesson plan because it just shows that not everything you do will go according to plan and I must learn to be flexible as this allows to better meet the students’ needs. We went through two more examples together and I could tell students had a better understanding after the first example as I had students provide the work for most of the steps and then come show it on the Smart Board. A couple of students did begin to get distracted and I tried something I haven’t before. I simply stood at the front and said “Ok, I’m just going to stand here until I have everyone’s attention, I’m just going to wait,” and it was so interesting to see the students’ response. The on-task students were asking the distracted to pay attention and it honestly took no more than a minute to get everyone back on track. I would like to keep experimenting with different strategies to get and maintain the students’ attention; for example, my s.a. gave me a shaker today and I could develop a process with the students where the louder I have to shake the shaker, means they are too distracted and I need their full attention. At the end, I had students write me an exit slip to tell me how they are feeling about the unit so far – something they completely understand, something they find challenging, and something they really enjoy. Some students were hesitant at first, but I told them they could take their time and hand it in whenever they were ready because it would really help me as a teacher understand how they are learning. Again, I realized sometimes you just need to give students a simple but true explanation as to why you do certain things and they do honestly understand after.

I really enjoyed the first day and it was a really good start to the long-term practicum. It was so good to be back in the classroom and having been able to teach first thing was just a bonus! I look forward to the rest of the ten weeks and after being in the staff meeting today I can tell there is going to be so many extracurricular activities and events happening that time is just going to fly by!