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!

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!

Math can become quite routine and repetitive with the teacher teaching and the students just following along. So, I try my best to vary the activities in each lesson as much as I can. So, today I brought in math manipulatives – unifex cubes – to begin the lesson. I thought it was important to do this at the beginning of the lesson because then I can capture the students’ attention right from the start. Although I had wanted each group to have their own set of cubes, I had to change this because of time limits. So instead, I had students come to the front to manipulate the cubes. For math, I really have been trying to watch my voice and wait time because I feel these make a huge difference for students’ understanding of the new concepts I am introducing. So, varying my expression and repeating key terms and processes of solving for the mean, for example. Also, with wait time, I do say, “take a minute to think about it,” and sometimes I even have said “Come on, I should see more hands up then that.” This usually works, but if it does not, I have now begun to ask students myself to answer. I would like to keep working on my voice – especially experimenting with different tones and recognizing what works best when. For example, switching to a more softer tone when I have been using a stronger tone in order to get students’ attention. In a sense, sort of surprising the students with a completely different tone so they know something is about to change and I need their attention.

Teaching in another grade level (4/5 and 5/6) was a great experience. I thought the student behavior and attention level would be quite different from my own class, so I made sure to be observing for this. For example, some students at this age level had a harder time keeping a focus throughout the entire lesson. So, I tried to keep a global scan throughout my read-aloud and question periods by speaking from different locations in the class and making sure to stop to regain focus when necessary. Also, this is why I tried to break up the story and ask questions and offer comments through the read-aloud to keep students engaged. An indirect strategy like proximity would also work well as a gentle reminder for these students. I increased my wait-time as much as possible for this class to accommodate for the different thinking time and attention levels. It was really important for me to close this lesson by sharing connections students made and reviewing the importance of connection making. It is always really interesting to see the difference in quality/quantity of work in the different grade levels and within the same grade level as well.

Something else I noticed was the difference in participation in terms of gender. In my grade seven practicum class, there is usually more participation from the girls compared to the boys. However, in the younger grade levels, I observed the opposite – more participation from the boys than the girls. I thought this could have something do with the age difference. Particularly, in the upper grades, the students begin to care more about what their peers think of them. Therefore, they monitor what they have to say in class a little more than the younger students. And for boys at the upper age, there sometimes is that belief that they need to be “cool” or “tough” now, even “rebellious” in a sense. This may reflect onto their participation level, serving to pretty much decrease it in order to grow and maintain that “cool,” “aloof” image. For example, something I have recently noticed in my class is when we have class discussions, some of the boys begin to put on their sweatshirts’ hoods. I think this may have something to do with that image as well – in a sense closing themselves off from what is happening in the class. In the coming weeks, I would like to look into research on this topic – specifically, how gender affects participation at this age and how a teacher can help improve this situation.

Like I said earlier, it really is an extremely valuable experience going into all the different grade levels to teach. Firstly, I get a sneak peak at the content, curriculum, and learning that occurs at each level. As a result, I am able to make observations and comparisons like what I described above. This is so great for my development as a teacher as it allows me to develop versatility and appreciation for the range in learning. Apart from this – but just as important – I get to connect with so many people. This includes both students and other teachers. I get to see how students at different age and grade levels think, learn, the work they produce. I get to connect with different teachers and really everyone has so much to offer from their experiences as teachers – so much that will benefit my development once again. I look forward to rotating through the different classes in the upcoming weeks!

Wow, the days just keep getting busier and busier! We have so much going on this week – a dance festival, a field trip to Fraser Heights Secondary, and play rehearsals throughout the week for the big presentation next week! Today I got to teach the p.e. period on my own for the first time since the short 2-week practicum.

I started off the class inside the classroom. As a class, we first discussed the type of behavior expected in p.e. The students were able to bring up all the points I wanted to discuss – safety, cooperative behavior, sportsmanship, etc. This just goes to show that the students are very well aware of what is expected of them. They sometimes just need a refresher and I think asking them to refresh themselves – by sharing out loud – is the best way because then they are actually thinking about the expectations, instead of just being told. This connects back to the concept of priming, and this is what I was looking to do when I began the discussion. It only took about five minutes but it was so worth it. For example, during the actual p.e. activity (California kickball), when one student kept putting his arms around another student, I simply had to remind him of what we had reviewed previously in class to correct his inappropriate behavior. When I held up my whistle and asked what the whistle meant, I got quite a few hands up; however, not all. So then I said, “Come on, everyone has to know what this means, I need more hands up.” That really got the remaining students’ attention, it was quite funny. So, light-hearted humor really does work well with this age – a secret trick I like to use. We then quickly went over the rules of the game since all the students were familiar with the game previously.

It was a great day outside, so we decided to play outside. I asked students to do a lap around the field once and meet back in the center. It’s interesting to see the varying abilities and motivation of students to participate. For example, some students were complaining “I can’t run,” so I tried to keep my instructions as firm as possible but accommodate to certain student needs (e.g., hurting ankle) by changing the running to light jogging. This way I was able to get the entire class to warm up in a way that worked for everyone. To avoid any issues over team members and positions, I numbered off everyone into two teams and chose which team was offense and which defense. Surprisingly, there were no complaints and the students worked well together. I tried to control for equal participation as well by asking the kicking team to be in a boy-girl line-up so that everyone got the chance to kick. Throughout the game, I tried to keep a global scan of student behavior and I realized how different this is during p.e. – especially outside – compared to an academic lesson inside the classroom. First of all, most of the students have different roles so everyone is doing something different. Then, the teacher must be watching out for potentially dangerous behavior. And, your voice must be much higher to keep encouraging students over all the student cheering, asking for the ball, and them communicating with teammates.

This lesson, I made sure to keep watching the time because I really wanted to have time left over for the closure I had planned. So, I got to use my whistle for the first time to bring students back into the circle – pretty exciting! Once in the circle, I explained to students there is a reason we play games like California Kickball – reasons besides fun – to build cooperative skills. I then asked how they did this today. Again, they were able to hit every point I had noted; essentially, working together towards a common goal – getting the most home runs. I thought this closing part was really important because it gives purpose to even the most simple of game like California Kickball and it really directly pushes students to think – even if for a short amount of time – the meaning behind why they are doing what they are doing. In the end, I really enjoyed teaching p.e. and next time I will remember to bring a water bottle out with me because the days really are getting hot!

Today I was able to finish up my socials lesson from yesterday. I first had the remaining three groups present. After each presentation, we did a little something different, I had the students in the audience guess the presenter’s roles. In a sense, this was testing what they had learned yesterday and they were on point for each presentation! I was again pleasantly surprised with the tableau performances, the students were still very engaged and did not even need any prep time before presenting – they were ready to go. For me, this was such a moment of pride, seeing my students participate so enthusiastically. Honestly, you could just tell from their smiles, really makes the teacher’s job so satisfying. And there was equal participation amongst all the group members. We had actually discussed this during the class meeting today. One of the topics the students wanted to talk about was “some students being bossy in groups.” I explained that group work is a privilege and it is actually supposed to be a learning experience for all the students. A time for building not just academic skills, but also collaboration skills. The students had great ideas to add to this as well.

We then moved on to the short review activity. I posted true and false statements related to the Aryan heritage content from yesterday on the Smart Board. I then asked the students to discuss these statements in their groups, and be prepared to provide their input, as I would be asking each group to share. This went really well! To control for the usual people answering from each group, I said at least two group members have to speak. This way I was able to get input from the low participating students as well. In terms of their input, all the answers provided were correct. So it not only helped the students to review the material; however, it also helped me understand their comprehension and understanding of the material – in a way a form of summative assessment. I would definitely use this closure activity again. I could even switch it up, when I would really like to formally assess, by individualizing the activity – having each student record their answers on paper.

After this, I asked students to write me an exit slip describing their experience of the tableau. I explained we would be doing some more forms of drama and role-play in art, in the upcoming weeks, so it would help me plan for that unit. I asked them to write about what they liked, what they found challenging, if it helped them understand the Aryan social structure, if they would like to try something like this again, etc. And of course, there is always that student or students who are just sitting there; but, I was firm in my instructions that I have to get their exit slip before they can be dismissed for home. This worked! The responses on the exit slip were interesting – it’s always neat when students write something that you did not even think about. For example, some students commented on other groups’ tableaus – something I did not even mention. All in all, I am so glad I took the time today to close off this lesson. I truly understand the importance of doing this – it ends off learning well and conveys to the students that the stuff they are learning is meaningful and important!

Today was the end of the second week! Today I gave the students a test – math unit test – for the first time. It was an interesting experience. The students usually do have questions during the test and so as a teacher, I need to control my responses during test time. First of all, my responses need to be limited in the sense that I cannot give away the answer. As hard as it might be, sometimes you just have to say “that is all I can tell you right now because this is a test.” Then, to be fair, my responses need to be the same for everyone. So, if I tell one student something, I might need to tell the rest of the class as well – otherwise one student may end up being at an advantage. For example, when I pointed out one part of a question – putting answers into lowest terms – I had to remind the rest of the class as well. Giving a test may look like an easy task on the part of the teacher; however, it really is not. You don’t just get to sit back and relax. Instead, you have to be quite alert yourself for the things I just discussed above and also monitoring student behavior during the test. For example, sometimes students forget that they cannot be speaking and then accommodating the early finishers. It is really important to have something in mind for these students to be working on such that they are not a distraction for those who are still working. I had students work on unfinished socials work.

In the afternoon, we went on a field trip to Fraser Height Secondary – the high school almost all students will be moving on to. It was a good first field trip for me because it was short and simple. However, I still got to experience a place of learning with my students outside of our usual classroom. The students participated in some different science labs led by grade eight students. I found the students’ behavior there pretty interesting. First of all, they were behaving so well – I was so proud! But what really caught my attention was the slight change in the students’ behavior and demeanor. There was a sense of hesitancy and alertness in the students. I think this is because they felt a little out of place as newcomers. Also, they were the youngest students there and going from elementary school – where they are the eldest – this is quite a change. This just touches into the topic of transition that the students will experience. And, my role or my s.a.’s role in making this transition as smooth as possible for the students is very important. When I teach and also when my s.a. teaches, we both make a point of relating what the students are doing presently to their switch over to high school. Whether that be related to their academic performance – like homework – or something like relationship skills. We have a tour of the school coming up and I think this kind of exposure to the school will also help the students develop a higher level of comfort with this big change.

Next week is our first full week and we are getting closer and closer to our midpoint. I cannot wait till I reach my 100% teaching load!

Wow, what a day today was! I started in a grade 2/3 class again today with math and p.e. In my own grade 7 class I did language arts before recess, math after recess and then some socials at the end of the day.

The math lesson was an important one because it was the last in the unit, and introduced a new concept to students – experimental probability. Being the last lesson, it was my goal to keep reinforcing important terms and ideas from the rest of the unit; for example, favorable outcome, sample space, tree diagrams, etc. Which is why I kept asking the students repeatedly what each was, to give examples, touching into that consolidation piece I spoke to my f.a. about today. Thinking back to the lesson, I had thought of it initially as reinforcing. Now that I think about it, repetition of key ideas and terms is essentially helping to consolidate this important information.

I also noticed the desk change has really helped students’ attention levels and general participation. For example, when we started the lesson, I had them note down the key ideas while I reviewed them orally. And the class was pretty much completely silent. This is something my s.a. noticed and pointed out to me afterwards. And, I realized, wow I did not even have to ask them to quiet down for this part of the lesson – they were focused on their own. I feel like the desk change definitely contributes to this because compared to before, the students are grouped completely differently. For one, the groups are now a mix of both genders. And, over the last couple of weeks, I had noticed which grouping of students was just detrimental to attention levels so I had separated them in the new seating plan. Also, I have brought the students who use to be too distracted to participate closer to the front. And I noticed today, a couple of the students who used to be facing away from the front or more near the back and are now facing forward, near the front – they were participating more and more focused. And my students who always were focused and participated before, I moved them around to different areas because they will participate regardless of where they are seated.

For myself, I really wanted to work on my waiting time today. So really allowing for thinking time in order to get more students to offer their ideas and answers. I think in the past I have just wanted to get through as much content as I can. But I have realized that if I just try to get through the content, I may actually be putting the students’ learning at risk. So, in the last couple of days I literally even make myself look at the clock to actually allow enough waiting time. And instead of asking for hands up right away, I will ask them to “think about it,” or to “discuss with a neighbor.” This way, they know they do not have to answer right away, and they can actually think about what I am asking. Coming back to the piece on getting through as much content. I have recognized that I need to always try my hardest to ensure there is some time – even if very brief – to close the lesson in a way where I reinforce what I have just taught. I always have this in my lesson plans; however, sometimes I have to skip out because of limited time. So, this will be a part of my goals for the upcoming days to even spend a quick couple of minutes reviewing key aspects – again for that consolidation.

In terms of my upcoming math lessons, I will definitely be using the strategy of having students close their books so that I can be more sure of their attention. And wording my control statements in a way that is student-centered. So, “it is really important for you to pay attention if you want to really understand this math,” instead of “I need you to pay attention.” In a sense, this gives the students a reason to pay attention, which will benefit them. Along with this, I plan on bringing up the post-it notes in a new manner. Sort of adding humor, “I really want your post-it note, I love post-it notes!” I have used humor before and it really does help catch students’ attention – especially those who tend to zone-out quickly.

A challenge in today’s lesson was the Smart board not working. However, I have had this happen to me before as well and then I do need to change quickly to the white board. But, this just is another example of things not always going according to plan. And, I have noticed that, as a teacher, I need to respond to these kind of issues calmly but quickly because interruptions like these can completely throw off students just as much as the teacher. Coming back to the humor piece, last time this happened, I sort of included the students in it and made a joke about the Smart Board so that I could maintain their attention while I moved over to the other board. In my opinion, these kinds of situations are great learning moments for me, I’m faced with a challenge and I need to make the situation work.

In the end, I thought the lesson went well because students were understanding the new material. This was reflected in their input throughout the lesson and in their formation of probability word problems. When circulating to see the students’ word problems, I made sure to spend a little more time checking in with the students who did not participate as much just to ensure their understanding. I think the students enjoyed this unit and forming their own word problems was a fun way to end the unit!

Wednesdays are always busy and fast days in our class. The students have band and French, which means my s.a. and I get to cover other classes. Today we covered a grade 2/3 class. We started with math drills as the students are learning multiplication. It was so interesting to see this, the students were so competitive. It was almost like a game show on TV. We then had some time in the gym and the students played a game I have not seen before, sideline soccer. It is always exciting for me to go into these other classes as I get a little bit of a sneak peek into every grade level. I have noticed a huge difference in the teacher’s role in the higher grades – like grade 7- compared to the younger grades. The classroom management in the younger grades requires more reminders and teaching of basic skills. For example, getting the students to line-up to leave the classroom. It was almost like a game as well – my s.a. chose students to go line-up based on colors they were wearing; for example, “all the students wearing blue go lineup.” And then, to have them do this quietly and calmly, she made it into a competition of who can line-up the most quietly. And it works! We have never done anything like this in our grade seven class. However, that being said, I could see something like that working in the grade seven class as well when students need reminders of – for example – how we line-up and go through the hallways. Tomorrow my s.a. and I will be covering this class again and I will be going through the same routine. I am excited to see how I will feel with this younger group of students and completely different content.

In my own grade seven class, I had the students the entire afternoon from after lunch until dismissal. This was a change for me as I usually teach in the mornings. The students were a little hyper from lunch and it being such a nice day out. So, I knew I had to be a little more firm than usual. We started with a desk change, the students had been asking for one for a while. However, I got to plan the new arrangement. So, I told them, if we were going to do this, I would need them to cooperate in a very calm manner because otherwise the desk change would turn into plain chaos. So, I waited for everyone to settle into their seats and give me their full attention. And then we moved group by group. There were some complaints – as expected – “I want to sit over there, not here,” etc. However, I quickly realized I need to explain that sitting in groups is a privilege and everyone needs to learn how to cooperate with each other even if you are not best of friends. I always feel like when I give the students an explanation behind my expectations, they do understand and act accordingly. I introduced the group points system and explained that it will be in effect starting today; however, I will be using it at certain times and not at others. Just so it does not become a problem between the really competitive students in the class. As I have discussed with my faculty advisor, I would like to add an accountability piece to this. So, sometimes I will ask the students towards the end of a certain lesson or the day, “do you think you deserve a point, discuss as a group and tell me why or why not.” This offers them the chance to reflect on their own behavior and reason appropriately. We then had some quiet reading time to settle down after the desk change. I have noticed it is hard to get some students to actually pick up a book. So, I thought it would help by making the reading time a little more relevant to other class topics and suggest reading some of the India books we have displayed during reading time as well.

We then spent some time on grammar and the students did some idiom art – a great idea by my s.a. They were to choose an idiom out of a list and draw a picture representing the idiom. The students, along with myself, had a blast doing this! And, I really got to see why it is so important to incorporate different types of learning – like art and specifically drawing – because some students really are visual learners. For example, I have one student who usually struggles to begin any written forms of work – it takes some time. However, with this drawing, he came up with the most unique illustration and that too so quickly. I think this really speaks to the concept of allowing opportunities for different forms of output from students.

After this we moved onto socials and discussed the concept of diversity generally and then as it applies to the Indus Valley civilization. Students have now begun their first major research project for this topic – they are researching one group of Indian people. This project will take another two socials block; however, I plan on setting goals for the each day – just to ensure students are using their time wisely and holding them accountable. Today, I told them I would be coming around to ask which group they have chosen to research (they had a choice of three) and show me the notes they have collected so far. This worked well as students were writing notes from the laptop on separate pieces of paper, which they could take home to continue research. The students seem to be really interested in their research so I can’t wait to read all their projects!

Moving on to the second week of our long-term practicum, I have begun to teach a little more than last week. The more I get to teach, the more exciting this all becomes! Today, I began with language arts and then math before recess. Between recess and lunch I continued my Socials unit on India.

Coming back from a four-day weekend, the students seemed to sort of be out of their school mindset. So beginning with some independent journal writing was great to transition back into school-mode and get the students’ thinking caps on. I am looking forward to collecting these journals after the next entry as there is a variety of different topics students can write on. This allows students autonomy in the choice of their writing topic and they are able to write as much as they want – choosing their own pace (With a minimum of one entry each time).

However, when we moved on to talking about the homework assigned from last Thursday, my s.a. and I quickly noticed a lot of the students had not completed some parts of their homework. (Again, probably due to the four-day long weekend). So we decided to have a short discussion about why it is important to do homework, especially when there was so much time given to complete. Along with this, the consequences of not completing homework – my s.a. related this to the real world by explaining when an individual has a job, their boss will expect certain things and if you do not meet these expectations, there can be negative consequences like losing your job. As a result, we decided to give consequences today as well, asking students to stay in at recess to finish up their missing homework. Again my s.a. explained this was not done to be unkind, but instead to prepare students for high school and the expectations they will face. Something I have noticed over the last couple weeks is that a lot of students do not make use of their agendas to record their homework. So I have explained to the students that these agendas are really important so that students to have just mentally remember what homework they have. More importantly, if they keep forgetting their homework, they will form a bad habit, which will really harm them in high school – where teachers do deduct marks when homework is incomplete or late. Something my s.a. and I have thought of doing to help with this is including the agendas in our new points system we will be implementing starting tomorrow.

After lunch, I taught the next lesson in my Socials India unit – we discussed the rise and the fall of the Indus Valley civilization. I began my lesson a little differently, without me teaching. Instead, I showed a video on this topic so that students would have more of a visual understanding as well – because I know that in this class, there are many students who are more of visual learners, taking more from pictures and audio than just words. However, I think it is really important to give some meaning to watching the video, so I had asked students to pay close attention to certain aspects of the movie – the lifestyle, occupations, geography, and building. We then did Cornell notes as a class out of the textbook. I thought it was really important to do this for this part of the chapter as it has some of the most important information. I had students tell me which parts were most important and needed to be included in our notes – helping them develop their note-taking skills which are beneficial for studying. And, I was amazed at the connections students were able to make with the questions I posed. For example, I asked them to compare the lifestyle of this civilization to the other civilizations they have studied and many students had very specific examples to offer. Something I had thought of since the last lesson was making the assignment part of my lesson fit into the time spent in class on Socials. So, previously in my unit plan I had planned to have the students make prezi presentations. However, because the next couple of lessons also have pretty big projects, I decided to make this lesson just for this block. As a result, I ended up introducing the concept of graphic organizers. I always try to link my teaching to previous days and lessons because I feel like this sort of establishes purpose and connections, making the learning that much more meaningful for the students. So, I reminded students of their planning for the settlement letters last week and how this graphic organizer, was again a way to organize their thoughts just in a little bit of a different representation. By changing to the graphic organizer, students were listing reasons for the decline of the civilization and then they had to offer their own explanations. I emphasized the importance of the latter as it would be the part which told me they understood how different factors – like climate – affect civilizations. The class was able to understand it in class and fill out most of it in class, leaving only a little they could complete for homework.

For this week, I would like to continue to work on my wait-time and pacing. And something both my s.a. and I have noticed is that as I teach and the lesson moves along, I get better at this. It’s funny because some of this has to do with the fact that I’m so excited to teach my lessons that I want to get through it all. Which is why I have been making some changes so that there is enough time for the most important aspects. However, I plan to be consciously aware of my wait-time. Even when I have them think in pairs and then report out. When I ask them to report-out, it is really important to have enough wait-time there as well. Also, I would like to try using a different method of having questions answered, by choosing students. However, I would like to frame this positively. Maybe something along the lines of “I want to hear from all of you, because everyone’s thoughts and ideas are important, so today I am going to go around the class, randomly choosing names to participate!” This will be good learning for me as a teacher!