Week 8 Reflection
Teaching has started to feel a lot more natural now that I’m on week eight of the practicum, or I suppose that would be the end of week eight now. I have noticed that the students are starting to respond to me quite effectively and are not as shy as they were at the beginning of my ten week practicum, and more importantly they have been willing to start showing off more of their personalities in class instead of treating me like a stranger who’s not really part of the classroom community.
Two different issues arose over the week that tested my ability to adapt to changing teaching environments; one that I feel I did do well with, and one that I did not address effectively and will have to work on in the future to ensure that the classroom remains a safe environment.
The issue that I did not address effectively was an issue involving one of my grade eight students and the peer tutor for the class. Words were exchanged between the student and the peer tutor about whether or not the student could speak Spanish, which was a continuation of a discussion that had begun the class before. I had been working with a small group to get them on task, and I did not hear the entire exchange between the two students. I only became aware of the situation after the peer tutor announced that she felt she was being bullied, and my response was not serious enough to resolve the issue. The issue was ultimately resolved by my SA, who did hear the entire exchange and determined that beyond the words exchanged in that class, there was lingering tension from the class before that I also had not picked up on, and which had left the grade eight student very upset with the situation and feeling that they were not being validated. Once the class was over and the observation was being analyzed, the SA indicated the extent of the tension between the two students. I have made a note to take all allegations of bullying seriously from now on and to ask for clarification from the students involved as to what is going on before I make a decision on how to respond to the situation.
The other situation that tested my adaptability as a teacher was during the Thursday afternoon classes for my grade ten classes. The first block of the grade tens had a four corners activity that was not successful, and I was asked by the FA to consider changing the activity for the upcoming class. I admit that I was concerned about the lack of time available to prepare an adequate new activity, but I did decide to change the worksheet activity into a jigsaw. The results were quite good, and the students were more engaged than they had been in the class where the four corners activity failed, and it was also more student-centred than the class where the students did have higher participation rates for the four corners activity.
I wasn’t happy to change my lesson on short notice the way that I had done, but it is reassuring to know that I do have the capacity and ability to make immediate changes to lessons where there becomes a need to make those changes. That will be something that I will keep in mind for the final two weeks of the practicum, as well as my future teaching career.