Teacher Reflection – Week 1
I found that things went really well for the first week of practicum. The students have been seeing me throughout the winter semester because I wasn’t at UBC doing coursework, so they were already familiar with the expectations I had for them, and they also knew me a bit better and had a stronger set of relationships with me than they would normally have with a student teacher.
The Wednesday class I taught was observed, and it was also much shorter than typical blocks at Killarey are. As a result, I had to do a lot of extra work in my Friday class to ensure the two blocks were roughly at the same space in the curriculum. This has made it easier to engage in some of the softer forms of classroom management, where there’s less need for specific strategies and more of a desire to simply redirect behaviour.
One of the things I need to continue working on is how to get the attention of the class once it is time to transition to a new activity. I have the capacity to become very loud if I need to, but I’m aware that when I get loud it sounds as though I am angry with the students, which is not the impression I want to give my students. I had to do this once during the Thursday class, and unfortunately I was looking at a student when I raised my voice above the volume level of the classroom. The student believed that I was singling them out for my apparent anger and responded by becoming very quiet through the rest of the class, even though my intention was to get the attention of the whole room. Next week I will speak with the student and ensure they are aware that they were not in trouble.
This coming week will be spent in Flex Week, which changes the block schedule significantly and means that I will not return to teaching everyday until the beginning of week three of the practicum. I’m not pleased about Flex Week, and it interrupts my plans for the unit and it is disconcerting to have 2 hour classes instead of 70 minute classes, but my two blocks that I will be teaching will be spent in the library working on the projects that have been assigned to my students. This will be an excellent opportunity to observe my classroom management skills and whether I am able to quietly obtain the attention of the class, as most strategies for obtaining student attention are not feasible in a library setting.