As of tomorrow, I will be beginning my fourth week of my practicum. It has truly been a great learning experience. I have been able to apply my theoretical concepts from UBC to my practicum. However, the hands-on, practical experience which is not formally taught at UBC has been widely used in my practicum! It has been through this practical experience that I have been able to further my teacher presence, engage student learning, and meet the needs of diverse learners!
By incorporating technology, visual, hands-on, and auditory information in my lessons, I have been able to meet the needs of my learners. I have used technology in order to support learning, but also as a way to engage students. My students are growing up in a world in which technology is widely used. Unlike my childhood, students have access to computers, iPads, chromebooks, phones, and several other electronic devices. Therefore, by incorporating technology, I hope to increase student engagement. Furthermore, I have used several hands-on activities to meet the needs of learners. I have gotten my students to participate in a game of tug-of-war to learn combined forces, using jugs of water to determine capacity, experimenting with spring scales to learn forces, and measuring tape on the ground to determine the perimeter and area. Moreover, I have tried to include several modes of learning (kinetic, visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) to meet the needs or learners that engage best in such learning environment. I have also differentiated quizzes by including word banks for some students and differentiated assignments by including challenging questions for those that have already mastered the basic curriculum content.
As I continue on this journey in becoming a teacher, I hope to increase the role of differentiation within my classroom.