Week 4 Reflection

            This week was hard being the only full week during our school experience. I tried to focus on the program goals as well as taking advantage of the opportunity to participate in such events as full-day teaching, the Remembrance Day assembly as well as parent teacher interviews. It was a great experience.

            My focus this week was to take advantage of all of the opportunities I could to try new things and experiment with the resources available while my Teacher Mentor was still present and able to give me advice. I ran a physical education lesson this week and I was able to direct the children through the lesson using short, concise instructions that explained the games very well in order to get them moving around as much as possible. It was an improvement on my previous experience in the gym where my instructions were far harder to give than I had anticipated. Focusing this lesson on a goal, effective communication with students as well at another goal, effective teaching practices, I was able to ensure that my instructions were short but clear. I used students as examples and demonstrators in order to ensure understanding as well as asked clarifying questions to get students to repeat back instructions. It was a great opportunity.

            Another great opportunity that we had this week was to participate in full-day teaching. I was able to handle the class for the day as though it were my own. It was surprisingly more difficult than originally anticipated. The students were not ill behaved and nothing went terribly awry but it was the continuation and the transitions that I felt were the most difficult. This will surely prove to be a great learning experience for me.

            We were graced with the opportunity to sit in on the Remembrance Day assembly organized by the faculty but put on by the students. It was incredibly well done and emotional. I was very impressed by the students’ level of participation as well as their behaviour during and after the assembly. It was a great learning opportunity for me to see how far good preparation goes as well as the types of things that I could be involved in with my students. I look forward to being able to participate in the planning and production of such events in the future.

            Finally being able to participate in parent teacher interviews was extremely exciting for me as a student teacher. It was interesting to see how parents interact with a teacher in a closed environment. I was able to participate in meaningful and informative conversations with parents individually as well as with my TM. It was a learning experience for me. I was able to speak one-on-one with a parent but it was surprisingly challenging to try to quickly think about how to diplomatically answer the parent’s questions without commenting on things that were beyond my place to speak about. It was an incredibly valuable experience as building relationships with parents is very important. It was nice to be able to expand with parents on my presence in the classroom and for them to see the valuable connections that I have been making with their children.

            Overall this week was very good, long, but good. I am extremely excited to see what the final week brings. 

Week 3 Reflection

            This week was an interesting week. It was the first full week of our school experience and it definitely felt long. It was a learning experience as well. I was able to make strides toward a few more of the program goals that I hadn’t yet really touched on. This week I worked on effective communication with students, effective teaching practices, connecting with students as well as working respectfully with parents.

            One of the aspects of teaching that I learned the most about this week was using effective teaching practices. This week during my lessons I implemented different types of teaching. I used the ELMO(the document camera) to demonstrate activities visually, with moving pieces for math and manipulatives. I tried using verbal and visual instructions as well as getting more student involvement to try to vary my teaching practices. I worked on my pacing, clarity and projection during my lesson. Not only myself pacing around the room but ensuring the pace of my voice and my instructions was not faster than the students could take in. I tried to focus on my projection as in the past I have had a problem being more soft-spoken than I should be. I wanted to ensure that my students could really hear me all the time and that I was never speaking more quietly than any one child could hear, unless the situation required it.

            Another aspect of teaching that I worked on this week was effective communication with students. For me this week, I tried to vary my communication with my students depending on the style of communication I felt they needed most at that time. I spoke directly to each child, varying instructions depending on their needs. I changed my instructions to more visual or more auditory depending on how they seemed to need it. I chose examples that related to their lives to make it easier for them to take in.

            I think both of the previous aspects of teaching, effective teaching practices and effective communication both really require the input of knowledge and connection with students. Knowing your students really relates to knowing their academic level and needs and I think that being able to choose effective teaching methods and communication styles all involve that strong knowledge of your students educational level. I really try to pay attention to my students and take in as much as I can about each and every one of them. Connecting with your students is pivotal to making sure that you can effectively communicate and teach them. Using examples that relate to their lives or their interests really helps connect them to the lessons so I tried to use examples that made the subjects more real.

            The class went on a field trip this week and it was a great opportunity to connect with the students. Being able to see them in an out of the classroom situation and talk to them while they walked to and from the pool made it incredibly fruitful. I was able to laugh, joke and really connect with many of the students on a personal level. Another situation that makes for a great opportunity for connection was Halloween. Seeing the students’ costumes showed their interests as well as some of their creative abilities. It was an incredibly insightful week as far as making connections with my students goes.

            The field trip was also a great opportunity for me to make some great connections with the parents. Some of the parents came on the field trip with us and I was able to have some great conversations with the parents to try to and fortify that sense of camaraderie. Working respectfully with parents is one of the program values that is really important. They are all important but ensuring to the parents that you are on their team and really are working for the best interest of their child is incredibly important. I was able to have some strong conversations explaining to the parents that I am there for their child and I look forward to having a great working relationship with each and every child and parent.

            This week was an interesting one full of excited students and learning opportunities. I look forward to each and every day I get to spend at the school. Every interaction makes me a better teacher and gives me more opportunities to work on improving my practice

Week 2 Reflection

            This week was a learning experience in every way, shape and form. I learned some incredibly valuable things about preparedness, lesson planning, classroom management and a number of the other program values that our teacher education program really focuses on.

            Classroom management, what seems like a simple task to undertake is likely the most difficult of the challenges faced by a teacher. The balance of power in the classroom can seem almost insignificant to an outsider looking in on the daily interaction of teacher and student, but once that delicate balance is placed in your hands, the burden becomes cumbersome. Over the course of the week I learned how important it is to set boundaries, expectations and create a strong bond with your students in order to have a healthy classroom environment. The classroom management aspect of being a teacher improves dramatically with preparedness, clear expectations and a willingness to be open and honest with your students. No surprises. Knowing makes your life and your students’ lives easier.

            Working with feedback is a key component of being an effective teacher. This week I had many occasions where I was given the opportunity to receive feedback about my teaching practices. On those occasions I was able to take feedback and implement it in my practice later in the week. Having the opportunity to get feedback or advice from an experienced teacher is more than I could have asked for.

            During my lesson this week I was able to spend some time working on another of the program values, my connection with my students. We were partaking in a social studies activity where the students were able to draw their families. The activity included the image of their families and a sentence that explained something special about their families. This activity was quite enlightening about the lives of my students as well as what they think is important or what their family’s value. I was even able to share some information about my life with the students as well to make me more relatable. Many of them included the names of their families, siblings and even drew and labelled pets. They were very excited by this activity and were more than willing to share the special things about their families. I learned about their families, the languages that they speak as well as some of the activities that are the most important to them like swimming and camping. It was incredibly exciting as a future teacher, learning so much about my students as I know that this aspect of my learning journey is one of the more important parts.

            During the course of the week I also tried to work on another of the program values, effective teaching practices, but this is probably the one that I feel I need the most time to work on. I tried different teaching methods this week and at first glance none of them seemed to be very successful, although after discussing with my teacher mentor, I realized that my methods were not all bad. I attempted a number of methods, like student involvement and obtaining student examples, as well as having my own examples for students to view and although some of them seemed like they didn’t work, there were deficits and strengths to all of my methods.

            Overall for the week, I felt that it was a great learning experience. I learned that:

1.      No matter how prepared you are, something can go wrong and you just have to roll with the punches.

2.      Learning about your students is just as important as knowing the content that you are teaching.

3.      Don’t be afraid to try something different.

4.      Take feedback and advice. You will never grow if you never listen to anyone else. They see your actions differently than you do.

5.      Managing your classroom may seem as though you are herding cats at times, but when you find your groove it seems like magic.

6.      Just go with the flow. Learning is a day by day experience and as long as you are open to it, you will always find something new and exciting to learn.