Ways I have grown as an educator:

I feel like I have grown in many ways throughout this experiential practicum, but especially in the area of lesson planning.  I have taught on call as an uncertified teacher for almost three years, but this role does not give one the time or the space to create in-depth lessons.  You are either teaching the classroom teacher’s lesson plan or creating a lesson plan on the fly (in the twenty-five minutes between your arrival and the time the morning bell rings and students are filing thru the door).  You basically plan blind since you are unaware of what students have already learned or where they are going in their learning trajectory.  You have no prior knowledge of students or student needs within the classroom, which makes meaningful lessons a real challenge to design.

In this practicum, I worked alongside my coaching teacher during our three “pre-Tuesday” practicum days to come up with meaningful unit and lesson plans based on what the students already did/knew/understood in the curriculum and what they still needed to do/know/understand.  From there, I was able to develop detailed lessons that fully linked to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum (i.e., to the Big Ideas, Curricular Content and Curricular Competencies).  I delved into the curriculum during my first semester, but it was a general exploration since we were not focused on a particular grade or subject.  During this practicum, I was able to focus solely on grade six and seven mathematics and English language arts.  I worked really hard to connect my lessons to the students and student needs within the classroom—again, the pre-practicum Tuesdays were essential to building these relationships and getting to know students and their interests.

Three things I am thinking about improving:

During the initial days of this practicum, I received direct feedback from my coaching teacher regarding the length of my lessons, particularly the instructional component and how it was slightly longer than students were accustomed to.  Students also gave me indirect feedback (i.e., showing restlessness and losing focus), so I immediately remedied this by shortening the instructional portion of my lessons, making sure to pay close attention to the length of time I was instructing, and to if/when students started to become restless or inattentive.  My coaching teacher commended me on my ability to adjust and take this constructive feedback and put it into action right away.  Still, I feel that this is an area that I will constantly need to work on.  I get so excited about content, and what I want to teach, that I plan too much for each lesson.  I think it also has to do with the fact that we only had three weeks to cover what we wanted to cover, and there was no way to say “oh, I’ll just cover that next week.”  Nevertheless, I believe this is something I will continually need to work on and improve. 

I also received feedback from my CT that I should practice my “wait time.”  I believe this goes hand in hand with my first point—I want to cover so much in each lesson that I forget to “wait students out” and I start my lessons without having the class’ full attention.  I immediately took my CT’s feedback.  I started to wait for my students’ full attention before beginning my lessons.  This is something I will continue to work on, especially during my time teaching on call (i.e., where you are not the regular classroom teacher and students often think they can get away without giving you their full attention).

I would also like to improve upon making sure I have tasks for early finishers (planning and accounting for those students that are excelling and need extra work). 

One goal area which could be developed into an inquiry:

I wonder if incorporating a movement or brain break into a grade six/seven lesson could help remedy my “lengthy instructional” issue.  That is, would breaking up longer, more challenging lessons into two segments, separated by a five-minute movement or brain break, re-focus students and allow them to come back to the lesson/task with a cleared mind? Would it “bring students back” or would it cause me to completely lose them?  

Some content/material takes longer to cover and needs to be addressed in greater detail in one sitting—this requires more patience from students, often more than they are able to give.  A movement or brain break might be what is needed to get them through the lesson.  My only fear is that it would escalate off-task or impatient students and I would lose them completely.  I have used movement and brain breaks with younger primary students (with success) but have shied away from using them with older intermediate students thinking they would find them to “juvenile.”  However, they are something I will experiment with in the future!