Through my blog and lesson plan reflections I feel that I was able to support my constant work in KSA #16, "The importance of guiding your actions with a personal, overall vision of the purpose of teaching." Every lesson and every day is important, the impacts can last a lifetime for our students. I envision my self to be a authentic, caring and supportive teacher. I have spent the past five weeks further developing this person and I will continue on this creation of the best me. In this fact I also believe that my reflections encompass KSA #15, "the importance of career-long learning." I have truly immersed myself into this practicum experience, especially because I am a billet in the community. I have spent every moment I can attempting to learn as much as possible in this experience. This has ranged from expanding my comfort levels through different subjects to reflecting with my TA and UC. I have even observd in other classrooms. This learning process is constant and evolving, and I truly aspire to be a "life long learner". Below are some examples of lesson plan reflections from my PSI lessons. KSA #14 states "The importance of contributing, independently and collegially, to the quality of your school." I have learned a tremendous amount about this skill from my TA. She is forever giving back to her school in every way possible, from donating tech, to applying for (and winning) grants. Outside of those large scale things, the learning environment that she has created for students' within her classroom is more than could be expected. She truly puts her heart and soul into the community and the school. This example alone has helped to develop my personal work in this KSA. Together we attended a "PD" painting lesson after school one day during my time in Tilley. This included, my TA, Teachers Aid and myself. This helped me to create a relationship with my colleagues as well as my techniques for teaching in ART. Another way that I developed this KSA was through the ATA meeting with grasslands. This night helped me to create a presence in the division.
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Today was my final UC meeting at the school, and tomorrow is my last day in the PSI practicum at Tilley. With everything winding down I'm having mixed feelings, this truly is a bittersweet ending. I feel overwhelmed with the experiences and learning that have taken place over the last month, and can't believe that its coming to an end. The relationships that I've built in the community and within the school will never be forgotten. I feel that what I have learned from my first classroom is invaluable and will never dim in my memory. These kids and my Teacher Associate have defiantly reminded me what I love about teaching, and more so, have added to this list of attributes making me more determined than ever to become my best teacher self. I can't believe that it's over, but I'm so excited for the learning that is yet to come.
This week I created my own unit test for the grade 3/4 "Hearing and Sound" science unit. This experience was both challenging and rewarding. I never realized the excitement that would come along with seeing great student results. Seeing their success and understanding on paper is even better than receiving a good mark for myself. The class had overwhelming success through this unit, and the lowest grade on the final was an 89%! The test had to be modified in the written response section for a few students. These students were given the answers for these questions on a separate page and chose the correct answer and attached it to what they thought was the correct question. This process seemed to work efficiently, and this differentiation helped all students achieve success in this evaluation. I had a few questions that needed some tweaking and clarification, but this experience of creating, and marking the tests helped me to see what areas I need to focus on in my test creation.
Students are wrapping up all of their units and this week is mostly focused on the preparation for the Christmas concert. The timing is really effecting the learning environment and kids have been in a very high energy. Today we tested the final projects for "sound proofing a ringing alarm" and the energy levels defiantly made this class more chaotic than usual. What I have learned is that in times like Christmas where kids have less structure, is that you just have to let it go.I can't expect kids to preform at the same level that I can normally. Though structure and order must be maintained, I've had to just let a lot of things roll off my back during this time. This week was full of challenges. I was sick on Monday and missed school, I also missed a physical fight that occurred this day. Four students were given recess detentions. When I returned to class on Tuesday the energy was noticeably off. Students were impacted by this change and it impacted me in turn. I felt anxious and on edge along with them. This taught me just how much the students energy can impact me through different situations. Its very important for me to recognize when this is happening and proactively begin to change the energy to a more positive energy for everyone. I began seeing more defiance from two students in the class. This changed dynamic in Math especially where I had students saying “no” when requested to complete a task. These students were also impacted by their lack of movement when recesses were taken away.
This helped affirm the approach of punishing the action rather than the student in my mind. When a student is made to feel insignificant and bad, they will begin to act out in that manner. Students and all people need support and understanding. When actions begin to show physical symptoms, as they did in this case, then new supports should come into place. I have also begun my science unit on hearing and sound. This unit and its planning has been intimidating, however, the hands on lessons have been rewarding. I think the class has been receptive the the trial and error process of learning every day. My classes have still had discussion aspects, but I have been attempting to engage the students using active conversation between myself and the class and also using peers for discussion and hypothesizing. Group work has been a large focus through all my lessons and planning. Some students had been struggling with collaborating in their work, through repetition and direction this process has progressed. This has helped bring the class together in sharing and expanding ideas in a learner centered way. After my UC meeting this week I was motivated to really focus on making clear objectives in my lesson plans. This alignment in my lesson will help me to assess daily, as well as run an aligned lesson from beginning to end. I can accomplish this by splitting my objectives into more specific and pointed sentences. When my lesson is clear and aligned it is easier to assess if students are on track throughout the lesson. Last week was the completion of the video project. We filmed the project together, and this process was very fulfilling. The kids were highly engaged in the process of planning and the execution of these plans with videoing. They made the cue cards, and they were responsible for videoing the scenes as well. One thing I would like to change for next time would be the involvement of the class. While we videoed the “in classroom” scenes the class wasn’t as interested and engaged as they were really acting as an audience. Next time I would have another class be involved as acting as the class and have the grade 3/4’s more involved with the behind the scenes work, such as, cue cards. The video editing went smoothly as well, however, I would like to plan another project that gets the class involved in the editing process as well. Due to time constrains we couldn’t include this as part of the project. This week was my first week teaching the math unit to the grade three’s. I’m shocked to report that I am thoroughly enjoying teaching this subject. Gaining a better knowledge of this subject is one of the main goals that I hoped to accomplish though my PSI program, and I am very happy to be on track with successfully working toward this goal. I have been trying to incorporate a hands on aspect at the beginning of each lesson to introduce the material. For example, when we learned multiplication by 5’s I used nickels to show a real life example of how this math can be used outside the classroom. They had to show their knowledge of making groups, as well as, count the money. I want to continue implementing these hands on tactics through this term. I have also been attempting to incorporate the SMART board, and I pods into these warm ups by using apps like “Kahoot” and “Candy Arrays”. This week we also lost my partner student teacher in our classroom. This experience was quite eye opening for me as the process seemed to happen rapidly. The importance of the Code of conduct has been really made important in my life once again in this PSI semester. And though I do feel for this student teacher in this hard time, I do support the choices that were made by our leaders. Today was the first UC observation from the U of L. Because my lesson was a transition from scripting into casting I had quite a bit of prep work to do in the morning. The day truly seemed to run smoothly and I was happy with the presentation and reception of my lesson. I found the direct feedback very useful and am excited to employ some of the feedback. The feedback was focused on things such as wait time, and the employment of attention getters. I need to ensure that I’m asking students for full attention and waiting before going on with directions. Another aspect that I need to focus on is having students engaged in thinking during instruction time. Ask students to think about the questions a little more closely, have them share with an elbow buddy etc. These questions should be planned right into my lesson plans for the day. I felt encouraged by this feedback, and feel that I am working in the right direction through my PSI. Today I feel like relationships with students were further developed, I got to spend more one on one time with (Y) and she seemed to respond very positively. I was very impressed by (J) and his reading of Dr. Schmidt in the run through of the script. I have really noticed the importance of positive feedback and recognizing these students as individuals as often as possible. I also worked in the grade ½ room today, this experience was challenging in a positive way. I was able to work closely with students learning to read, and seeing this process was key in my understanding of the process. I’m really looking forward to spending more time developing this understanding. I also raised the question to Len about using the resources available to teach the science unit. I feel like I’m finding my balance between using what the university has equipped me with and implementing some of these tactics in day to day practice. Challenging myself to create this unit will be a way for me to really work on developing further and refining some of these qualities. Yesterday at the PTA meeting we had a speaker come to discuss vision and its impact on student learning. She informed us about how to identify vision issues and what steps to take as a teacher to help solve this problem. Vision has a large impact on a student’s ability to learns, and (Y) is a great example of this. Due to her place on the spectrum she has some troubles communicating, this caused her to struggle with vison problems until it was identified by the teacher. Once this problem was solved, many other issues resolved as well within her academics.
Parent teacher interviews were also last night and it was great to see how these meetings were conducted. I think it's important to celebrate students work with the parents, I would incorporate a time in this meeting where students could share some of their best work. Its so important to remember that the home life of a child has such a large effect on their academic success. My lesson today went much better than yesterdays. This time I had the students sit at the SMART board read and instruct me with how to script each page. With how tired they all are right after coming back from swimming they needed a break at the couch where they could unwind a bit. When students were getting off track and I began to loose them, I ran and grabbed the “class popsicle sticks” and drew names for who would read the proof book to me and the class to help us script. This helped to liven up the lesson and increase interest again. Today at swimming we had more success via organizations. The instructions were more explicit, and the materials were laid out more visually. The direction transferred into a more organized classroom environment in general. One issue that students had was with the material that was given. They were adding and rounding with decimals, which is a new concept for the grade fours. This wasn’t addressed prior in a mini lesson and some students struggled to make the leap by them selves. I would add a mini lesson in the first period this day to familiarize students with the concept for self directed work. (Y) , had much success today in swimming lessons. Each day this week she has made small steps towards her goal of submerging her face under water. Today was the biggest step forward, and it was accidental, she tripped in the pool and fell forward, putting her whole face in the water. Instead of panicking and throwing a fit, she looked to her teachers who were cheering her on and smiled. In my lesson later today it was obvious that the swimming was taking a toll on the energy levels and focus of the students. I challenged the class with pod group work, and I failed to scaffold this lesson properly to support their ability to work respectfully together. Though I discussed respectful group work the class struggled to make connections with scripting using the five elements that we discussed. In tomorrows lesson I plan to bring the class together using their ideas from the pod work. We will be using the SMART board and relaxing on the couches (due to the low energy from swimming). I will hang their papers on the board and we will have some more direction and progress moving forward. In retrospect I would switch the order of these lessons and show the students how I want them to specifically script the scenes, and then allow them to work in groups by them selves. If the scripting goes better today, and we don’t finish the book, then next class we can try group work again. Another aspect that I would change would be to allow one marker per group. When one group disagreed in the previous lesson, a student reacted by coloring on his group member. By implementing these changes, I think this situation could be avoided. Today I taught my first lesson at Tilley school. This lesson was the introduction to the video project that we will be undertaking together. This project is in response to the book that the class has co-written for the “BP A+ for Energy” grant. We are taking this book and creating a script together in preparation for the video. This lesson wasn’t as active as I would like for it to be, however, the introductory information was very important for the success of the rest of the lesson. One aspect that I felt went very well was the sticky note idea. The students individually filled out their own reflection, and then stuck the sticky note to the board at the front. The class’s reaction and interest levels rose when they saw the ideas at the board. Conversations about different ideas arose, and students were interested in reading the ideas of others. It was a good side lesson about team work, and increased knowledge as a group. At the pool we have had a few mix ups the last few days. While some groups are swimming, others are to be completing their daily math. Because the teacher instruction is varied, and the instruction when we get to the pool isn’t explicit, we’ve had kids completing the wrong assignments. This experience taught me the importance of giving specific and timely instruction. When kids get settled into their work stations at the pool, they may need a visual reminder of their jobs in this new environment. In the mix of situations like this it is hard to have everyone focused and on task, so I have learned that planning extra supports such as visual aid and extra organization is necessary. Today went by quite fast, we began the day by taking the class to the pool for swimming lessons in Brooks. Because the class is at different levels we had kids working in groups on math lessons in a work room. This experience was really fast paced, and threw me into the process right away. Because I struggle with Math, and have some anxiety when it comes to solving and marking I was nervous. However, because of the fast paced atmosphere this dissolved right away. It was such a good experience for me to get right into the action and work with math. I had to mark the work sheets without the key, and though I was slower than Miss. Jensen (the kids pointed this out right away) I felt accomplished, and much more capable of teaching these students. It was great to have one on one time with the students right away as well, I hope that relationships develop quickly. |
Miss. AshtonThese reflections cover my time through the PSI program at Tilley school. |