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Associate Teacher Support helped my confidence and goal setting

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My practicum experience was actually a lot of fun because I got that taste of being in the classroom, marking assignments is so much fun in my opinion and I love talking to students and I loved how the students loved me and wanted to talk to me and being there for students were weren't as liked from other students, making them feel wanted. I loved being able to do activities with them, and I even participated in their gym activities which was so fun and I had Kindergarten tarmac duty which was one of my favourite parts. I am looking forward to my second placement in February and I am excited to teach Science and Health and more Math because I want to implement fun, engaging lessons for there students — something that they might not be doing with my AT in the meantime. My AT was nice and let me do the lessons and activities I wanted to do but my AT was a lesson then worksheet type of teaching, there was nothing fun and engaging and I feel as though thats why my students loved having me there.

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In terms of being prepared for my lessons regarding my nerves at the start I needed to be more prepared for that. I needed to reassure myself that I am the one controlling the lesson, the students don't know that I am nervous, the students won't make fun of me because they don't that I am going to mess up on information because they don't even know the information yet. At the start, I needed to be more prepared for questions I might have been asked or I needed write down exactly what I was going to say and have a sheet of paper I need to memorize to show students how to do something so I do not mess up. By the end of my placement, I found myself and I set those goals and I re-read things I wanted to say, and my AT helped me before my lessons like maybe mention this or that and that was really helpful for my confidence towards the end when I had to teach 50%.

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Confidence | How To Be More Confident Build Boost Self Confidence Tips

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In terms of lesson plans, I was well prepared, I had lessons done days in advance, always critiquing them to make them more engaging for students, coming up with fun Minds On that had all students participating so I was really happy with my lessons, or ideas of my lessons, especially my pumpkin painting class we had on Halloween (we had a contest). My AT always though I had a really good start to my lesson plans and encouraged me to use some of his resources which were super helpful and did not take up all of my time, therefore I was always well prepared in that sense for my lessons.

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Another thing I learned from practicum was setting goals. As this GIF says "one step at a time" I now fully believe in that saying. Placement was great and I loved being in the classroom and loved the students, but the actual teaching part is something I need to set goals for and it will take one step at a time. I can be a very shy person and so standing up there being in charge, everyones eyes on me can be nerve wracking and I can make mistakes, I can misspeak, stutter, not know an answer to a question and then I feel stupid so by setting goals on how I will overcome those problems is something that I have learned to do and I will be continuing that in my future teaching practice. For lessons I am not so confident about I will set a goal such as "slow down your talking" so I do not stutter, or I know that I am nervous and I walk around a lot and could distract students, therefore a goal could be "do not walk around as much". I need to set those tiny goals for me which would help me be more confident in my teaching abilities.

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I feel as though something I learned from this experience that will help me in my future teaching practice is encouraging initiative. My AT had penalties for Freedom Friday. Freedom Friday happens on the last block every Friday where students have "free time" They are able to play board games, games on laptops, draw, or catch up on their school work. If students were misbehaving or they weren't on task they would get a check (a penalty) and once they receive 10 penalties for the whole week they wouldn't be able to participate in Freedom Friday. Students knew that once they saw the clipboard to pay attention or to be on task. It gave the students an opportunity to reflect on their actions in my opinion. If they got a penalty they knew like oh crap I need to pay attention because my penalties are gonna get up there and its only Tuesday. It allowed for students to have the power or opportunity to act or take charge of their actions so they would be able to participate in Freedom Friday. It gives students opportunities to focus in class because they know if they don't something might be taken away from them

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Independent Study/Indirect Instruction part 2

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Independent Study/Indirect Instruction part 2

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Therefore, because they love the idea of being on computers, able to listen to music while they work and it was an assignment due for participation in Freedom Friday they were engaged in the lesson I prepared and were focused. If students are given the right resources and rewards such as listening to music they will want to work  and that is what worked here. Ability to listen to music intrigued students and "forced" students to work appropriately to meet the deadline because of the risk of Freedom Friday being taken away

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For some lessons such as math I used direct instruction as it uses a lecture type style or demonstrations of the material to students. For math, I believe that direct instruction is the best teaching strategy because just like what I did the  teacher stands in front of a classroom, and presents the information, giving explicit, guided instructions, such as how to add using place value, or order and compare fractions to students. Even if students added numbers properly, they would not get the mark on their worksheet because they did not show how they did it

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How Direct Student Instruction Unlocks Student Learning and Success

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A teaching strategy that I employed for grade 5 students was "independent study" for their final unit project for Social Studies. They were assigned a European Explorer and had to make a flip book. Their flip book gave all the information they needed to fill out and all the questions they had to answer and online resources so they were using their time appropriately. They were given Chromebooks and two class periods to work on their assignments and because they knew that this was due for Freedom Friday they were all focused and wanting to get the assignment done so they didn't miss out of free time

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A problem I encountered was getting knocked down by how a lesson went. I was teaching a Social Studies lesson about the Klondike Gold Rush and Motivations of European Explorers. I kept looking down at my page for questions I wanted to ask, or things I was going to say and I thought that I was prepared mentally but I clearly wasn't so in my head I thought that this lesson went bad. I was really upset about how it went and my AT even made a comment about how he thought I wasn't as comfortable with how this lesson went than others. I expressed that I feel like I am doing a terrible job and I don't know if teaching is for me after this lesson and I do not want to be progressing with difficulty but we had a long chat after this and about how I felt and he reassured me that I am doing great, this is my first placement and even the most experienced teachers make mistakes. Therefore, after this lesson my confidence got knocked down and I wanted to CRY but my AT reassured me of my abilities and after that conversation he already saw an improvement in my confidence and my teaching abilities

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When I went to go check on them the first time, they were great no complaints at all. However, the second time around these three girls were yelling at each other in the library while there was another class in there, running around the hallways, leaving L.L. behind which made her really upset. When they found each other in the hallway it was screaming and petty remarks towards one another so I immediately shut that down. At this time, there was no Mr. Nice Guy and I gave it to them straight and told them that if they can't control their behaviour they will be sent back to class to sit there while everyone else is having fun and it is an immediate removal from Freedom Friday if they don't smarten up. So I gave them the option for what they wanted to do.

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Because of my personality, I feel as though some people might have thought I wouldn't be good with kids and I thought I would be scared to make conversation or if they said things to me but once I got into the classroom and they were all so excited to have someone new in the class it felt like I was meant to be there. There were many students who always wanted to talk to me, wanted me to play games with them on Freedom Friday. I feel appreciated and once students started making those conversations my nerves went away and I didn't want to leave because of how students treated me

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I feel as though I went into my placement scared that I would not have enough time to create all of these lesson plans that I was required to teach however; during music and French I was able to complete some lesson plans and use my teachers resources for some really good minds on and also came up with some myself. Sometimes I even spent hours cutting paper to have these materials for students (it was quite a fun math board game) but with the time provided and the good collaboration between myself and my AT, preparing for the lessons were a breeze

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My associate teacher and I collaborated well together. Any ideas I had he supported and if there was things to tweak or iron out he gave constructive criticism but gave me the option to take those things and review my ideas of leave as is to see how the learners would react

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One major problem I encountered, or observed during my placement was petty attitude between this group of three girls. They all sat at the same table and either they loved each other or hated each other (it depended on the day.. or the hour.. or actually the minute) While I observed their behaviour in class, I addressed their behaviour outside of class when they were completing an assignment I had them complete... These girls were sometimes like oil and water, they did not mix. All grade 5 students were completing a European Explorer scavenger hunt around the school. I trusted them to be quiet and respectful of other classrooms and to walk not run and before they left the class I reminded them of the consequences if they did not behave.

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Therefore, with direct instruction you are able to show students how to complete a formula, do examples with them and then have them show their understanding with a worksheet. I did this for a lot of math lessons, however the Minds On portion of the lesson was indirect. I was quick to catch students off tasks or make comments on their behaviour during these direct lessons and so for the most part once I made comments to them they were quick to pay attention or sometimes I just stopped talking until the students who were talking were like "what's going on?"