Here are the reflections I wrote after each practicum day that I taught in my first semester in the Education program.
October 23 Teaching Reflection
Today I taught my first lesson. It went okay, however I did have to make some adaptations throughout the lesson from what I had written down. Next time I will use the smartboard first as well as choose smaller sentences. As a class, we decided which sentence would describe what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. However, the sentences were pretty long and I ended up having to shorten them later on in the lesson. As we were deciding the sentences together, I wrote down what they were saying on the whiteboard. Initially, students couldn’t see it very well but did not speak up. As I went around the class I realized that they couldn’t all see the whiteboard so I transitioned onto the smart board which is more visible for the class to see. Next time I will just start with the whiteboard. Even though we have observed the class twice now, I was a bit nervous that the students wouldn’t enjoy the activity or it wouldn’t work. It did go well overall and I’m looking forward to my next lesson next week. I will know better what to expect next week.
October 30 Teaching Reflection
Today I taught my second lesson. I incorporated a brain break that the students seemed to really enjoy. It also helped focus them again as they were easily distracted today due to the excitement of Halloween. Next week I will also incorporate a little brain break again. Overall, today’s lesson went well, though there are a few things I need to work on. There are several students in my class who have complex learning needs. I have tried to adapt my instructions to work with one child in particular but it didn’t seem to stick. I talked with my teacher mentor and she suggested using “first and then” language with him. This is something that works quite well with her, and so I am looking forward to trying it out next week. I also will sit with him for the first couple of minutes during the activity after the other students have started to script with him.
November 6 Teaching Reflection
Today, I was observed by my faculty mentor. It was very stressful to be observed and graded but I made it though. I really liked the feedback I received. It was clear and I will be trying to implement it next teaching day. Some of the feedback, such as me pausing too much in transitions which loses their focus, is something I didn’t even realize I was doing. I think I am more of a quiet, slow to react type of person so I will have to keep it in mind to move quicker between activities. Overall, I think today went well.
November 20 Teaching Reflection
Today was a bit hard. The kids were all wired throughout the entire morning and midday so classroom management during my lesson was tougher than normal. My goal was to shorten transition time and I think that went well at the beginning. I tried to keep things moving as fast as I could. By the end of the lesson when it was time to wrap up, their response time was slow though, which made the transition into the closing part of the lesson longer than I wanted. They were engaged in the activity though which was good. I think next time I would pick a different story. This one was fine for today but next time I will pick something a bit different. With being more ‘up’ than usual, the kids needed more than usual supervision during their quiet time to stay on task doing one of the approved activities, which made it more difficult to help the students who were still working on their worksheets.
At recess we did supervision on the intermediate side and it was interesting seeing the older kids. They played rougher than the younger kids. Some kids needed a reminder to not push one another. They listened okay, but seemed less willing to follow the rules than the primary kids. It was nice to see the older kids but I think I prefer the primary supervision.