The EDUC490 practicum was an amazing learning experience. I’m writing this now after just finishing 4 weeks of time with an incredible group of grade 11 students from my Life Science 11 class, and I couldn’t be more invigorated and inspired to continue my learning journey. The unfortunate thing about going to school to become a teacher is that sometimes we get wrapped up in the theory and start to lose focus on the actual practice of teaching. This happened to me, and I started off this most recent practicum thinking way too much about all the things I’d “learned” without really applying those things. In all honesty, it wasn’t until the last week of the 4 weeks that I really felt like I was beginning to connect the theory to practice in a way that I was happy with. If there’s one thing I can be sure about it’s that I am a much better teacher now than I was 4 weeks ago.
There’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve noticed throughout my time in the education program so far, and that is that there are a lot of things that you hear about in classes that don’t really make much sense, but you sort of just “go with it”. These “just go with it” ideas end up sitting in the back of your head somewhere until you’re in the middle of practicum and you’re facing a problem that you can’t quite figure out. Then that idea rushes back to the front of the queue and suddenly it all clicks, and now you know why you learned it in the first place! I can’t tell you how many times I was trying to figure out a good way to plan out a lesson, or an assessment piece, when one of these little tidbits of info from a class months ago pops into my brain again.
I found that my greatest strength this practicum was in getting a good rapport with the students quickly. I made an effort to learn names quickly, and tried my best to treat the students in a way that I would want to be treated if I was in their situation. I tried to be fair and equitable at all times and gave options to students who needed them. I believe that the students noticed the effort I put in to make the classroom environment one where no one should be afraid to speak up and say something, and that was rewarded. I value honesty and openness and wanted to show that in my own words and actions during class. One of my goals was to make the students feel like they had some level of autonomy, and in turn give them the chance to do things in a way that relies more on their personal responsibility. This had positives and negatives. For example, one week I gave them very little “for marks” homework and told them that all the stuff I had given them was for their study purposes. The resulting test from that unit had lower scores than I had anticipated, and I realised that I hadn’t truly scaffolded them to the point where they were ready for that. This may not seem like a “strength”, but I learned so much from this and it only happened because I allowed myself to give that room for risk, which was something I did not do in my last practicum.
My biggest stretch was definitely in organisation/planning. The first couple weeks especially I felt quite out of sorts and frankly out of depths. I am thankful for my coaching teacher, who did not sugar coat things and was honest with me about the things I needed to correct if I wanted to succeed. It was a bit of a rude awakening, but one that was sorely needed. By the final week, I had all my assessments and learning goals planned and mapped out and that week I actually made big changes to my lesson style. This could only happen because I knew what I was doing before any of it even started. While the success of that style change was only so-so, I was comfortable with it because I knew I was hitting those learning intentions regardless. I feel much more confident in myself now, but I still have much work to do to both stay consistent and get even better with my planning. It is a big part of being a teacher but I know I can do it.
I am so grateful for my time at PGSS, and all the teachers around me (both in practicum and at university) who have lent me their time and expertise. I’ll leave you with this, a picture from the day we made foldable paper cut-out models of earthworms during out section on Annelids.
