Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.
During my experiential practicum I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to teach multiple classes doing the same subject. My coaching teacher had two blocks of Science 8 during the time I was in her class, and this provided me with the perfect conditions to explore Standard 3. The diversity of students and their needs is always on display in any classroom, but it can be even more obvious when you are able to compare multiple classes doing the same things. I want to start out by saying that neither class had greater needs than the other, but simply different needs. I think it is important to work off the idea that things like behavioural issues, neurodivergence, and learning disabilities do not mean that those classes have more needs, rather that what they need is different to what another class may need (and this goes for every class).
I was faced with a two-fold problem during my practicum. By the second week, I was doing one lesson twice a day, for both the morning and afternoon classes. As this was my first ever practicum, I was teaching these lessons for the first time, and therefore the first class unfortunately was subject to a bit of guinea pig treatment. I did my best, but there were many times when the second class’ lesson had major differences from the first’s. I started to get frustrated because I felt like the second class was getting a much better learning experience – and a much better version of me – than the first class. The first class also posed some bigger challenges when it came to planning and instruction, as the second class lined up pretty well with how I am already comfortable teaching, while the first class required some more differentiated instruction.
I noticed many things becoming a struggle that I hadn’t anticipated and decided that a change was needed. My decision was to change up my pacing and focus more on key ideas with the first class. As a result, the second class got a little bit ahead, but I felt like it was a necessary change to make because the time needed for learning to occur with the content we were covering at the time was simply just more for the first class. In the end, I still believe that I did not change enough, fast enough, for the situation, however I think that this experience will drive me – and serve as a cautionary tale – to prepare for differentiated instruction and learning situations in the future.