Critical Reflections

Learning to Relate

Throughout my placement as well as throughout all of third year, being professional was a focus of mine. With my classmates I would be sure to give good critical feedback that would benefit them but also keep them feeling positive about their work. In group work I am sure that I am working well with my peers, meet up for meetings as well as do an equal share of the work. I am a person with a lot of ideas and opinions but I made sure that I would listen, respect and take into account my classmate’s ideas and almost always we would come to a quick agreement. With my teaching partner we have gotten along well. I would demonstrate professionalism through being available for support and feedback. I would be sure to give critical feedback that would help my partner grow and she would do the same for me.

 During the field placement I kept a very professional profile. I made sure that with the other teachers I would respect and talk to as collogues. With the students I would be sure to not have too close of relationships with them to the point where they mistake me for a friend instead of an intern-teacher. This is something that I also have to continue to work on. There was a student in my class that began to be too attached to me so I had to step back and limit the attention to assure that our relationship with each other was just student teacher not friends. 

            Due to my previous knowledge and experience of working with children with varying abilities I believe that adaptive dimension is important for all teachers to work towards. I am aware of the student’s abilities in my classroom and make sure that I have adaptions for those students as well as when I am grouping the student, I am aware that some groups do not work well together. Doing things such as having a student sit beside me or getting them to try a different type of flexible seating are differentiations that I try to do during my lessons if a student needs extra help to be on task. The differentiations include much more than the instruction it also includes environment, assessment, and resources. Throughout the placement and conversations with my cooperating teacher I have learned different ways to assess, and alter my teaching to benefit all of my students. In all of my lessons I am sure to make the adaptions fitting specifically for my students. 

Learning to Reflect, Review & Evaluate

Entering my placement, I did not know what to expect, how I would be or what I would need to be successful. I was not sure how I would be able to have appropriate control of the classroom or have lessons that would be intriguing. With my cooperating teachers feedback I was pleasantly surprised. After the very first lesson that I taught she came up and asked me how I thought it went. I instantly said I thought that I was yelling, shaking, missing things, and just not doing well. She started to laugh and said that it was the complete opposite. She said that I was calm, good volume, and covered everything I had planned out. I take my teachers feedback very seriously. She has mentioned that some things I should work on would be classroom management, which over the last couple weeks she pointed out that it has improved immensely. 

            Having the support and the opportunity to meet with my cooperating teacher and talking about our PDPs helped so much. Receiving this feedback has helped me grow as a pre-intern. My cooperating teacher has suggested things such as bolding words in my lesson plans as well as point form my lesson plans and this has helped me cover all of my lesson plan to a full experience for the children. These bits of feedback is something that allows my lessons to flow better.

            My future goal will be to think of more creative sets and closures. I find that I am stuck doing the same things for a set and closure such as checking for previous knowledge, read a book and for closure discuss. I think that with my group that I have in my classroom this works really well for them but I would like to start thinking of something that would be a little more interesting. Although I have this specific goal, all of the PDPs that I have used throughout the eight weeks in the classroom will be ongoing goals and thoughts to try to improve my future as an educator. I will continue to work on inclusion, proper language, set, development, closure as well as classroom management. 

Learning to Teach

Throughout my placement and experience working with children it became clear to me that all children have a unique style of learning. To meet each child’s needs having a variety of instructional strategies is very beneficial. In my placement, I found that modelling worked the best in the classroom along with I do, We do, You do. This was able to benefit all my students especially those that are ESL. Although this is the strategy that I have found to work the best I have come to realize that there is not a single strategy that is “best” and not one that will fully benefit all of the students in the classroom. Due to not being able to meet all of the children’s needs with one strategy I found that it is important to be able to combine different strategies to try to meet all of their needs. 

For Lesson Plan #5 I used Modelling, Demonstrating as well as I do, we do, you do. I started off by explaining to the students what we are doing. I showed a demonstration of what the end product should look like (modelling). After I modelled, I had a pumpkin displayed onto the board and I showed the students how I do it and then I got them to give me directions to properly make the patterns after that I gave the students the opportunity to create their own. 

By using several instructional strategies, it is contributing to providing an education for the students for ecological and social justice. To me, inclusion is my main focus and that includes creating a welcoming environment for all of my students to allow them to have the best possible education. I focus on inclusion and welcoming in the physical, social, emotional, mental and spiritual environment. I believe that my responsibilities as a future educator is to make sure that each child feels safe. This includes making sure that each student has a voice, they are able to be themselves, and every student and family member feels welcome. I will be sure that students will have the opportunity to come to me with any concerns, questions, or a place to talk about school or anything they may need support in. Trying to build a strong, professional, healthy relationship with my students and their families is something that I believe is extremely important.

Learning to Plan

While planning activities, it is beneficial to have an understanding of the Saskatchewan Curriculum. In a split classroom it is sometimes complicated to connect to both grades but having an understanding of the curriculum supports this challenge. I have found that using the backward-by-design approach is the best way to create a lesson. This is starting with the end in mind and choosing learning outcomes before panning anything else. This helps especially with a split grade to ensure that the lessons are focused on the outcomes. 

            As mentioned in previous posts inclusion and diversity are a part of my educational philosophy. It is important to take into consideration all of the abilities in the classroom. For Lesson Plan #5  I took into consideration the split grades. I tied in two outcomes, one from each grade, to make it fit the split classroom. I think that it is important to be able to connect different outcomes together because some lessons fall well under several outcomes. I have also used the curriculum and the indicators to make it so that each student has adaptions that do not alter the outcome or the final product of the lesson. By doing this it is taking diversity into consideration. 

            Being in a split classroom I have gained the knowledge and skill of connecting cross-grade and cross-curricular outcomes. By doing this it is allowing the students to get a full thoughtful education. I would try my hardest to add a fair amount of literacy into my lessons. Literacy, to me, is not limited to children reading or writing. I found that it is possible to have cross-curricular components is all of my lessons. As a challenge for myself I have agreed to take on a cross-curricular unit plan for the three-week block. I think it is in good practice to learn how to cross-curricular and cross-grade.